Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 242

240
Marianne Kalinke
Stockholm; it is a monumental achievement, if only by virtue of its sheer
bulk. The text of the manuscript, which was edited by Agnete Loth in 1970,
reaches a length of 872 pages in print.3
Reykjahólabók contains 25 legends, more than half of which were trans-
lated into Icelandic for the first time. The compilation is unlike any of the
well-known vernacular legendaries of the Middle Ages. The sequence of
saints - including the apocryphal ones - does not correspond to the liturgical
calendar and therefore also not to that found in the Legenda aurea or any of
the vernacular legendaries indebted to it, such as the German Der Heiligen
Leben. Furthermore, it is impossible to determine according to which
criteria the compiler and translator selected the legends. The compilation
contains three legends relating to the life of Christ (the legends of St. Anne
and the Virgin Mary, the Three Wise Men, and Lazarus); seven legends are
devoted to martyrs, several of them the so-called Holy Helpers (Oswald,
Sebastian, Lawrence, Christopher, George, Erasmus, and Stephen); five
Doctors of the Eastern and Western Church are included (Gregory the
Great, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, John Chrysostomos), as are two popes
(the aforementioned Gregory and Silvester); two friars, the Augustinian
Nicholas of Tolentino and Dominic, the eponymous founder of one of the
great medieval orders; one bishop (Servatius); one desert father (Anthony);
one confessor (Rochus), one king (Oswald); one emperor (Henry II); and
finally the apocryphal Barlaam and Josaphat, Seven Sleepers, and Gregorius
peccator. The oldest saint - not counting St. Anne - is St. Stephen proto-
martyr, and the most recent, St. Rochus, who died toward the end of the
14th century. He is not the only “modern” saint, that is, from a medieval
perspective, since the emperor Heinrich II (+1024) and his wife Kunegunde
(+1033) were included in the legendary, as were Sts. Dominic (+1221) and
Nicholas of Tolentino (+1305). The collection is almost exclusively male,
although it should be pointed out that the longest legend in the anthology is
devoted to Mary, her mother Anne, and grandmother Emmerentia, while the
empress Kunigunde appears at the side of her husband Heinrich II. Not all
the narratives are authentic hagiographical texts; some are more fittingly
classified as romances, such as Osvalds saga, the major part of which is a
bridal-quest romance, and Gregorius saga biskups, a fictitious French tale of
double incest, which became known in the German language realm through
Hartmann von Aue’s courtly legend Gregorius and Thomas Mann’s
irreverent treatment of the same in the novel Der Erwahlte.
Reykjahólabók derives its name from the home of Björn Þorleifsson, one
of the wealthiest Icelanders of his time, who died ca. 1554. Mariane
Overgaard first identified Björn as the scribe of the Icelandic legendary, and
3 Agnete Loth, ed., Reykjahólabók. Islandske helgenlegender. Editiones Arna-
magnæanæ, A, 15-16 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1969—70). Henceforth referred to as
Rhb.