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of this group is unknown.8 the Kringla group consists of six manuscripts
and fragments containing both Latin and vernacular literature.
three of the manuscripts and fragments listed above feature the work
of two illuminators (a Kri 1 and a Kri 2). Each made regular use of fairly
outdated romanesque ornamentation. a variety of palmette flowers and
elaborated pen-flourished littera florissa images are found, which at the
time of production were common in manuscripts in other countries at
least a century before they are found in the Icelandic manuscripts under
discussion. These images almost certainly are derived from illuminated
late twelfth french or English manuscripts,9 but it is not known how they
were transferred to Iceland.10
8 a number of inventory notes added to one of the major manuscripts of the group, aM
334 fol. (Staðarhólsbók Grágásar), indicate that it was somewhere in Húnaþing in the
fourteenth century, but little speaks for the fact that any manuscripts belonging to this
group were produced there. for the provenance of aM 334 fol., see Viðar Pálsson,
“Commonwealth Law,” 66 Manuscripts from the Arnamagnæan Collection, eds. Matthew
James Driscoll and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir (Copenhagen and reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan
opna and Museum tusculanum Press, 2013), 113. Stefán Karlsson attempted to identify
the earliest owner of aM 334 fol. but ultimately conceded it was not possible to prove
this due to a lack of reliable sources. See Stefán Karlsson, “Kringum Kringlu,” 23–24,
Stefán Karlsson, “Davíðsálmar,” and Stefán Karlsson, comment to “Davíðssálmar með
Kringluhendi,” Stafkrókar. Ritgerðir eftir Stefán Karlsson gefnar út í tilefni af sjötugsafmæ-
li hans 2. desember 1998, ed. Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson (reykjavík: Stofnun Árna
Magnússonar á íslandi, 2000), 273.
9 no research has been dedicated to identifying the sources from which the illuminators of
the Kringla group drew their inspiration and most studies on late twelfth-century french
and English romanesque book painting primarily discuss figural rather than ornamental
styles. nevertheless, certain British and northern french manuscripts produced in c. 1170
are particularly close to the Kringla group. With regard to the pen-flourishing of minor
initials, the English Bestiary Add MS 11283 features similar floral ornamentation to that
found in all manuscripts and fragments illuminated by a Kri 2, while major initials illumi-
nated by a Kri 1 demonstrate the adaption of foliate and geomorphic elements of major
initials as found in the so-called second Floreffe Bible, Add MS 18837, from modern-day
Belgium. On Add MS 11283, see C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066–1190,
III (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 105, and on add MS 18837, see Walter Cahn,
Romanesque Manuscripts: The Twelfth Century, II (London: Harvey Miller, 1992), 137, 199.
for an introduction to twelfth-century and early thirteenth-century book painting see J. J.
G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (new Haven and London:
Yale university Press), 95–120.
10 Halldór Hermannsson, Icelandic Illuminated Manuscripts, 10–12, suggests that most of the
thirteenth-century Icelandic illuminations were inspired by contemporaneous and earlier
models imported from france or England via norway. aM 618 4to, a french Psalter
palimpsest dated to the early twelfth century, might be an example of the use of European