Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1961, Page 113

Elisabeth of Schonau’s Visions in an Old Icelandic
Manuscript, AM 764,4°.
By Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen
The well known and well loved story of Elisabeth of SchOnau’s
visions, and first among them her vision of Our Lady’s assumption
into Heaven is found in several Icelandic manuscripts. The account
of her extraordinary visions found its way into the life of the
Icelandic bishop, the saintly Gubmundr the Good, written by
Arngrimr the Learned in the fourteenth century1. According to
the Gudmundar saga bishop Gubmundr (who believed firmly in the
assumption of Mary’s body) was delighted to learn about the
visionary nun’s experiences, which seemed to him to confirm his
views on this difficult question.
The manuscripts containing this part of the Gudmundar saga are:
Holm 5, fol. perg. (14th century), AM 220, fol. IV (a fragment on
vellum from the beginning of the 15th cent.), Am 398, 4° (on
paper, 17th cent.), AM 397, 4° (on paper, 18th cent.), and a recently
identified fragment in AM Dipi. I si. fase. LXX, 7 (c. 1400)2.
It has so far escaped notice that the story is also found in the
interesting miscellanous manuscript AM 764, 4° (written in Iceland
in the 14th century, c. 1360-70). However, the version in 764 cannot
be called an extract of the Gudmundar saga, since it has obviously
been the aim of the compilers to incorporate a condensed edition
of the story of Elisabeth’s visions into the collection of compara-
tively short aneedotes in 764, without preserving a faithful copy
of what might be termed the Icelandic standard version (in the
Gudmundar saga). To facilitate a future and mueh needed investiga-
tion of the textual relationship between the Latin original and its
derivatives, and the Icelandic versions (including the one found in
the Mariu saga3, the story of Elisabeth’s visions from AM 764, 4°
1 Bp II, 3-184.
2 Ed. Stefån Karlsson, Opuscula 1 (1960) 179 ff.
3 Unger’s edition, 916 ff.