Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Síða 230
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baz calendar. In the Auctaria Trier alone is mentioned (PL 124, p.
658).
23/12 Eugenie v. is entered on this day in the calendar of Bremen,
while Usuard’s date is 25 December.
16/12, Translatio Sancte Pusinne, is the most distinctive feature of
this calendar, its only witness so far.
How does this calendar relate to Herford, and to Iceland? It could
hardly have been written for Herford, where, in the fifteenth century, a
second translation of St. Pusinna was celebrated on 24 January
(Auctaria, PL 123, pp. 690-91). It must, however, have been written
for a community within Herford’s very limited sphere of influence.
How it arrived in Iceland remains an enigma. Many ‘foreign’ manu-
scripts are listed in the Icelandic church charters. However, it may also
have been dismembered in its native country and used for the binding
of a printed book which, after the Reformation, found its way to
Iceland.
There is no trace of a St. Pusinna cult in Iceland. In one respect,
however, the influence of Herford may have been a lasting one. As is
well-known, the earliest Icelandic manuscripts are in the pure Caroline
tradition. The Anglo-Saxon letter-forms, found in the oldest Norwegian
vernacular manuscripts, do not appear in Icelandic writing before the
early thirteenth century.14 The Caroline script probably gained a
footing in Iceland through models brought back by Isleifr and Gizurr.
And not only the script itself. In Herford, likely to be endowed with a
choice library and also a high-class scriptorium, the first bishop of
Iceland may have acquired the love of good handwriting and set the
standard of the craft for posterity.
14 See H. Benediktsson, Early Icelandic Script (Reykjavik 1965), Introduction, pp.
22 sq., 38 sqq.