Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Page 117

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F. 136r: Frå Eyre i Skutilsfirde (later addition: er allt rifed i sundur, og
fortært, i.e. ‘all of them taken apart and re-used’.)
1. 2. Fragmenta af 2ur 'Falteriis, badum i storu 4to.
3. Breviarii pars, 4to minori, manu non vetustå.
4. Saungbokar slitur i 4t0, med notum allt i gegnum, ritad med gamalli
hendi.
5. lited Saungbokar slitur in 4to (var eckert i mier ad gagne.) Var hverki
gamallt nie nytt.
Nos. 1 and 2 can be identified with our psalters MSS B (see below, p. 103)
and s (see below, p. 117); no. 3 with the breviary fragment MS AM 241b VI
fol. (see above, p. 82). No. 4 or no. 5 may be identical with the defective
‘songbook’ which Åmi received from Eyri in 1709; his excerpts from this book
are in MS AM 241b IX fol., ff. 13-16 (see J. Helgason in: Eggen 1,
Introduction, p. Lill).
F. 140rv in Åmi’s note-book contains comments in Danish on a psalter,
which had ‘big letters’, i.e. initials; before ‘big’ he added ‘very’. Next follows a
list of the psalm-initials in question: ps. 1, 26, 38, 51, 52, 68, 80, 97, 101,
109, 110. As regards ps. 51, 101, 110, he remarks that their initials were only
‘bigger than usual’; he further States that this psalter had come from England
to Iceland, and that ‘dingver fleiri storer stafer eru {sar inne’.
When Ami made his notes on this psalter, with all those ‘big’ letters, the
psalter was seemingly whole. He does not mention the calendar prefixed to it.
At present, remnants of this psalter are deposited in Copenhagen and
Reykjavik:
a) The calendar, Copenhagen MS AM 249a fol. (see Kålund, AM 1, p.
226), ff. 1-7. Åmi’s attached note says that it was formerly prefixed to a
psalter which seemed to have come from England, and belonged to the Church
of Skålholt.
F. 7r, originally left blank, contains additions in English by one Wyllym
Bamard, seemingly draughts relating to his business in Iceland. These texts are
now difficult to read; the first one, at the top of the leaf, begins ‘In the name of
god amen thes indentuer (?) was mad in hyslonde ye 12 days of aprylf And in
the yere of the Reyne of our soffrayne Lord kynge Henry the eyght be
tyme...’ The year does not seem to be expressed. The calendar must have
arrived in Iceland rather late in the reign of Henry VIII, as is shown by the
erasures of the feasts of Thomas of Canterbury 7/7 and 29/12, and of other
saint-days which Henry abolished in 1538.
This calendar, ff. 1-6, has been identified and edited by F. Wormald, An
Early Carmelite Liturgical Calendar from England: University of London.
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 39 (1966), pp. 174-80. Written
c. 1300, it is an early witness of the Carmelite order in England. This is the
only part of the book where the leaves are entirely whole, measuring 31x22
cm.
b) Three leaves have been published by Selma Jonsdottir, Enskt saltara-
brot å Islandi: Andvari NF 9 (Reykjavik 1967), pp. 159-70, with an English
summary.