Gripla - 20.12.2015, Side 142
GRIPLA142
667 V 4to. Abbreviations are expanded in accordance with the normal
spelling of the scribe. expansions by means of a supralinear symbol or let-
ter are marked in italics. Words or letters now illegible but assumed to have
originally been in the manuscripts are printed in square brackets. Matter
never present but presumed to have been inadvertently omitted is added
in diagonal brackets. Characters to be inserted are placed within insertion
marks (⸌...⸍ for interlinear insertions, ⸍...⸌ for marginal insertions). 0000
indicate illegible or now missing letters; the number of zeroes corresponds
approximately to the number of illegible letters, but not possible abbrevia-
tions. the punctuation and the capitalization of letters follow that of the
manuscript. For a discussion of the paleographical, orthographical, and
linguistic features characteristic of Am 667 v and XI 4to (and also stock.
Perg. fol. no. 3), see Overgaard’s The History of the Cross-Tree, ciii–cx, and
Loth’s Reykjahólabók, liv.14
the edition is followed by a transcription of the Low german legends
of Saints Andrew, James the greater, Mark, and Philip in the 1492 edition
of the Passionael with indications of the sections covered by AM 667 V
and XI 4to in order to give an idea of the content of the legends and the
areas covered by the two fragments.15 It should be noted, however, that
the Icelandic text is much expanded in comparison with the 1492 edition
of the Passionael, and it is quite possible that the Passionael should be
dismissed as a source, especially in light of marianne kalinke’s analysis
of the legends in Reykjahólabók. She maintains that “[w]hile there is not a
whit of evidence that they [the legends in Reykjahólabók] are translations
of legends in the Passionael, one can repeatedly confirm that older German
legends, some established as the sources of the German legendary, contain
the deviating or additional matter also found in the Icelandic legendary.
Reykjahólabók thus permits us to infer the existence at one time of Low
German legends that for the most part transmitted the lives of the saints,
both historical and apocryphal, in versions much longer than and at times
quite different from the abbreviated redactions popularized by Der Heiligen
Leben and Dat Passionael.”16
14 In her introduction to Reykjahólabók (liv), Loth notes that in her edition, bp and pte
“opløses henholdsvis biskvp og postole; fuldt udskrevne former er ikke fundet.” In AM
667 V 4to, the latter is written in full on, e.g., 2rb17 (postvlann).
15 Cf. The History of the CrossTree, cxii.
16 Kalinke, The Book of Reykjahólar, 76–77.
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