Gripla - 20.12.2008, Page 55

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The third quire of • Landnámabók is entirely lost.
The fourth quire (3r–9v) originally consisted of eight leaves, but •
the last leaf is now missing. It contains the further continuation of
Landnámabók.
The fifth quire (10r–14v) originally consisted of eight leaves, but •
now only its second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh leaves remain.
This quire formed the last part of Landnámabók.
The sixth quire originally consisted of four bifolia but is now •
missing the two outermost pairs (i.e., 1 and 8 and 2 and 7). What
are now 15r–18v comprised the quire’s two innermost bifolia and
contain the middle of Kristni saga.
As • Kristni saga is not thought to have taken up all of the last two
leaves, Finnur Jónsson (1892–1896, x and cxxxvii) suggests that
some of Björn Jónsson’s extracts, especially Haukr’s genealogy and
the list of the bishops of Greenland, could have been written in the
remaining space. Jón Helgason (1960, viii) argued that the extracts
could not have been contained in a single leaf, and therefore there
must be some leaves missing that followed this quire.
According to Gunnar Harðarson and Stefán Karlsson (1993, 271), minor
paleographical variations between the charters in Haukr’s hand indicate
that AM 371 was written by Haukr himself (“Hand 1”) during the same
period that he wrote folios 22–59 and 69–107 of AM 544 (see below). The
date may have been between 1306 and 1308, when he was on a mission
to Iceland. Stefán Karlsson (1964, 119) dates it from around 1302 to 1310.
Further support for a date of 1302 or later is provided by Jón Helgason
(1960, xx), who notes that Norwegian influence on Haukr’s orthography
is found even in the first part of Hauksbók. This suggests that it was
probably written after he had settled in Norway. (Haukr is known to have
been lögmaðr of Oslo in 1302.) A reference in Landnámabók to Kolbeinn
Auðkýlingr’s wife having the title frú (lady) must be no earlier than 1300
or 1301, when Kolbeinn was knighted.
AM 544 4to is believed to have originally been comprised of at least
seventeen quires, but three or more are now missing:
PERSPECTIVES ON HAUKSBÓ K