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the illuminator to be the same person; very similar execution of the littera
florissa ornamentation is found in the acanthus tendrils in all initials, as
well as in the connected dicentra flowers.
In the second production unit of aM 334 fol., a different colour pattern
appears, though only in the main initials. this production unit contains
a number of stylistic features found in the first section of GKS 1157 fol.,
and two main initials in red are particularly closely related (figs. 5–6): the
yellow background filled with green clycinal flower tendrils in the bowls
exhibit a close stylistic similarity with GKS 1157 fol. (ff. 14–93). In ad-
dition, a similar colouring of the background in yellow and a consistent
red or light blue or red or green colouring of the minor initials, together
with a similar repertoire of palmette fillings in aM 334 fol. and GKS 1157
fol., suggest the work of a single illuminator, a Kri 2.13 The more refined
change in style between GKS 1157 fol. and aM 334 fol. is explicable by
the temporal gap (twenty to fifty years) between the posited production
of the manuscripts, and perhaps also by a difference in taste between the
respective clients. this difference is clearly mirrored in the textual ar-
rangements of the two Grágás manuscripts: GKS 1157 fol. and aM 334
fol. are very different in terms of their structural principles.14 Gunnar
Karlsson has suggested that this difference was probably due to a revision
of the text made after Iceland came under norwegian rule in 1262–64, in
other words in between the times when the first and second production
units of GKS 1157 fol. were made, and before the whole of aM 334 fol.
was written.15 However, it is more likely that aM 334 fol., though short-
lived due to its soon outdated legal content, represented a new model of a
poly-textual law book.16 In contrast to AM 334 fol., GKS 1157 fol. features
13 It should be mentioned that despite the fact that a Kri 2 makes use of a clearly different
colour spectrum in the second production unit of aM 334 fol., he must have known a
number of ornamental models used by a Kri 1, the main illuminator of the first production
unit of the same codex. this is examplified in a major initial on f. 93v, which features a
similar littera florissa initial as is found on f. 1r in GKS 1157 fol. On f. 93v in AM 334 fol.,
however, the major initial consists only of two symmetrical and enrolled acanthus leaves
and it is embellished with ornamentation typical of the repertoire of a Kri 2.
14 Ólafur Lárusson, “Grágás og lögbækurnar,” Árbók Háskóla Íslands 1922 (1923): 69–73.
15 Gunnar Karlsson, “ritunartími Staðarhólsbókar,” Sólhvarfasumbl saman borið handa Þorleifi
Haukssyni fimmtugum, 21. desember 1991, ed. Gísli Sigurðsson (reykjavík: Menningar- og
minningarsjóður Mette Magnussen, 1991), 41.
16 Lena rohrbach, “Matrix of the Law?” 124–25.
ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT PRODUCTION