Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 159

141
There were no kings in Iceland before the down-fall of the Icelandic
free State in 1263, and from 1260 onwards primogeniture and legiti-
macy were made prerequisites for succession to the Norwegian throne.
Older models may have been drawn upon; cf. the litany of the oldest
extant Norwegian manual, ManNor MS F, c. 1200 = ed. p. 170: ‘Vt
reges nostros catholicos conseruare digneris’. Finally, A adds its own
ending clause to the prayer.
B, for its third clause, draws on the collects of two votive masses.
One is the expanded collect of the Office of the dead, ‘Fidelium deus’,
found in a fragment of an old Icelandic manual (see above, p. 65).
The second is the collect ‘Sancte dei genitricis et virginis Marie’, the
third prayer after ps. 100 of our Psalter, from which B takes its ending
(see below, p. 148). The same ending appears in MS t.
Thus B and t seem to have drawn upon a common source, and the
same applies to A and B as regards the inclusion of those ‘qui pro me
orant ad dominum’, used by A in the third, and by B in the second
clause.
After the Suscipe-prayer, MS A adds an invocation of the Holy
Trinity and the verse ‘Deus propicius’, also found in MS P, and one of
the usual hexameters on the psalms, which is also found in Nb. B adds
Deo patri (sit gloria, etc.), written in full in MSS c, s, t. MSS s and
Nb further add the beginning of the universally known Notkerian
sequence, ‘Sancti spiritus assit nobis gratia’ (AH 53, no. 70), which is
also added in the upper margin of MS L, f. (5)r.
Of our seven texts, MS c was written for a woman, while MS P was
adapted for a woman by an addition to the text.
The basic form of the Suscipe-prayer seems to be that of MSS c and
P, and also of MS Nb, but for the clumsy insertion of the pope and the
bishop between the second and third clause. Among the longer texts,
that of A is the most harmonious, while that of B is marred by a
certain carelessness in its construction.
The Liturgical Prayers
Ps. 10: MSS A c q
Versiculi
MS A, f. (3)v = p. 6: Pater noster. V. Ego dixi domine miserere.
[DJomine ne memineris. V Verba mea. V. Domine exaudi.