Gripla - 20.12.2004, Side 41

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON STJÓRN 39
A translation with very little or no commentary was made in the first
half of the thirteenth century. We have a remnant of it in Stjórn II.
That translation was revised and augmented with further explanatory
matter probably in the 1250s. This version is represented by Stjórn III
and the Genesis fragments in AM 238 fol XIX and AM 764 4to.
In the last years of the reign of King Hákon V Magnússon a new
version was begun with comment introduced on a much larger scale
than hitherto. It was never completed. We know it as Stjórn I. We may
infer that the author made use of an older translation of the kind found
in Stjórn III, but we do not have the direct evidence to prove that he
did so.34
Translated by Peter Foote
Editorial note
This article by the late Jakob Benediktsson was originally composed as part of a bi-
lingual introduction to a facsimile edition of the manuscript AM 227 fol which was
meant to have been published in 1990 in the Arnamagnaean Series Íslensk mi›-
aldahandrit (Manuscripta Islandica Medii Aevi). Unfortunately this edition did not
appear. A section of the introduction dealing with the manuscript’s illuminations and
art was to have been written by Selma Jónsdóttir but her death in 1987 meant that the
plan could not be realised. The editors of Gripla thought this introduction deserved to
be published on its own and it appears above in a slightly abridged form; some recent
references have been added.
34 For assistance and support which have eased my task in many ways I owe warm thanks to
Jónas Kristjánsson and members of his staff at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Iceland. I am
most particularly indebted to Stefán Karlsson and Ólafur Halldórsson. Stefán read a draft of
my introduction and made many suggestions for improvement; and both he and Ólafur have
been indefatigable in solving many of the problems I put to them and in discussing a good
many others whose solution still lies in the dim and distant future.