Gripla - 20.12.2016, Page 292

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in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728.18 two Danish officials, both sec-
retaries of the Danish Chancery, Gregers Krabbe (1594–1655) and Mogens
Høg (1593–1661), supervised the compilation of this register, though in
deciphering the letters they may have been aided by norwegian scribes
who could read old norse. a set of three letters in the Akershusregister, nr.
1018–1020 in the printed edition (corresponding to RN 369, 370, 390),
have contents that are related to the new fragment on several points:
1018. 3 kongebreffue tilhaabefest, dett ene Haagen Jarlß gaffue-
breff paa itt laxefischende, kaldis Hoff wedt Hudrumstrøm [Hud-
rumstrøem]. 1019. Dett andett er J: kong och Haagen Jarlß stad-
festelße paa samme gaffue. 1020. Dett 3die er J: kongens dottersøn
Sigurder konges wdi lige maade stadtfestelße paa forne gaffue, alle 3
wden aar og dag. [1205–14].19
the similarities are considerable. as described in the register, we appear
to have a set of three undated letters in the fragment.20 In both cases, two
of the main agents are the same, King Ingi and Earl Hákon as senders,
and included in this context is a mention of King Sigurðr as King Ingi’s
maternal grandfather. The editor of Regesta Norvegica dates these letters
within Ingi’s and Hákon’s period of office, 1204–1217 and 1205–1214,
while Gustav Storm and Bernt Christian Bowitz, in the latter’s study of
the economy of Hovedøya monastery, date them more narrowly to 1212
and 1204–1208 respectively.21 our dating of the text of the new fragment
falls within this range of years. In addition, the sets of letters in both cases
concern a church farm, ‘staðr’, called Hof. finally, the phrase “J[nge] kon-
gens dottersøn Sigurder konges [...] stadtfestelße” in the register, which is
marked off as a citation by the editor of the Regesta Norvegica (“dattersønn
av kong Sigurd”), fits with our attempt to reconstruct line 2 in the frag-
ment.
18 G. Tank, ed., Akershusregistret af 1622: Fortegnelse optaget af Gregers Krabbe og Mogens
Høg paa Akershus slot over de derværende breve, Udgivet af Den norske historiske Kilde-
skriftkommission (Kristiania: Grøndahl & Søn, 1916), III–IV.
19 Tank, ed., Akershusregistret, 68. Editorial additions are printed in brackets. on this entry
and on the farm Hof, see Bowitz, “Hovedøya Maria kloster,” 60–61.
20 other instances of three letters “attached” in the Akershusregister are rare, although they do
occur, e.g. nr. 90–92 (“tilhaabefest”), and 140–142 (“sammelfest”).
21 rn 369; Bowitz, “Hovedøya Maria kloster,” 61.