Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 59

55
detailed description of the manuscript in 1850, was apparently confi-
dent that the binding was from the beginning of the seventeenth centu-
ry.2 Five years later David Laing, librarian of the Signet Library in
Edinburgh, merely stated that the volume had “an old gilt binding”
and refrained from offering any specification of date.3 In my opinion
there are good reasons for believing that the volume was not bound
until a date at least a hundred years later than that proposed by
Munch, and the present binding may in faet be even younger. The
spine of the volume is divided into six compartments by the thick cords
used by the binder; the title ORCADES is stamped in gold Capital
lettering in the second compartment from the top. On the inside of the
front cover is the book-plate of “The Right Hononrøble The Earl of
Panmure | Lord Maule, Brechin, and Navarr,” displaying the owner’s
arms with the motto “Clementia et animis.”4 Above the book-plate at
the top left-hand corner is a shelfmark written in pencil.
A single flyleaf separates the cover from the title-page of the printed
book, which reads: “Fasciculus temporum omnes anti|quorum croni-
cas complectens.” Above the printed title is written in a rather unsure
hånd: “Fasiculus [sic] Temporum Werneri Roleuuinck,” and below is
written: “Robert Norie minister att | Dundie | 1-2.” Norie’s signature
is repeated (without the addition of the numerals “1-2,” to the signifi-
cance of which I shall return later) at the top of the recto of the next
2 Symbolæ ad historiam antiquiorem rerum norvegicarum (Christiania, 1850), p. III:
“Hæc... ligatura non ita multum antiqua esse videtur; characterem præ se fert ineuntis
sæculi 17mi (...).” Munch’s description of the manuscript is reprinted without critical
comment in Gustav Storm (ed.), Monumenta historica Norvegiæ (Kristiania, 1880), pp.
XIV-XVI.
3 “Extracts from a Manuscript Volume of Chronicles, in the Possession of the Right
Honourable Lord Panmure,” BM III (1855), pp. 25-60, at 27.
4 The owner in question was presumably Fox Maule, who held the Barony of Pan-
mure from 1852 (see n. 36 below). Another example of the book-plate may be seen in
the Dalhousie copy of Bower’s Scotichronicon now deposited in the SRO (GD 45 =
Dalhousie Muniments, sec. 26, no. 48), which is a large paper folio manuscript written
in Edinburgh by Magnus Makculloch at the beginning of the year 1481. Nothing is
known of the history of this Scotichronicon manuscript prior to its discovery in the
Dalhousie family library: cf. the brief descriptions in John Stuart, “Report on the
Collection of Papers and Manuscripts belonging to the Earl of Dalhousie at Panmure
House and Brechin Castle,” First Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manu-
scripts (London, 1870), Appendix, pp. 117-19 (at 119), and in W. F. Skene (ed.),
Johannis de Fordun Chronica gentis Scotorum, The Historians of Scotland 1 (Edin-
burgh, 1871), p. xvii.