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various sorts,21 as well as additional texts such as tables of contents, diplo-
matic material, statutes, and oath formulas for lawmen were added. Several
known manuscript groups from the fifteenth century are related to secular
workshops in northern Iceland, and, as will be discussed below, law manu-
scripts that belong to these groups indicate that textual models of Jónsbók
circulated similarly as they had in the previous century.22 Simultaneously,
the number of surviving manuscripts and fragments containing Jónsbók is
similar to that of previous centuries: thirty-one manuscripts and twenty-
three fragments are known from the fifteenth century, which is about the
same as the previous 120 years.23
As indicated in Diagram 1, the renewal and rewriting of the uninterpo-
lated Jónsbók text does not end with the fourteenth century, and a number
of manuscripts known from the fifteenth century show the work of com-
pilers who were equally skilled in the compilation of secular and ecclesias-
tical laws. Besides Svalbarðsbók and Skarðsbók, perhaps the most signifi-
cant law manuscript that contains an interpolated II-redaction of Jónsbók is
the somewhat understudied codex AM 136 4to (Skinnastaðabók). Written
by a single scribe (b) (ff. 1v–143v) in 1480–1500,24 the particularly small
manuscript measuring 185 x 175 mm poorly mirrors the representative
and highly illuminated character of the two law manuscripts from the
fourteenth century with which it shares the same redaction. Nevertheless,
the oldest production unit features a professional mise en pages consisting
of one column with twenty-five lines throughout, with markedly small
margins, and book painting with a number of Romanesque-ornamented
large initials, and numerous, single-coloured Lombardic capitals with early
Gothic fleuronné pen-flourishing to guide the reader through the law code.
In addition, subsections of Jónsbók are indicated using Roman numerals
and chapter headings in the margins, all written by the main scribe.
21 For marginalia in medieval Icelandic (and Norwegian) law manuscripts, see Stefan Drechsler,
“Marginalia in Medieval Western Scandinavian Law Manuscripts,” Das Mittelalter 25/1
(2020): 180–95.
22 For fifteenth-century Icelandic workshops that also produced law manuscripts, see Stefán
Karlsson, “The Localisation and Dating of Medieval Icelandic Manuscripts,” 141–42,
146–47, 152–55, with further references, and Guðbjörg Kristjánsdóttir, “Lýsingar í íslensk-
um handritum á 15. öld,” 157–233.
23 Már Jónsson, Introduction to Jónsbók. Lögbók Íslendinga hver samþykkt var á alþingi árið 1578
(Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 2004), 26.
24 Ólafur Halldórsson, Introduction to Jónsbók, xlvi.
LAW MANUSCRIPTS