Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Page 68
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Munch does not actually conceal the faet that he had enjoyed the
inspiration and assistance of Scottish scholars during his stay in Edin-
burgh. In the preface to his publication of 1850 he writes:
Superiore autem anno, dum, publico stipendio munitus, Edinoburgi versa-
bar, doctissimus D. Laing, bibliothecæ scribarum sigilli regii custos celeberri-
mus, quum in eo esset, ut diploma sæpius nominatum [i.e. the Orkney
Genealogy] una eum aliis rebus in eodem codice contentis iterum, accuratius-
que quam antea, ederet in libro inscripto “Miscellanea Bannatyniana” Vol.
III, codicem ipsum mihi ostendit, quem tum revera non illud diploma solum,
sed etiam breve chronicon Norvegiæ hactenus ineditum et ignotum, in ipso
quidem initio, præter alia ad historiam Scotiæ pertinentia, continere com-
perui. Nihil igitur mihi potius erat, quam ut hoc chronicon exseriberem, quod
etiam, facta mihi libentissime ejus rei copia a celeberrimo Alexandro Macdon-
ald, cujus custodiæ liber ab ipso possessore, nobilissimo Barone de Panmure,
commissus erat, quam accuratissime feei, meumque apographum postea, ami-
cissima opera Davidis Laing adjutus, eum originali tam minute comparavi, ut
pro certo affirmare possim, ne in singula quidem litera illud ab originali discre-
pare.36
The self-confidence of the last sentence is misplaced, for Munch’s
younger compatriot Storm, who collated the manuscript afresh some
25 years later, found ‘not a few errors’ in Munch’s transcript of the
Historia Norvegiae.37 It is also more than a little disingenuous of
Munch to imply that the Scots had entirely overlooked the significance
of the Historia Norvegiae, knowing as he did that a short extract from
it was among the “aliis rebus in eodem codice contentis” which Laing
had selected for the Miscellany. It may be noted that Munch’s list of
the contents of the manuscript explicitly announces the inclusion in
the fortheoming Miscellany volume of those articles which did not
direetly interest him as a Norwegian historian;38 from this we may
36 Symbolæ, pp. I-II. The Baron of Panmure here referred to as owner of the manu-
script was William Ramsay (1771-1852), whose son Fox Maule became eleventh Earl of
Dalhousie in 1860; cf. James Balfour Paul (ed.), The Scots Peerage VII (Edinburgh,
1910), p. 24.
37 Monumenta, p. XVI. Storm obtained the manuscript on loan from the then Earl of
Dalhousie, George Ramsay: correspondence relating to the loan is to be found in SRO,
GD 45, sec. 14, no. 907, where it may be seen that the manuscript was sent to Norway at
Christmas 1875.
38 Symbolæ, p. III.