Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1970, Blaðsíða 331
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it is dated by the Arnamagnæan Catalogue to the early 15th century.
It is in one main hånd5, and contains a fragment of Viga-Glums
saga (f.l) and a continuous but damaged fragment of Gisla saga
(ff.2-5). Its orthographic practices are not constant throughout,
and I shall regard it as containing three differing orthographies—
one on f.l, the other two mingled patchily through the rest of
the fragment. In general, ff.2r, 4r and 5v show a more progressive
stage, ff.3r, 4vb and 5r a conservative one, while the remaining
parts seem transitional, and make it unlikely that the fragment’s
variable orthography is the result of more than one hånd in its
exemplar. To treat a fragment written in one hånd like this needs
some justification, which may be found in the stiff, rather painful
hånd, suggesting the work of a beginner, who might be likely
to copy spasmodically the orthography of his exemplar. From this
explanation of the scribe’s inconsistency it would follow that the
most progressive passages give the best indication of the fragment’s
age. And it is usually a good principle to pay more attention to
late forms than to early ones, which could go on being copied
long after they had ceased to be normal practice. There follows
a short survey of thirteen orthographic points which may help
to show the general resemblance between these fragments. The
from l?ingeyjarsysla and SkagafjarOarsysla between 1391 and 1409. He obtained
a post at Miklabær (SkagafjarOarsysla) in 1395, which he still held in 1409 (see
Stefan Karlsson’s artiele above, section 3.2 and note 32). But there were normally
two priests and a deacon at Miklabær (see Diplomatarium Islandicum, Vol. IV,
no. 414). The next known appointments there were of Åsgrimur Steindorsson as
deacon in 1423 (Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Vol. A7 — Islandske Originaldiplomer
indtil 1450, ed. Stefan Karlsson, Copenhagen, 1963, no. 188 — I shall refer to
this work as EAA7; also Dip.Is. IV, no. 365), and of his father Steindor as priest,
apparently on a more or less temporary basis, in 1429 (Dip.Is. IV, no. 416). It
is therefore theoretically possible that Hoskuldur was still the other priest at this
time, but if this had been the case, it is a little surprising that it was necessary to
grant both the church and the farm to Steindår in the absence of his son. Hoskuldur,
who cannot have been younger than 60 in 1429, could have entered a monastery
late in life, in which case AM 564a, 4to could have been produced after 1429 in
a monastic scriptorium, but it is probably more likely that he was dead.
5 Nearly two lines at 5vb21-22 are in a different hånd, widely spaced and rather
untidy, which does not coincide with any of the other hånds in these fragments;
see § 3.1, below.
OpiiBcula IV. — 20