Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 87
THE S RECENSION
49*
aid of the Virgin and Guðmundr Arason. Nr 56 is a doublet of nr 55 but
located at Kirkjubær; Bishop Guðmundr is again associated with
Mary. This last episode contains a possible dating reference: a Mary
mass fell on Good Friday. That can only have been the feast of the An-
nunciation, 25 March, and appropriate years were 1239, 1250, 1323,
1334; of these 1239, just two years after the death of Bishop
Guðmundr, would seem the likeliest. This does no more than confirm
a terminus c. 1240 for an antecedent of the 234 text. It can however be
said that it is easy to relate the associations and settings of these
miracles to the southem origin of AM 234 fol.
In AM 394 fol. Jón Sigurðsson noted that 234 was written “sandsyn-
ligviis tidlig i 14de Aarhundrede”. Guðbrandur Vigfússon (Bps. I,
xxxv) said “bókin getr varla verið öllu eldri en frá miðri 14. öld.” Unger
(Thomas saga, 528) remarked “dens Alder kan med temmelig Sikker-
hed sættes omkring Aar 1325” (similarly Maríu saga, xi), an estimate
repeated with odd confidence by Eiríkr Magnússon (Thómas saga II,
270): “The Codex ... is known to have been written about A.D. 1325.”
Kálund (AMKat. I, 194) put it in the “lste del af 14. árh.” Seip (Palæo-
grafi, 128) grouped it with other manuscripts dated to the beginning of
the fourteenth century. Jón Helgason (Handritaspjall, 42) referred to it
as written “á öndverðri 14du öld”. Tveitane (Den lærde stil, 16) com-
ments “AM 234 fol. dateres vanligvis til ca. 1350” - his adverb is hard-
ly justified but, as we shall see, his dating and that of Guðbrandur
Vigfússon must be near the mark.
2. Orthographic indications. Of the two scribes of AM 234 fol.
Hand A is evidently senior and the more conservative, but the main
features of their joint practice appear characteristic of the earlier and
middle part of the fourteenth century. In general they testify to devel-
opments which, though first in evidence before and about 1300, took a
generation or two to become more often represented in scribal prac-
tice. These include forms like ‘nygia’, ‘-lavsri’, <fv) and <gh) spell-
ings, prep. meðr, conj. eðr, adv. hegat, þagat, analogical v- in e.g.
‘vorðinn’, extended demonstrative forms, þessarrar, -rri, -rra, subst.
‘hvspreyia’, <eing> for eng, acc. sg. m. ‘e(i)ngan’, rare neg. adv. ei. On
the other hand, there are features which suggest that a limiting date
about the middle of the fourteenth century would be appropriate: the
restricted use of <;>, the standard distribution of <d) and <ð> and gener-
ally of <r> and <rr>, the predominance of suffix -lig- (total in Hand A),