Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.12.1960, Page 113

INLEDNING
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period. His attempt to do so is based on the text of a letter from
c. 1500, which is found on f. 88v in 556. The letter seems to be
written by a borrower of the ms to the owner of it (see pp. 16—
19 and p. 29 in the present volume). A woman named Oddný is
mentioned in it. In Diplomatarium Islandicum the author has found
only one woman with this name who could be the same person
as the woman in the letter. This is a certain Oddný Jónsdóttir, and
the author discusses thoroughly the possibility of identifying her
with the woman in the letter. The author tliinks it is possible, but
not very probable, that she is the woman referred to. If she is, the
writer of the letter would be her father, Jón Arngrímsson, a lög-
réttumaður in Eyjafjarðar sýsla, and the owner of the ms would
be her husband, the farmer Þórarinn Steindórsson of Bólstaðarhlíð
in Skagafjarðar sýsla.
By comparing the hand in the letter on f. 88v in 556 with the
hands in diplomas from c. 1450 to c. 1525, the author believes he
has found the hand in the letter occurring again in a diploma from
1493. Pp. 23—29 contain arguments for this identification, and a
discussion of how far this can contribute to the identification of
the writer of the letter. Here too the author thinks it is possible
that Jón Arngrímsson was the writer, although no direct historical
support for the theory has been found. In this connection the author
in conclusion puts forward a further theory, partly independent of
the preceding, according to which the lögmaður Jón Sigmundsson
(died 1520) owned the ms and gave it to his friend Björn Guðnason
of Ögur (died 1518), whose grandson is the first known owner of
the ms. Some support for this theory is given subsequently (see
p. 29f. and p. 102f.).
A large section of the introduction, pp. 33—-79, is devoted to a
detailed account of the palæography, orthography and phonology
of Harð. as it is in the ms. This virtually complete presentation
of these phenomena is intended to be one of a series of studies of
mss, which together could provide the basis of a detailed know-
ledge of the changes in writing and language in Iceland in the later
middle ages. Most of the phenomena dealt with in this section
cannot be mentioned here; but for example, special forms of the