Gripla - 2021, Page 184

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4). Nevertheless, an adaptation of similar mise en pages barely took place
during the writing process,44 even if the general manuscript design seems
to have remained the same for all kinds of vernacular literature,45 and the
overall size of law manuscripts did not change significantly.46
As with the mise en pages, changes in book painting are few. Overall,
both the quantity and quality of illuminations found in law manuscripts
from the fifteenth century are inferior to those known from the previous
century.47 While the fourteenth century saw a rise of internationally in-
spired book paintings,48 undoubtedly a side effect of the economic and ec-
clesiastical networks of the “Norska öldin” (mainly) during the first half of
the fourteenth century,49 few of these historical developments survived the
first wave of the Black Death. On the contrary, iconographic and stylistic
models used for illuminations in Icelandic law manuscripts from the fif-
44 This is exemplified in several manuscripts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that
contain Jónsbók texts closely related to the respective texts in AM 350 fol. (Skarðsbók) and
AM 343 fol. (Svalbarðsbók). For two examples from the fourteenth century, see Stefan
Drechsler, Illuminated Manuscript Production in Medieval Iceland, 92–97, 153–54. As for
the fifteenth century, AM 148 4to and AM 138 4to from c. 1500 are suitable examples:
although the Jónsbók text in these codices is particularly close to that in Skarðsbók, they
feature different mise en pages and book paintings. For their dating, see Kristian Kålund,
Katalog, I, 432, and Ólafur Halldórsson, Introduction to Jónsbók, xlvii.
45 This is indicated in the number of columns, space for rubrics and initials, methods of
ruling, and use of top lines for writing. For this, see Már Jónsson, “Manuscript De-
sign in Medieval Iceland,” 237–38, and Már Jónsson, The Size of Medieval Icelandic
Legal Manuscripts,” The Power of the Book. Medial Approaches to Medieval Nordic Legal
Manuscripts, ed. Lena Rohrbach (Berlin: Nordeuropa Institut, 2014), 25–38.
46 Már Jónsson, “The Size of Medieval Icelandic Legal Manuscripts,” 31–33.
47 Halldór Hermannsson, Introduction to Illuminated Manuscripts of the Jónsbók, 14–15.
48 For examples of internationally inspired illuminations in Icelandic law manuscripts
from the fourteenth century, see Lena Liepe, Studies in Icelandic Fourteenth Century Book
Painting (Reykholt: Snorrastofa, 2009), 177–82; Stefan Drechsler, “The Illuminated
Þjófabálkr in Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Jónsbók Manuscripts,” Viking and Medieval
Scandinavia 12 (2016): 1–40; and Stefan Drechsler, Illuminated Manuscript Production in
Medieval Iceland.
49 For “Norska öldin,” see Björn Þorsteinsson and Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, “Norska öld-
in,” Saga Íslands, IV, ed. Sigurður Líndal (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag and
Sögufélagið, 1989), 61–258. In addition to rising economic activities in Iceland due to
trade with vaðmál and stockfish during the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a
large number of Icelandic fragments and manuscripts have been identified to have been
written for Norwegian export. For these, see Ólafur Halldórsson, “Flutningur handrita
milli Íslands og Noregs fyrr á öldum,” Tíminn 49 (17 June 1965), 8–9; and Stefán Karlsson,
“Islandsk bogeksport til Norge i middelalderen,” Maal og Minne (1979): 1–17.