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for expanding his abbreviations. the most thorough description of Jón’s
script and language is that of Peter Cahill, whose system of expansion
for the AM 624 4to version of Duggals leiðsla forms the basis for my own
practice in editing the annunciation homily.19 one should note, however,
that Cahill occasionally expands Jón’s abbreviations of more common
words differently than Jón himself sometimes wrote them. for instance,
Cahill remarks that the form “thil” (for “til”), which is written out in full
only once in Duggals leiðsla, “must be an aberration.”20 However, “thil,” a
common spelling in texts from the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,21
is the only form of the word ever written out in full in the charters Jón
forged (6x).22 It also appears in three of the four authentic charters ascribed
to Jón (DI VII nos. 178, 231, and 339) and in his text of the Icelandic Joca
monachorum in AM 624 4to.23 there thus exists genuine uncertainty as
to whether Jón’s abbreviation “tı” should be expanded to “til” or “thil”
in any given instance. In such cases, I have generally opted for the more
conventional late old norse form, but the reader should be careful not to
use expanded abbreviations as clear indicators of Jón’s language or spelling
preferences.
the hand responsible for the two homiletic fragments on fols. 24r–27r
is less problematic, although damage to the manuscript has obscured
several words, and it is often difficult to differentiate between the scribe’s
forms of u and v and between lowercase letters, capital letters, and small
capitals. My expansion of abbreviations in the edition of these fragments
follows the practice adopted in oluf Kolsrud’s edition of the aM 624
4to text of the Stave Church Homily, which was written by the same
scribe.24
19 Duggals leiðsla, ed. Cahill, xxii–xxix.
20 Duggals leiðsla, ed. Cahill, xxviii.
21 the spelling is especially frequent in reykjahólabók (Reykjahólabók: Islandske helgenlegender,
ed. agnete Loth, Editiones arnamagnæanae a, vol. 15–16 [Copenhagen: Munksgaard,
1969–70]), where examples are so numerous that they need not be cited individually.
See also, e.g., DI VII nos. 503, 533, 616; VIII nos. 179, 180, 181; IX nos. 78, 105, 120, et
passim. on the parallel development of t to th in other words see oskar Bandle, Die Sprache
der Guðbrandsbiblía: Orthographie und Laute, Formen, Bibliotheca arnamagnæana, vol. 17
(Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1956), 167.
22 Islandske originaldiplomer: Tekst, ed. Stefán Karlsson, 152, 300–301, 257.
23 Alfræði íslenzk, ed. Kålund, vol. 3, 40/13.
24 Messuskýringar, ed. Kolsrud, 85–107.
AN OLD NORSE HOMILY