Gripla - 2021, Síða 11

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translations is brought together to relate the history of the world.5 The
second half of AM 764 4to (ff. 24–43), from which I argue that the bi-
folium in Stowe MS 980 originates, is concerned primarily with legends
and exempla. There we find, for example, a number of exempla copied
from Vitae patrum, Marian miracles, encyclopaedic material, an annal, and
tales involving saints such as Malchus, Walburga, Ursula, Remigius, and
Bede.
The texts on the bifolium in Stowe MS 980 all relate similar material.
They feature mostly saints who were also archbishops of Canterbury, such
as Dunstan, Anselm, and Edmund of Abingdon, but the last narrative tells
the life of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. As it turns out, this is the beginning
of a text that ends on f. 36r in AM 764 4to, clearly showing that the Stowe-
bifolium was originally positioned before that folio.
Together, the texts written by the main scribe of the bifolium and folios
36 and 37 in AM 764 4to form a cohesive segment, which is introduced by
a short prologue. Here, I will refer to this segment as Anecdotes of Several
Archbishops of Canterbury (including other Bishops and Kings of England), or
Anecdotes for short. Similar to other narratives in AM 764 4to, Anecdotes
has been compiled from various sources and is mainly concerned with
English clergymen and kings, but the redactor has not managed to com-
plete his or her vision, perhaps due to not having access to the right sourc-
es, and other scribes have utilised parts of the leaves for unrelated texts.
In this article, I will begin by discussing the Icelandic manuscripts in
the Stowe collection and how they came to be there. Next, I will provide
evidence that the parchment bifolium in Stowe MS 980 was a part of
AM 764 4to, both originally and after it had been incorporated into the
Arnamagnæan collection, and argue that Grímur Thorkelin was responsi-
ble for its removal. In the second part of the article, I discuss the compila-
tion of texts in Anecdotes, the purpose behind its creation, and the sources
used. Finally, an edition of the compilation is presented.
5 See e.g. Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, “Universal History in Fourteenth-Century Iceland:
Studies in AM 764 4to” (PhD. diss., University of London, 2000), and Svanhildur Óskars-
dóttir, “What Icelandic Nuns Read: The Convent of Reynistaður and the Literary Milieu
in Fourteenth-Century Iceland,” Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Kansas City
Dialogue, eds. Virginia Blanton, Veronica O’Mara, and Patricia Stoop (Turnhout: Brepols,
2015), 229–48.
ANECDOTES OF SEVERAL ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY