Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Page 271

7-2 Åsgeir Jonsson group
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III. Manuscripts where 135 and 635 are dominant: AM 35-36-63 fol,
NB Oslo 521 fol (Prologue, Noregskonungatal).
The forms of these letters provide evidence that the manuscripts
in Group I are Åsgeir Jonsson’s oldest transcripts from his time with
Torfæus, while those in Group III are his most recent and those in
Group II were produced in the intervening period.
AM38 fol testifies that the transcripts in Group III were made affer
1698 (i. e. in 1699 or later). In the corrections, which according to Ås-
geir Jonsson’s annotation (see below, pp. 146—147) were written at the
earliest in 1698, syo is still being used, e.g. trefins p. 19, Morftr p. 85,
etc.
The above investigation shows that there is agreement between
palaeographical and codicological criteria pointing to 35-36-63 hav-
ing been among Åsgeir Jonsson’s more recent transcripts. AM 42 fol,
which has a watermark also found in a document from 1687, and AM
77 a fol, which is written in the fraktur style that Hubert Seelow con-
nects with Åsgeir Jonsson’s oldest transcripts, both have the same b/f
combination as AM yo fol. This confirms that Group I represents the
oldest and Group III the most recent transcripts.
Åsgeir Jonsson kept a copybook on Karmøy for Torfæus’s corre-
spondence. It is preserved as AM 282-285 a fol. In the oldest copies of
letters only byo is used, while 635 appears towards the end of 1693. The
situation is a little more complicated when it comes to the transition
from syo to S35. The latter is used in a quotation from an Old Norse
text in a copy of a letter dated 14.1.1699, but it is not the only form
used. It is, however, found in Latin passages in several older letters, at
any rate from 1695. If we bring together observations from the copies
of letters and from the manuscripts, we can date the transition between
Group I and Group II to 1693 at the latest, and between Group II and
Group III to c. 1699.