Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1979, Page 124

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have assigned to hånds C and D are so consistently and distinctively
different from those of hånds A and B that they can most simply be dealt
with as the work of separate scribes.
Having more exactly specified the division of hånds in the MS., Dr
Benediktsson goes on in his article to argue that the fragment catalogued
as AM 655 4to XXXIII is written by the hånd which has been named B
in AM 655 4to X. As evidence for this he cites similarities in the shapes of
the letters /, y, and h, and the tail of the g, the frequent occurrence of fine
diagonal lines drawn from major stems in XXXIII and in XB, their
common idiosyncratic use of the subscript hook with vowels both alone
and in ligatures, and the likeness of the er abbreviation and Capital E in
each. In addition, in the distribution of u and r graphs, and in the use of
round s and the ligature w, XB and XXXIII agree with one another and
differ from XA. This is true also of the use of the abbreviation signs
including the er and o signs. However, there are certain points on which
XB and XXXI11 differ. Round r occurs after d in XXXIII; in XB it is to
be found only after o. And the graph sequence is which is frequent
medially and finally in XXXIII is absent in XB. Such differences may well
be explained. as Benediktsson observes, by variations in the originals
from which the scribe was copying.
The question naturally arises, then, whether AM 655 4to X and
XXXIII were not part of the same MS. This is a matter of some
importance, for if they can be shown to be part of the same MS., one may
extend the analysis of XB to include XXXIII. Unfortunåtely, the
damaged State of the fragments precludes any certain conclusions in this
regard. It is difficult, for example, to establish the precise size of the
leaves in either MS. Nevertheless, Benediktsson shows that they must
have been about the same size. Both leaves in XXXIII are torn along the
bottom; each page now has 34 lines. But a parallel text reveals that the
passage missing between pages 2r and 2v must have been 6 or 7 lines in
length, so that the full text would have been 40 or 41 lines long and the
leaf 25 or 26 cm. in height. Absence of a sufficiently parallel text prevents
the discovery of the number of lines missing in X between pages lr and
lv, the less damaged leaf, but it cannot have been many. As it stands the
page is 40 lines long and 23 cm. in height. The width of the lines in X
varies between 14.0 and 14.7 cm., whereas in XXXIII the variation is
between 14.4 and 15.6 cm. Both MSS. use red initials and the same black
ink. Finally the subject matter of the MSS. is mueh the same; XXXIII
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