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manuscript was produced. He had travelled, twice, to the papal curia, both
to Avignon and to Rome.21 If we assume, for the sake of argument, that
the patron of Belgsdalsbók was someone with connections to both Norway
and wider European culture, Bishop Jón skalli would fit that description
rather well. The bishop obviously moved from Norway to Iceland in
1357. Stefán Karlsson and Stefan Drechsler suggest that the main scribe
of Belgsdalsbók also moved from Norway to Iceland at some point in the
middle of the fourteenth century.22
The Unusual Contents of AM 347 fol.
The provenance and the production features of Belgsdalsbók may be taken
to point in the general direction of an ecclesiastical institution such as
Hólar. The unusual and unique contents of the book also suggest an eccle-
siastical patron.23 I suggest this with some hesitation, since we should not
make too strong a distinction between ecclesiastical and secular patrons in
medieval Iceland. After all, the Icelandic church was unusually closely tied
to secular society, so laypeople also had reasons to want to have books with
laws relating to the Church.
The table of contents is not the only unusual feature of Belgsdalsbók. It
is one of nine preserved medieval manuscripts to contain a version of the
older Christian Law of Iceland, the so-called Kristinna laga þáttr, associated
with Grágás. The presence of this text obviously hints at an ecclesiastical
connection.24
21 Diplomatarium Norvegicum. Tillægg till syttende samling (XVII B), ed. Oluf Kolsrud,
(Christiania: Malling, 1913), 275–76.
22 Drechsler, Illuminated Manuscript Production, 132. Inspired by Stefán’s work, Drechsler
(132) suggests (“it is very likely”) that the main scribe (H Hel 8) worked on the first eleven
quires of Belgsdalsbók in the 1350s, then on Hardenbergianus later in the 1350s, and finally
he wrote parts of quires 12 and 13 in Belgsdalsbók in the late 1360s. Drechsler’s daringly
exact chronology does not contradict my suggestion that Bishop Jón might have been
Belgsdalsbók’s commissioner, especially if we remember that he was (non-resident) bishop
of Garðar from 1343.
23 Drechsler, Illuminated Manuscript Production, 133, Table 28, provides a general survey of
the contents.
24 Grágás: Stykker, som findes i det Arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr. 351 fol. Skálholtsbók og en
Række andre Haandskrifter, ed. Vilhjálmur Finsen (Copenhagen: Kommissionen for det
Arnamagnæanske Legat & Gyldendal, 1883), 93–96.
HÓ LAR AND BELGSDALSBÓ K