Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1957, Page 485

SUMMARY
467
after Christian III’s Danish Bible of 1550 was available. In this section it is
also demonstrated that the fragment Stockholm perg. fol., nr. 12, III,
which contains an Icelandic translation of the First Book of Samuel
IX, 19 - XII,4, written in Gisli’s hånd and ha ving a wording very closely
resembling that of the GuQbrandsbiblia, must have been translated from
the Christian III Bible. Commas are used in the fragment (whereas Gisli,
in C, uses dots), which must apparently be dated 1570-80.
Stockholm perg. 4t0, nr. 5 (D), is a palimpsest. In certain places the
thinness of the parchment has not allowed a complete scraping away of
the original text. It is thus possible to read small portions of this Latin
text. This MS has also partially retained the original binding. The re-
maining Latin passages seem to indicate that the MS originally was a
book of hours from about 1350. The present contents of the MS are rather
diversified. There are portions of Bualpg, short excerpts from Christian
III’s Church Ordinance in an Icelandic translation, the 26 Articles of Ribe
in Icelandic, Gissur Einarsson’s translation of Eccli., portions of Jonsbok,
excerpts from Christian III’s Ordinance in Danish (though with an ortho-
graphy considerably infiuenced by Icelandic), as well as two samples of
Icelandic religious poetry. This MS also contains, in the same hånd, writ-
ten into the margins of the first portion of Eccli., an Icelandic translation
of the first third of a Danish Reformation pamphlet which is only known
in a single (incomplete) copy: “Christelige Spørssmaal” from 1552-59 (cf.
Nogle problemer omkring en dansk reformationstidspjece, Festskrift til
Peter Skautrup, Aarhus, 1956, pp. 113-29). A number of the former
owners’ inscriptions and names found in this MS can be identified, but
it has not been possible to demonstrate the identity of the scribe. There
are, however, several things which indicate that he must have been a
cleric, among others the faet that he used the Greek letters for the
final word of Eccli., teXo?. The remainder of the contents of the MS,
especially the “Christelige Spørssmaal” and the church ordinances,
point to the conclusion, that the MS constituted a valuable handbook
for a practising theologian. The MS must have been written in conjunc-
tion with the scribe’s training for the priesthood. In its original form the
MS must have been cathedral property, and it would seem natural to
conclude that it was transcribed, at Skålholt, into its present State as a
normal piece of school work. On the basis of the criteria submitted, the
date of its transcription can be estimated at 1570-75. It would seem
reasonable to seek the scribe in those families from which Olof Kårs-