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unknown author, but in finnur’s time erroneously attributed to Bede.4
finnur also referred to Bede’s De natura rerum I.4 and De temporum ratione
[35], as well as William of Conches’ Philosophia mundi, which was at that
time attributed to Honorius of Autun.5 Jón Helgason noted in 1960 that
the treatise is “no doubt translated, but the immediate source has not been
pointed out.”6 the matter was briefly visited again by Lars Lönnroth in
1963–64, who rightly concluded that the idea of an adaptation from De
mundi constitutione was baseless.7 Lönnroth also noted that the other texts
finnur mentioned offered no more than some general parallels and the
question still remained open as to what degree the treatise in Hauksbók was
a free adaptation or a direct translation of a still unknown learned text.8
Many fine studies have been published in recent years that situate
Hauksbók and Haukr Erlendsson within the intellectual culture of Iceland
and Scandinavia.9 In his study, Sverrir Jakobsson argues that the contents
of Hauksbók reflect the adoption of a European Catholic world view
within an Icelandic context, and that the work’s broad scope is reflective
of the interests of the intellectual Icelandic social élite.10 Stefka Eriksen
4 Printed with an extensive introduction in Pseudo-Bede, De mundi celestis terrestrisque consti-
tutione. A Treatise on the Universe and the Soul, ed. and trans. by Charles Burnett, Warburg
Institute Surveys and texts, 10 (London: the Warburg Institute, 1985). See also footnote
28.
5 finnur Jónsson, “Indledning,” cxxiii. the chapter number of De temporum ratione is here
amended from 33 to 35, as the former is on unrelated matters and must be an error.
6 Jón Helgason, “Introduction,” Hauksbók: The Arna-Magnæan Manuscripts 371, 4to, 544, 4to,
and 675, 4to, ed. by Jón Helgason, Manuscripta Islandica 5 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard,
1960), xiv.
7 ”Kroppen som själens spegel—ett motiv i de isländska sagorna,” Lychnos. Lärdomshistoriska
samfundets årsbok (1963–64): 34.
8 Ibid.
9 Sverrir Jakobsson, “Hauksbók and the Construction of an Icelandic World View,” Saga-
Book 31 (2007): 22–38; Stefka Georgieva Eriksen, “Body and Soul in old norse Culture,”
Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c. 1100–1350, ed. by Stefka Georgieva Eriksen,
Disputatio, 28 (turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), 408–21; Gunnar Harðarson, “old
norse Intellectual Culture,” ibid., 35–73; Gunnar Harðarson, “Hauksbók og alfræðirit
miðalda,” Gripla 27 (2016): 127–55; Elizabeth ashman rowe, “Literary, Codicological,
and Political Perspectives on Hauksbók,” Gripla 19 (2008): 73–74. Most recently, Jonas
Wellendorf analyses in particular the context of the text found in the first two gatherings
of aM 544 4to in his “universalist aspirations in Hauksbók,” Gods and Humans in Medieval
Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2018), 43–70.
10 Sverrir Jakobsson, “Hauksbók and the Construction of an Icelandic World View,” 22–23.
See also rudolf Simek’s response, “the Medieval Icelandic World View and the theory
of the two Cultures,” Gripla 20 (2009): 183–98.