Gripla - 20.12.2004, Page 18

GRIPLA16
Fol 120vb: „phana“ (which is translated „hofum“ in the text). — Fol
121rb: „virtuoso“ (which is translated „go›a“ in the text).
Finally, Árni Magnússon wrote notes on the number of leaves missing at
the bottom of fols. 8v, 10v, 59v, 65v, 67v, 79v, 103v, 123v, 127v. Someone in
the nineteenth century, probably Jón Sigur›sson, adds the same kind of note
on fol 128v, and on fols. 103v, 123v and 127v references to AM 228 fol as a
source from which the missing text can be supplied.
All that the marginal entries tell us is that in its time 227 was in the hands
of men familiar with Latin, a fact not likely to astonish anyone.
2. THE SCRIBES AND THEIR LOCATION
Two scribes, here called Hands A and B, are represented in 227. Hand A wrote
all of fols. l–59rb and from 90rb to the end, apart from three short inserts by
Hand B: fol 14va14–25 (huers – Tilfer›), 32rb 25–28 (ok ad/ra – vlfalldanna),
and 126vb31–37 (-di – fl™ myndi). Hand B was also responsible for fols.
59va–90ra. The scribes obviously worked in the same place at the same time.
The scribes were evidently professionals and their hands are found in a
number of other manuscripts. Both are represented in fragments of another
Stjórn manuscript, AM 229 fol I; and B in a small fragment of a third, NRA
60A. It is conceivable that Hand A was also involved in this third copy, though
we do not have the evidence to confirm his collaboration. In 227 Hands A and
B each supplied their own chapter rubrics. The large historiated initials are all
the work of one artist. Gu›björg Kristjánsdóttir has concluded that he also con-
tributed the smaller illuminated initials found on fols. 1–51v, while two other
men illuminated the rest, one responsible for the work on fols. 52v–79v, 89r–
95r, 104r–119v, 124v–129v, the other for that on fols. 84r–88r, 96r–103v, 119v–
123v (1983:68–69, cf. n. 12). There were thus three men engaged in the decora-
tion of the manuscript, and two of them may have been the scribes them-
selves, though we cannot substantiate that they had a hand in it. It is note-
worthy that the division of labour among the illuminators did not correspond
to the division into gatherings, except insofar as the initials of the first seven
gatherings are the work of the artist of the historiated capitals. The other two
took turn and turn about but without tackling a whole quire at a time.
Hand A is known in a good number of other manuscripts, and his charac-
teristics have been discussed by several scholars, in greatest detail by Alfred