Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 24
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is that of the Augustinian monastery of ViSey (Gullbr.), dated c. 1397
(DI 4, pp. 110-11); there was, however, a close connection between
Vi&ey and Skålholt, and it is possible that manuscripts were loaned
between them for copying.5
During the last quarter of the seventeenth century a great many
valuable Icelandic-vemacular manuscripts were secured for Sweden
through the agency of Jon Rugman (1636-79), Jon Eggertsson (c.
1613-89), and others. As will be seen from Godel’s catalogue of
Icelandic manuscripts in Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, before they
left Iceland a great number of these manuscripts were bound in, or had
fly-leaves taken from ‘Catholic ritual books’. These bindings are often
amateurish patch-work, consisting of vellum fragments from more than
one Latin manuscript. For the binding of Isl. papp. 4:o, no. 10 (see
Godel, pp. 272-73) fragments of a very closely-written fourteenth-
century manuscript of theological contents, now very difficult to read,
were used together with a fifteenth-century gradual of 11 lines, with a
written space of c. (22)xl4,5 cm containing part of the chants for
Trinity Sunday with the sequence Benedicta sit beata trinitas (AH 53,
no. 81b). Fragments of two psalters, one from the late twelfth and one
from the fifteenth century, were used for the binding of Isl. papp. 4:o,
no. 17 (see Godel, pp. 282-87). The late twelfth-century one consists
of two non-consecutive leaves in an English style of script, with the
line measuring 11 cm, containing, respectively, part of ps. 71 and ps.
81-82; the fifteenth-century fragment consists of two non-consecutive
leaves with 22 lines to the page, measuring 21x14 cm of written space,
containing, respectively, part of ps. 41-42 and ps. 47-48. For the
binding of Isl. papp. 4:o, no. 18 (see Godel, pp. 287-88), a leaf of 22
lines from the same fifteenth-century psalter was used, containing part
of ps. 117 and ps. 118; also used were fragments from a small-sized
thirteenth-century sequentionary, containing part of the sequences
5 The Vi6ey charter lists Liber Josuæ. Ruth et Hester. Judith et Paralipomenon ‘in
one book’ (p. 111), but not Kings. Sermones Augustini are listed (p. 110), together with
unqualified books of sermons. Our fifteenth-century fragments d and e could not possibly
be listed in the charter of 1397. However, this charter does not include the usual service
books per circulum anni (placed in the church, apart from the monastic library?). Thus
the absence of an ordinary from the Vi&ey charter does not disprove the Vi&ey
provenance of MS B of the Nidaros Ordinary, MS AM 680a 4°, annotated by two
scribes who also made additions to the Vi&ey book, MS GKS 1812 4°. See ON, pp. 60
sqq., 76 sqq.