Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 68
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Michael Chesnutt
The readings K 268 meditabatur (= S), where A has nitebatur (!), and K
252 recipiens (!), where S has precogitans, support the collateral status
of A and S and of *z and K respectively. It is significant that neither A
nor S has any rhymed responds; these were certainly also absent in *z.
At the same time, the faet that A provides only for the one feast but does
so with lessons appropriate to the other may suggest contamination of *z
with an older use of Århus where the Translation (but not the Passion)
was celebrated wholly without proper texts. That may have been the
primitive State of affairs known to the source of Knytlinga saga (cf. p. 4
above).
A gives a chapter cue for the daytime hours after the last lesson of
Matins. This is Beatus vir qui in sapientia (Eccli. 14:22), used in K at
None of the Translation (§ 15:2). For the rest of the Office A refers to the
Common of One Martyr.
5. Provenance and historical development of the liturgy
Gertz speculated in the foreword to his edition of K that the entire litur-
gy as transcribed in that manuscript was compiled for the solemnities at
Ringsted in the summer of 1170, and subsequently shortened for use on
the annual feast days of the saint (VSD 172; cf. Usinger 22). It is, how-
ever, mueh more likely that the liturgical observance of St Knud Lavard
was based in the first instance on the Common of Saints and only later
adomed with proper texts. This is an evolutionary model comparable to
that urged, for example, by Robert Abraham Ottosson for the liturgy of
the Icelandic St Porlåkr, by Eyolf Østrem for the liturgy of the Norwe-
gian St Olav, and surprisingly enough by Gertz himself for the liturgy of
St Knud the King.84 It explains the abundance of texts from the Common
occurring in the Mass Propers as well as in the versions of the Office in
the printed breviaries (see sections 4.1 and 4.2 above and the annota-
tions to the Mass chants of K, edition §§ 17:1 ff.).
84 Cf. Robert Abraham Ottosson (as n. 7 above); Eyolf Østrem, “Om en nyoppdaget
Olavslegende,” in: Inger Ekrem et al. (eds.), Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskriv-
ning i 1100-tallets Norge, Copenhagen 2000, 186-224, here 213; Gertz, Knud den Hel-
liges Martyrhistorie (n. 6 above) 61-62.