Gripla - 2020, Síða 137

GRIPLA136
his eyes answered, ‘Do you consider me to be a man? Oh no, you are
mistaken. I am the wrath of God and the destruction of the earth.
Take care that you henceforth never more confront me with such
questions’. Those who have seen this tyrant, say that he is similar to
the despotic Hannibal in all his ruthlessness.]
Having located such a likely candidate in the 1531 Chronica, Zeitbuch und
Geschichtsbibell of Franck, it is worth mentioning that a second extended
edition appeared in 1536 (although with the section on Timur close to iden-
tical), and that Franck also reused much of his material in his Germaniae
Chronicon (1538).36 The latter, however, cannot in either of its two print
runs be the source of the section on Timur as it omits the telltale compari-
son with Hannibal. Taking the 1531 edition as a starting point, however,
a yet stronger case for Franck’s role as source for the Timur passage in
Oddverjaannáll might be made if we could show that it is the source of the
other passages from the end of the fourteenth and start of the fifteenth
centuries which Storm believed all came from a single source covering
the life of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund (1368–1437). As it turns out,
several correspondences do come to light.
Cook says that under the year 1400 in Oddverjaannáll there is an
entry which reads ‘“woru slegnir [sic] margar þusundir Gydinga af Praga
jnnbyggiurum”. This is not reported in any of the consulted versions of
Chronica Carionisʼ.37 In Franck’s Chronica, however, we read ‘Darnach
Mcccc kamen die Prager […] und überfielen die Juden […] unnd schlügen
etlich tausent zustodtʼ [Afterwards in 1400 the inhabitants of Prague came
and attacked the Jews and killed several thousand of them].38 Cook also
comments that ‘Under “Ano 1416” O-A [i.e. Oddverjaannáll] has “waru ꜳ
daugum Petrus Cameracensis Leonhardus Aretinus Pogius Florentinus
36 For the corresponding section on Timur see Sebastian Franck, Chronica, Zeitbuch und
Geschichtsbibell (Ulm: Varnier, 1536), ccxxxiiii recto; Sebastian Franck, Germaniae
Chronicon. von des gantzen teutschlands aller teutschen völcker herkommen (Augsburg:
Westermair, Alexander Weyssenhorn and Heinrich Stainer, 1538), ccxxviii recto; Sebastian
Franck, Germaniae Chronicon. von des gantzen teutschlands aller teutschen völcker herkommen
(Frankfurt: Egenolff, 1538), ccxlii verso.
37 Cook, “The Chronica Carionis,” 231. The annal entry translates as ‘many thousands of
the Jews who lived in Prague were killedʼ. For the original text see Oddaannálar og Odd-
verjaannáll, 183.
38 Franck, Chronica (1531), cxcvii verso.