Gripla - 2021, Qupperneq 156

GRIPLA154
Owners and Provenance
According to his own note accompanying the volume, Árni Magnússon
acquired Belgsdalsbók from a rector in Dalasýsla, Jón Loftsson, in 1685 or
1686.10 We are able to trace the book back in Jón’s family, many of whom
wrote their name in the book.11 His father Loftur Árnason entered his
ownership note in 1644 (f. 67v). Loftur’s wife Þórunn Bjarnadóttir’s pa-
ternal grandmother Steinunn Jónsdóttir also wrote her name in the book,
in fact twice (fos. 13r. and 65v). Steinunn’s son Bjarni Björnsson may also
have written his name in the book. At least it is tempting to identify him
with the person who apparently used Belgsdalsbók to practice writing:
“Bjarne er goður pilltur” (“Bjarne is a good boy;” f. 84v). I cannot identify
the Sven Sumerlidason who wrote his name on f. 23v.
Steinunn brings us tantalizingly close to Hólar cathedral. She was mar-
ried three times and her first husband, Björn Jónsson, was the son of the
last Catholic bishop of Hólar, Jón Arason. Björn and Jón were famously
executed at Skálholt in 1550 when they refused to convert to Protestantism.
Their biographies also illustrate that the injunction of celibacy on clergy
was far from uniformly in the medieval Catholic Church.
Might Steinunn have received the book from her father-in-law’s
church? Considering that the book was in such a bad shape already in 1525,
we might imagine that its owner might not have valued it very highly. We
must, however, remember that Steinunn Jónsdóttir herself came from a
prominent and book-collecting family of priests and lögmenn. Her father
was Jón ríki Magnússon at Svalbarð in Eyjafjörður. Árni Magnússon
was told that another copy of Jónsbók that he acquired, AM 343 fol.
(“Svalbarðsbók”), had belonged to Jón ríki. I am not sure if this makes it
more or less likely that Belgsdalsbók came from Steinunn’s own family
rather than from her father-in-law.12
10 See also Már Jónsson, Arnas Magnœus philologus (1663–1730), The Viking Collection 20
(Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012), 66.
11 I have explored these family relationships with the help of islendingabok.is.
12 Bera Nordal, “Lögbókarhandritið GKS 1154 I folio,” Skírnir 159 (1985): 173 assumes that
Belgsdalsbók belonged to Jón ríki Magnússon.