Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 50
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INTRODUCTION
Þorláksson in 1687 (see p. 15*; Hándskriftfortegnelser, 5-7; cf. pp.
102*-03*, 184* on AM 391 4to and AM 205 fol.; Opuscula V, 407). At
that time the beginning of Antonius saga was missing but Augustinus
saga was not defective.1 The codex then went back to Iceland but was
again sent toÁmi Magnússon in 1699 (Hándskriftfortegnelser, 61-62).
It then lacked leaves in Antonius saga, Páls saga and Augustinus saga,
but these (fols. 7, 27 and the mutilated 72) Ámi Magnússon obtained
in Iceland after 1702. The Vitae patrum and Thómas saga fragments
also came into his hands in Iceland after 1702. Their shape, spine
holes and script showed him they had once belonged to 234 as he
knew it from Skálholt, but examination of the manuscript, which came
to him without a binding (Hándskriftfortegnelser, 5 and 61), showed
him that there was room for these texts neither at the front nor at the
back of the volume. He concluded that it had been rebound and these
texts separated from it when that was done. He recalled that Þormóður
Torfason had told him that in his schooldays at Skálholt (1646-54) the
volume had been ‘hier um þverhandar þyckt’ - an appropriate size if
the two errant texts were included in it. Árni Magnússon was left
puzzled by the fact that ‘kialar ummbuningurinn’ appeared ‘elldre enn
i vorri tid’, but he acted on the assumption that Þormóður remembered
the size correctly and could only stick to his conclusion that the vol-
ume had been rebound since Þormóður’s schooldays and that Vitae
patrum and Thómas saga were then excluded. We seem to have no al-
temative but to come to the same necessarily tentative conclusion. It
was possibly at this binding stage that some leaves were very lightly
trimmed. Some guide-titles are damaged (e.g. at the top of fols. 41v,
42v, 60v, in the left-hand margin of 61v); some titles and letters may
of course have been removed completely. The condition of the volume
inÁmi Magnússon’s keeping is not clear. In Jón Olafsson’s 1730 cata-
logue in AM 456 fol. it is merely recorded as ‘Vitæ Sanctorum i störu
folio á pergam. Samanbunded’.
Árni Magnússon (followed by Kálund, AMKat. I, 195) thought it
possible to conclude that Vitae patrum were meant to come first in the
original volume because of the initial blank page, fol. 74r. The theory
has to be weighed against the evidence from the codex which shows
1 It was then that Árni Magnússon excerpted ‘vetustiores et rariores voculas’, words
now underlined in red chalk in the codex. Cf. EIM III, 17.