Skírnir - 01.01.1965, Side 164

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Selma Jónsdóttir
Skírnir
(36) . Ibid., bls.441.
(37) . Islenzkt fornbréfasafn III, bls. 572.
(38) . Islenzkt fornbréfasafn V, bls. 269—271.
(39) . Islenzkt fornbréfasafn IV, bls. 516—517.
(40) . Kristján Eldjárn, op.cit., 42. mynd og myndskýringar nr. 42.
UÖSMYNDIR:
1. Árnasafn, 344 fol., fol. lr.
2. Þjóðminjasafn Islands, nr. 10886.
3. Árnasafn, 48 8vo, fol. lr.
4. Þjóðminjasafn Islands, nr. 10933.
5. Musée de Cluny, París, nr. LoA Laborde 117.
6. Nationalmuseet, Kaupmannahöfn, nr. CLV.
7. Þjóðminjasafn Islands, nr. 4380.
8. Þjóðminjasafn Islands, nr. 3924.
SUMMARY.
An Icelandic Medieval Illumination and Related Antipendia.
In AM 344 fol., a 14th century manuscript of the Icelandic lawbook,
Jónsbók, there is a picture of the crucifixion (fig. 1). This picture shows
Christ on the cross with open eyes, a feature which Halldór Hermanns-
son (1) considers unique in Icelandic art of the Gothic period. The author
found, a few years ago, a picture of the crucifixion where Christ is shown
alive on the cross on an antipendium in “refilsaumur” (laid and couch-
ed work) from the church at Höfði in Höfðahverfi in North Iceland
(fig. 2) now in the National Museum in Reykjavík no. 10886. These two
pictures have several other characteristics in common, and it seems ob-
vious that the picture on the antipendium is, at least partly, a copy of
the one one in the MS. Later the author found in another MS of the
Jónsbók, AM 488TO, a picture of the crucifixion (fig. 3) similar in style
to the one in AM 344 fol.; it too showed Christ with open eyes on the
cross. The author has noticed this feature in three other Icelandic medie-
val crucifixions, one of these being an antipendium in “refilsaumur”,
now in the Twenthe Museum in Holland, which E. J. Kalf (2) and Elsa
E. Guðjónsson (4) have shown it to be an Icelandic work.
According to Stefán Karlsson (6) and Ólafur Halldórsson (7), there
is a probability that the above mentioned MSS AM 344 fol. and 488vo
were written by Renedikt Brynjólfsson or by someone closely connected
with him. He, his brother, Björn, and his father, Brynjólfur Bjamarson
at Syðri-Akrar in Skagafjörður, were in close contact with the convent
at Reynistaður in Skagafjörður, Brynjólfur being for some years its oeco-
nomus.