Gripla - 2021, Page 182

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following two leaves, on the other hand, were written by a single scribe
(h) contemporaneously with the main production unit of Skinnastaðabók.
They contain three Réttarbœtr by King Hákon Magnússon from the early
fourteenth century on largely ecclesiastical matters. Although they contain
a somewhat similar mise en pages as the initial production unit, they were
perhaps not intended to be used together with it.36 Finally, the somewhat
smudged leaf f. 147 features on the verso side a short vernacular reminder
for lawmen. It remains unknown whether any of these leaves are con-
nected to the original production of Skinnastaðabók, although an inventory
and list of homesteads of the church at Hafrafellstunga, written by another
scribe (a) in 1600 on f. 1r37 indicates shared used of the original manuscript
and some of these single leaves by that time.
No separation of the texts is indicated in the gathering structure of
the original codex, and due to the constant and fluent mise en pages, it is
likely that Skinnastaðabók was compiled and written in one place by one
compiler. Jón Þorkelsson has argued that Skinnastaðabók was written
in Norður-Þingeyjarsýsla for Finnbogi Jónsson í Ási í Kelduhverfi, near
to the church at Hafrafellstunga, and that it remained in the possession
of his family for three generations.38 Finnbogi was lǫgmaðr in the north
and west of Iceland in 1484–1508, and, according to Páll Eggert Ólason,
most of the sons of Finnbogi were lǫgmenn, too.39 The legal background
of Finnbogi and his family40 and the thorough way in which the Jónsbók
36 Although use of AM 136 4to (Skinnastaðabók) related to an unknown priest at the church
at Hafrafellstunga seems to be fitting, the leaves ff. 145–46 nevertheless seem to have
served as additions for modular use only; this is indicated in the final, now fragmented text
of f. 146, which contains Statuta Vilhjálms kardinála from 1247, as well as one of the three
Réttarbœtr from 1308/09, which defines the rights and obligations of priests, and which is
also already to be found earlier in the codex.
37 Kristian Kålund, Katalog, I, 425.
38 Diplomatarium Islandicum, Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn, I, ed. Jón Þorkelsson, 67–68.
39 Páll Eggert Ólason, Íslenzkar æviskrár frá landnámstímum til ársloka 1940, II (Reykjavík:
Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1949), 7–8.
40 It is worth noting that Jón (died 1546), one of the sons of Finnbogi, was priest at the church
at Múli in 1491–1524 and was simultaneously officialis of the nearby Augustinian house
of canons regular at Möðruvellir in 1520–22 until he became its last prior in 1524–46.
It is indeed not unlikely that at least some of the statutes used for Skinnastaðabók were
borrowed from that monastery. For Jón Finnbogason, see Páll Eggert Ólason, Íslenzkar
æviskrár frá landnámstímum til ársloka 1940, III (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag,
1950), 110–11.