Gripla - 20.12.2004, Qupperneq 23

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON STJÓRN 21
was acquired at some later date. The church at Skálholt burnt down in 1532,
and there may have been some attempt to make good whatever damage was
done to its library (cf. Stefán Karlsson1967:57–58). 227 might have come to
the cathedral then, transferred from another church or monastery, but we have
no evidence to show that this was the case. The possibility that 227 was
originally written for the Skálholt establishment is in itself not at all remote,
even though the book was made in a monastery in the north of the country.
The artists responsible for 227 were indubitably so well known to the church-
men of their time that the bishop of Skálholt or some benefactor could per-
fectly well have commissioned a magnificent copy of Stjórn from them; or it
may have occurred to the producers to invite the Skálholt dignitaries to pur-
chase the volume on completion of their lavish undertaking. The scribes, or
the managers of their scriptorium, were evidently in the business of marketing
Stjórn manuscripts, since we know of three copies written by these same men,
as well as producing other kinds of books for a variety of customers. The no-
tion that 227 was written in Skálholt itself chiefly depends on the conjecture
that Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skálholt 1322–39, brought a copy of Stjórn
from Norway to Iceland, and might himself have had a hand in the biblical
translation the work contains (Seip 1956:8,16; Jakobsen 1965:110; Astås
1987:71–73, 682). This is pure guesswork, however, and Seip’s claim that 227
was copied directly from a Norwegian exemplar has been shown to be equally
groundless. It is more likely that there was at least one intermediate copy
between 227 and the archetype it shared with AM 226 fol (cf. p. 25 below).
3. ORTHOGRAPHY, SCRIPT AND DATE
As may be expected in the work of active professionals, the orthography of
Hands A and B in 227 is comparatively regular. A shows considerably more
variation than B, however, and we find the same is true when we compare 227
with other manuscripts attributed to him. These show various deviations from
his general practice in 227, though a notable number of his habits remain
constant throughout. Since Hand A is represented in so many manuscripts, it is
reasonable to think that he enjoyed a long career. His spelling habits could
alter in that time, and influence from his exemplars could be another factor in
promoting variety. Both A and B have a tendency to „norwegianise“ their
orthography. Since similar forms appear in equal measure in works which A