Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Page 37
supposition is confirmed when a manuscript contains a sequence about
one of the national saints. [It is shown below that a majority of the
sequences from Iceland were actually written by two Icelandic scribes
in the 15th century].
NORWEGIAN
In the Foreword it has been explained why the remnants of the
Catholic liturgical books, formerly in use in Norway, mainly appear as
fragments.
Now another peculiarity has to be accounted for, namely that frag-
ments from one and the same book have been used as binding material
for tax lists from different minor districts of the country.
The reason for this is that it was not the tax collectors (bailiffs)
of these minor districts themselves that bound the lists in to books,
but their superiors, the governors or lieutenants of the greater districts,
the Eastern, the Western, and the Northern, residing respectively at
Akershus (by Oslo), Bergen, and Trondheim. These lords collected
what supply of parchment they could lay their hånds on, and stored it
for immediate and future use.
Here follows a list of the MSS., designated by letters. (In the men-
tion of the respective MSS. “Ra” means the “Riks-arkiv”, i. e. State
Archives.)
[The following description, which in Dr. Eggen’s manuscript was
confined to a list with a few notes, has been rewritten and much aug-
mented by the editor of the series].
A = Ra 418
(Facs. 1—39)
Provenance: Numedal 1630-1633, Eiker and Brunla 1631-1641. 45
fragments, mostly quarters of leaves or still smaller pieces; no complete
leaf can be pieced together. Text-area (including the musical notes):
c. 16,5-17 by 11,5-12,5 cm. The fragments contain with a single excep-
tion (No. 39) parts of sequences. No. 38 (fac. 1) is probably cut out of
the first leaf of the MS, since one page of this fragment (f. Ir in the
MS) was originally blank, but on the other page (f. lv) is a part of
XXXV