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production and use of Scandinavian law manuscripts during the Middle
Ages,63 and a shared use of both forms of guidance as to the textual con-
tents is only known from a few examples.64
Nevertheless, established iconographic models can be found in manu-
scripts from before and after the two waves of the Black Death in the
fifteenth century although a number of significant changes can be seen. An
example may be the last section of Jónsbók entitled Þjófabálkr, which regu-
lates the fines and forms of punishment for theft. It is usually depicted in
two stages: while the prosecution is depicted in the inner field, the execu-
tion by hanging is shown in the margins.65 This mirrors the well-known
difference between those iconographic images depicted within an initial
and those that are found in the margins.66 In several law manuscripts such
as AM 132 4to (f. 51r) and in the earlier AM 158 a 4to (f. 101r) and Thott
1280 fol. (f. 54r) from c. 1400,67 the execution by hanging is shown within
the initial and with no other images attached. However, in AM 151 4to,
which contains a “hybrid” version of Jónsbók, the iconographic image in the
inner field of the initial at the beginning of Þjófabálkr depicts a stooped,
walking man with a stick in his hands. Although less frequent, this image
has a closer connection to the text than the illuminations of the execu-
tions.68 Other illuminations in sections of Jónsbók, such as in Rekabálkr,
which defines the regulations related to goods washed ashore, also appear
with no iconographic coherence, similar to depictions from the fourteenth
63 Lena Rohrbach, “Die Fabrikation des Rechts,” 807–15.
64 To my knowledge, two examples are known: the Icelandic codex AM 347 fol. (Belgsdalsbók)
mentioned, and the Norwegian manuscript GKS 1154 fol. (Codex Hardenbergianus).
According to Stefán Karlsson, “Lovskriver i to lande,” both manuscripts were mainly written
by the same Icelandic scribe. For the tables of contents and book painting in these codices,
see Stefan Drechsler, Illuminated Manuscript Production in Medieval Iceland, 132–33, with
further references, and Anna Catharina Horn, Lov og tekst i middelalderen: Produksjon og
resepsjon av Magnus Lagabøtes landslov (Gothenburg: Göteborgs Universitet, 2016), 239.
65 Stefan Drechsler, “The Illuminated Þjófabálkr in Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Jónsbók
Manuscripts,” 1–40.
66 For this, see Michael Camille, Images on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London:
Reaktion Books, 1992), 11–55.
67 For the dating of AM 158 a 4to, see Kristian Kålund, Katalog, II, 439, and Stefán Karlsson,
“Introduction,” Islandske Originaldiplomer indtil 1450: Tekst, xlv, xli–xlii, xlvi–xlvii, and for
Thott 1280 fol., see Kristian Kålund, Katalog, II, 325.
68 For this, see Stefan Drechsler, “The Illuminated Þjófabálkr in Fourteenth-Century
Icelandic Jónsbók Manuscripts,” 7–16, with further references.