Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 105
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to the saints whose relics were buried, or deposited, in the church.
Thus no two series are identical, each containing ‘local’ elements,
useful for the identification of liturgical fragments. The printed Nidaros
Breviary (BN) has nine suffrages, a very usual number, placed at the
end of the Common of the saints, immediately after the Commemo-
ratio beate virginis per annum.
Copenhagen MS AM 241b le fol. (see Kålund, AM 1, pp. 211-12)
contains part of the suffrages of Skålholt Cathedral. The fragment
consists of one leaf with the margins somewhat trimmed. The written
space is 15,5x12,5 cm with 27 lines to the page; the text on the verso
terminates on line 24. The handwriting can be dated c. 1500. The
rubrics are written in red, while the initials of the prayers are still
waiting for the book-painter. The chants, without musical notation, are
in a smaller hånd than the prayers. In the lower margin of the verso
are scribbles in more recent hånds. In the lower margin of the recto is
a note by Åmi Magnusson stating that this leaf was part of a more
extensive fragment, the rest of which contained texts without musical
notation, chiefly officia Mariae virginis. Thus, this leaf seems to be
the sole survivor of a breviary written for Skålholt Cathedral. See Pla-
tes 60-61.
The last two suffrages of vespers and the whole series of lauds have
survived in this fragment, the latter with eleven suffrages. The fifth and
eighth are proper to Skålholt, invoking respectively St. Peter, to whom
Skålholt Cathedral was dedicated, and St. Thorlak, patronus loci, ‘who
reposes in this church’. The seventh suffrage, invoking St. Olav, differs
from the Nidaros series; for the remainder, the two series are wholly
identical. They are followed by the preces minores, used at the
conclusion of the Canonical Hours during the same terms as the
suffrages.
In the following transcription the texts have been filled in from the
Nidaros Breviary, pp. 550-52, where the suffrages of lauds precede
those of vespers.
[AD VESPERAS...]
[De omnibus sanctis.]
[Ant.] Sancti dei omnes qui estis consortes supernorum ciuium
intercedite pro [nobis. V] Exultabunt sancti in gloria. [Ant. Sancti dei
omnes intercedite pro nostra omniumque salute.]