Gripla - 20.12.2008, Blaðsíða 72

GRIPLA70
nical definition of the genre is provided by Bernard Ribémont, who argued
that medieval encyclopedism combined “networks of ‘required’ matter”
such as the wonders of the East, stars and planets, God and angels, and
animals and monsters, etc.” with “a process of ‘didactic transposition’” that
modified the objects to be taught into the objects that are actually received
(Ribémont 1997, 50–54). Hauksbók fits this definition exactly, with the
“required matter” being represented by the extracts in AM 544 and by
Elucidarius, and with the “didactic transposition” being represented by the
many translations into Icelandic, the use of Icelandic subject matter wher-
ever possible, and substitutions such as Trójumanna saga for the Historia
Troianorum and Breta sögur for the Historia Anglorum. As Ribémont (1997,
54) observed, the transposed knowledge is always the fruit of compilation,
and this is certainly true of Hauksbók.
The extensive parallels between Haukr’s parts of Hauksbók and the
Liber floridus make it plausible that the latter was his model, and in that
case, we might imagine the process of compilation as something like the
following. Haukr came across the Liber floridus in Iceland, perhaps when
he was working on his redaction of Landnámabók, and he was inspired
to make an Icelandic version of it. He started by assembling a collection
of texts on astronomy, geography, theology, and so forth, and this work
— whether carried out in Iceland or Norway — took several years. Next,
most likely when he was in Iceland again, he took the opportunity to
gather the texts corresponding to the many historiographical works in the
Liber floridus, and he put his Landnámabók in pride of place at the front
of the manuscript, just like the local history that begins the Liber floridus.
Some years later, Viðræða æðru ok hugrekkis and Viðræða líkams ok sálar were
added to the collection, still in keeping with the spirit of the Liber flori-
dus, which contains excerpts from Gregory the Great’s Dialogues and the
Moralia in Job. Presumably the compilation for a long time took the form
of unbound quires or pamphlets, because the quire(s) with the viðræður
wound up in the middle of the quires with the sagas, which were written
down earlier.
However, the proposed dependence of Hauksbók on the Liber floridus
does not end there. Hauksbók probably came to Iceland shortly after
Haukr’s death in 1334 (Jón Helgason 1960, xxvi), and around 1350
(Degnbol et al. 1989, 454), a blank space on what is now 18v of AM 544