Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 174

156
The litany has been edited by M. M. Lårusson, Doktorsvom, pp. 116-7.
A litany, published by F. Jonsson, 2, pp. 377-9, from a lost Icelandic manuscript,
may possibly represent a late thirteenth-century text. Its most recent entry is that of St.
Magnus, Earl of Orkney. A rare feature occurs in the ‘Libera’-prayers towards the end
of the text: ‘Per aduentum Sancti Spiritus paracleti libera nos domine. In aduentu tuo
secundo.. . In die iudicii...’ The mention of the ‘second coming’ is also found in the
Litania ad unguendum of the oldest extant Norwegian manual (ManNor MS F c. 1200
= ed. p. 170). This litany was very imperfectly adapted, probably from a litany of the
diocese of Liége, with Oda of Amay as its most local saint. The same clause also
appears in the Ordo unctionis of the Vich sacramentary (GrU), p. 227: ‘In secundum
aduentum tuum, libera.’
Of the prayers which followed the litany, only the last one is extant.
It is defective at the beginning:
MS A, f. (25)r' = p. 31': [Deus qui es omnium sanctorum tuorum
splendor mirabilis. atque lapsorum subleuator] inenarrabilis: fac nos
famulos tuos sancte dei genitricis semperque uirginis marie et omnium
sanctorum tuorum intercessionibus ubique tuere presidijs. nec non
familiaritate atque consanguinitate et affmitate nobis coniunctos et
omni populo christiano cunctis insidijs fallacis inimici depulsis: con-
cede ad celestem patriam redeundi aditum: ac defunctorum omnium
fidelium sacri baptismatis unda renatorum animabus quiete perfrui
sempitema. per dominum nostrum ihesum christum filium tuum qui
tecum uiuit et regnat in unitate spiritus sancti deus per omnia secula
seculorum. Amen.
An early authority for this prayer is the tenth-century sacramentary of Saint-Thierry,
MS Reims 214 (F. 418), see Leroquais, Les Sacramentaires, 1, pp. 91-94. It contains
a series of seven votive masses, ff. 181-88, printed by E. Mårtene as Ordo X, in: De
antiquis Ecclesiæ ritibus, 1 (Antwerpiæ 1737), cols. 548 sqq. This prayer, in the
singular, is the mass-collect of the seventh missa generalis, intended for Saturday, col.
561. In the medieval psalters it is frequently found as the last prayer of the series
following the litany. Immediately after this text follows the explicit:
Finito libro sit laus et' gloria christo.
Dextera scriptoris benedicta sit omnibus horis.
Est liber scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus.
Qui fessus laborat ab isto opere morat.
The Sagas of the Icelandic Saints
It is hardly necessary to insist upon the paramount importance of the
Psalter as the medieval book of private devotion. As such it was
superseded only by the Hours of Our Lady. The Psalter is significantly