Gripla - 01.01.2000, Page 81

SVANHILDUR ÓSKARSDÓTTIR
THE BOOK OF JUDITH
A medieval Icelandic translation1
1. Introduction
The manuscript AM 764 4to is a miscellany, probably written in the period
1376-1386 and in all likelihood intended for the nunnery at Reynistaður in
Skagafjörður. It consists now of 43 full-sized leaves and 5 smaller ones, some
mere slips. Two small leaves, once appended to ff. 11 and 15, seem to have
been lost and there are five lacunae in the latter half of the codex. Exactly how
many leaves have been lost there is impossible to determine, not least because
the manuscript is not made up of regular gatherings. It is likewise difficult to
assess whether the existing leaves, as now bound, are in the original order.
The book bears the hallmarks of a work produced in a scriptorium: it is
written by many hands, at least 10 scribes were responsible for the first half
alone and some additional hands can be found in the latter part of the codex.
The first half of the manuscript (ff. l-23v4) contains a universal chronicle
divided into eight ages, aetates mundti, which spans the time from the Crea-
tion to the papacy of Clement IV (f 1270). This is a composite work, made up
of passages culled from various sources. The origin of this material is foreign
but the scribes do not seem to have translated anything themselves, rather the
passages seem to be copied from sources which contained the text already in
the vemacular. Substantial parts of the text in the chronicle come from the
Bible. These are mostly short passages, interspersed with material of a
different nature, e.g. encyclopedic lore. There are two significant exceptions
to this: On ff. 5rl6-5v20 we find a translation of ch. 5 of the Book of Daniel
and ff. 5v34—9r contain the entire deuterocanonical Book of Judith. As far as
I am aware, these translations are not found elsewhere in Icelandic manu-
scripts. AM 764 4to has never been edited in its entirety and these texts have
1 This article is based on a chapter in my Ph.D. thesis, Universal history infourteenth-century
Iceland: Studies in AM 764 4to (University College London, 2000). I would like to thank
Professor Peter Foote, Professor Desmond Slay, Dr Diana Whaley, Professor P.-M. Bogaert
and Dr Gottskálk Þór Jensson as well as the editors of Gripla for their comments and
assistance.