Gripla - 2021, Page 153

151
ANDERS WINROTH
HÓLAR AND BELGSDALSBÓK*
the icelandic text preserved in the greatest number of manuscripts
is Jónsbók, the lawbook that the Alþingi accepted in 1281 and that contin-
ued to be valid for centuries. Some 260 manuscripts preserve the text and
provide rich and still underexplored opportunities for research into the
legal culture of Iceland. Basic issues of origin, provenance, and use are in
many cases still unexplored, even for early and interesting manuscripts.1
This article addresses a minor detail in the rich history of Jónsbók:
What happened to the four “laugbækur,” presumably copies of Jónsbók,
which were listed in the inventory of the Hólar bishopric in 1525.2 Stefán
Karlsson has suggested, without any specific evidence, that they have been
lost, for example, when Hannes Þorleifsson died in a shipwreck in 1682
with his collection of manuscripts.3 I will argue that two copies of Jónsbók
with provenance from the see in Hólar may survive as GKS 3269 a 4to
and AM 347 fol. (Belgsdalsbók). While the former is a straight-forward
copy of Jónsbók, the rich and unusual contents of the latter illustrate the
legal culture at what in the Middle Ages was Christendom’s northernmost
episcopal see, if it indeed comes from there.
1 Foundational for the text and the manuscripts are the following editions: Jónsbók: Kong
Magnus Hakonssons lovbog for Island, ed. Ólafur Halldórsson (Copenhagen: Møller, 1904);
Jónsbók: Lögbók Íslendinga hver samþykkt var á alþingi árið 1281 og endurnýjuð um miðja 14. öld
en fyrst prentuð árið 1587, ed. Már Jónsson (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 2004); and Jónsbók:
The Laws of Later Iceland; The Icelandic Text according to MS AM 351 fol. Skálholtsbók
eldri with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes, ed. and transl. Jana Schulman,
Bibliotheca Germanica, Series nova 4 (Saarbrücken: AQ-Verlag, 2010).
2 DI 9.299, n. 266.
3 Stefán Karlsson, “Review of Skálholtsbók eldri: Jónsbók etc. AM 351 fol., ed. by Chr.
Westergård-Nielsen (Copenhagen, 1971),” Skírnir 146, no. 1 (1972): 199.
Gripla XXXII (2021): 151–164
* This article is based on a paper I gave in November 2019 at the conference “Medieval
Icelandic Laws in Context: Manuscripts of Jónsbók and Kristinréttr Árna in the Árni
Magnússon Collection,” organized by Árnastofnun in Reykjavík. I thank Elizabeth
Walgenbach for the kind invitation to speak, and Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir for valuable
help.