Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 123
THE S RECENSION
81*
pears to have been at Torfastaðir at least from the incumbency of
1601-07 to that of 1646-56, but was back in Skálholt by 1674. It thus
escaped the fate of the Skálholt books and records that perished in the
1630 fire (Skarðsárannáll, Annálar 1400-1800 I, 232).
AM 235 fol., with illuminated initials, the work of three scribes and
rubricated by a fourth, was clearly a scriptorium product. As a lec-
tionary in calendar order it may have been intended for church use
rather than private reading, and the absence of marginalia older than
the sixteenth century suggests that it led a cloistered existence in pre-
Reformation times. The Jóns saga text it contains is of the same re-
cension as that found in AM 221 fol. and its copy in AM 234 fol., both
manuscripts associated with Skálholt. In spite of these factors it can-
not be certainly concluded that Skálholt was where 235 was made.
Some caution may be prompted by the consideration that 235’s near-
est parallel as a collection of saints’ lives (though not on the calendar
principle), Stock. perg. fol. nr 2, was mainly written by a well-to-do
layman, probably at Víðidalstunga in Húnavatnssýsla, a generation or
so after 235 was compiled; and that the script of Hand C in 235 is
generically similar to that of a group of northem documents from the
end of the fourteenth century.44 Magnús Már Lárusson suggested a
particular northern origin for the Magnúss saga Eyjajarls in 235. He
wrote: “Næsta saga í skinnbókinni aftan við Magnúss sögu er Jóns
saga helga. Það er því eigi fráleitt að láta sér detta í hug, að textinn sé
fenginn norðan úr landi” (Saga 1962, 488; cf. Finnbogi Guðmunds-
son, íf. XXXIV, cxxxi). This Magnúss saga may be of ultimate north-
ern origin, but that it is followed by a life of Jón helgi obviously de-
pends on the calendar arrangement and is irrelevant in judging prove-
nance.
On balance, it seems likely that 235 was made in Skálholt and found
shelter there and at Torfastaðir until it came into Ámi Magnússon’s
possession. But it might have come to Skálholt from elsewhere, after
the 1526 fire, for instance, though it is said that books were mostly
rescued from the church on the occasion of that disaster (cf. Safn I,
65). Detailed work on the 235 texts may in time provide a more deci-
sive answer.
44 Those associated with Brynjólfur Bjamarson and his son Benedikt in Skagafjörður;
cf. IO, Tekst, xxxviii-xxxix; EIM XIX, 55-60.