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below the line, the use of u for v (except as a capital), the extended crossbar
of e, and the near total absence of “e-caudata.”6
since the text of Lbs fragm 74 falls in one of the six lacunae in Basilius
saga, it is impossible to determine whether it served as the source for the
Icelandic text, and, if so, whether the Icelandic was a loose or close trans-
lation of it. Initial attempts to find a comparable Latin text in any of the
printed versions of the life of Basil were unsuccessful. In the 1980s, the
search for pre-thirteenth-century manuscripts known to contain both the
Vita Basilii and the Passio sanctorum martyrum Juliani et Basilissae turned
up a number of texts all related to euphemius’ ninth-century translation of
the pseudo-Amphilocian greek text. Subsequent manuscripts whose texts
agree with Lbs fragm 74 proved so easy to find that it must be assumed
that a large number of them exist. Although the euphemian translation
is listed in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (BHL) as no. 1023,7 the
editions cited there do not contain a passage close to the Latin fragment
in Iceland. In addition, these editions are missing a number of chapters
found in those manuscripts that do have a text corresponding to that of
Lbs fragm 74, prompting the use here of the term “17-chapter version” to
refer to the texts of the ten manuscripts listed below.8
Angers, Bibliothèque municipale d’Angers, 804 [12th c.]=A
Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, cod. sign. 12461 [12th
c.]=B1
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de france, lat. 13761 [10th c.]=P3
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de france, lat. 16736 [12th c.]=P6
st. Gall, stiftsbibliothek st. Gallen, 566 [late 9th, early 10th c.]=G
6 Hreinn Benediktsson, Early Icelandic Script, 44–45, 49–51, 57–58; didrik Arup seip,
Norge og Island, vol. B, Palæografi, nordisk Kultur, vol. 28 (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1954),
77–78, 90, 92, 94, 138, 140–41; Harald spehr, Der Ursprung der isländischen Schrift und ihre
Weiterbildung bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Halle/Saale: Karras, Kröber & nietschmann,
1929), 102.
7 Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis, ed. Société des Bollandistes, vol. 1,
subsidia Hagiographica, vol. 6 (Brussels: Société des bollandistes, 1898–1901), 153–54.
8 Using these ten manuscripts, plus the fragmentary vatican 4854 (12th c.), john Nicholson
prepared an edition with English translation of this version; see nicholson, “the Vita
Sancti Basilii of Pseudo-Amphilochius: A Critical Edition with Commentary and English
translation” (m.A. thesis, University of Georgia, 1986).
tHe L I F E O F S T . B A S I L IN ICeLANd
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