Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Page 93
VII
Fragments of Old Lectionaries
l
Copenhagen MS AM Access. 7b is a leaf from a lectionarium
breviarii, formerly used for the binding of MS AM 199 8°, a
seventeenth-century manual of arithmetics in Icelandic. According to
Årni Magnusson’s attached note (see Kålund, AM 2, pp. 444-45), it
probably came from VatnsfjorSur, in the diocese of Skålholt.
The margins of the leaf have been trimmed. The written space
measures c. 24,5x14,5 cm, with 30 long lines to the page. Rubrics are
in red, and so are the initials which are plain except for some small
circular ornamental dots, very usual in the twelfth century. Punctuation
is by the inverted semicolon for short stop, by the median (or high)
point for full stop; the question mark has the ‘corkscrew’ form. Round r
is used only in the compendium of -orum. This scribe wrote with a
rare perfection, expressed in his clubbed ascenders, his delicately
tapering descenders, and his alternate use of light and heavy strokes.
The spaciousness of the script as well as the ‘high’ punctuation
indicate a twelfth-century date. See Plates 51-52.
The leaf contains part of the lessons for Passion Sunday:
[Lectio .V. . .. Filii] quoque memfeos et tafnes. . . quo te ducebat (i)r
per uiam (ler. 2, 16-17).
Lectio . VI. Et nunc quid tibi uis. . . in menstruis eius inuenient eam
(ler. 2, 18-24).
Lectio sancti euangelii secundum iohannem (8, 46).
[I]N illis. Dixit ihesus turbis iudeorum; et principibus sacerdotum.
Quis ex uobis arguet me de peccato: et reliqua.
Omelia beati Gregorii pape. Pensate fratres karissimi mansuetu-
dinem dei: relaxare peccata.. / .. quia hec exercere in opere contemp- <i)v
nunt.