Gripla - 2021, Qupperneq 25

23
new text was too short. The original text is illegible but the forms of a few
letters and abbreviation symbols that are partly visible indicate that it was
written by the scribe of Anecdotes (hand E). From this we can gather that
the first text written by hand I on this folio was the Marian miracle. Later,
the seven lines were erased and replaced with the second Bede anecdote in
larger script to fill the now-erased space.
The texts that follow on ff. 36v–37r are mostly written by hand I and
have little or no connection with England. Then, on the lower half of f. 37v
(the top half is blank), hand E reappears, now writing a very short history
of the kings of England in the eleventh and twelfth century, beginning
with St Edward the Confessor (d. 1066), featuring an anecdote from his
life, and concluding with Henry II (d. 1189). That this text begins below
the middle of a verso page, on a folio whose recto seems to have been ini-
tially left unwritten – possibly because the scribe did not have access to the
intended texts – indicates that it was designed to be the last chapter in the
compilation on English bishops and kings, which began with the prologue
three leaves earlier. The texts written by the other scribes on ff. 36–37 can-
not have been part of the initial plan for these folios.
6. Individual Texts and Their Sources
If we go by the number of initials (and rubrics), Anecdotes is comprised of
eleven chapters – twelve if we include the chapter on King Edward the
Confessor and his successors on f. 37v. Most of the texts are known from
other Old Norse-Icelandic sources that are translations of Latin texts.
Some have, however, only been known to exist in a fragmentary state that
Anecdotes can partly remedy. Other texts are not known to exist in paral-
lel Old Norse-Icelandic texts. In the last-mentioned category is the first
anecdote following the prologue in Stowe MS 980. This anecdote features
Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and the conversion of King
Ædelberht. Its ultimate source must be Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis
Anglorum. The verbal similarities between the two are clear in the words
uttered by the king in book I, chapter 25: “Pulchra sunt quidem uerba et
promissa quae adfertis; sed quia noua sunt et incerta …” (The words and
the promises you bring are fair enough, but because they are new to us
ANECDOTES OF SEVERAL ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY