Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Qupperneq 307

KNOWLEDGE OF JÓNS SAGA
265*
1500 (AMKat. II, 103; AMOrdbog Registre, 462), and were obtained
by Arni Magnússon in 1707, two of them from Flatey, two from
Fjörður on Barðarströnd. Both feast-days of Jón helgi are included
among the notices on fol. lr. The texts are given in an inaccurate nor-
malised transcript by Guðbrandur Jónsson in Afmælisrit helgað Einari
Arnórssyni, 120-21. The entry for 23 April is brief and has no detail
relating to any of the preserved texts of Jóns saga:
Agiæta haatid eigum vier at hallda Jons Holabyskups .a N. er þetta
land tignar med agiætvm jarteignum sins lifnadar. skulum vier
þann d(ag) hallda sem stærstu postula messur. eigi er þar skyllt at
fasta. uinna til mids aptans.
The announcement of the celebration of the translation, 3 March, is
more elaborate:
Upptoku dagur hins heilaga Johanne (sic) Hola biskups er N.
[halþdinn j þa minning er hans bein voru ur jordu tek[inj og þeim
s[tortak]num sem þa bar til. þuiat ilmande graus funduzt aa hans
leide voru þau borin i dryck fyrir Brandi biskupi (written bþc) er þa
rikte at Holum og feck hann þar af heilsu og margir adrir. Skal þann
dag sem postula messur [halldaj og vinna til solarfallzt.
Cf. S 34/8, H 55/6, 9-10, L2 52/8-9, 11-12, where it will be seen that S
and H have ‘þa fuNdu þeir þar gros’ but L2 ‘fundu þæir i gröfinni ilm-
andi gros’ in agreement with the helgidagaboð fragment.
As Guðbrandur Jónsson pointed out (p. 125), it is uncertain
whether this messudagalcver was an individual priest’s memorandum
of announcements or whether it represents a fixed form in general use.
He inclines to the latter view, connecting the text with a diocesan ordi-
nance of Gyrðr ívarsson, bishop of Skálholt 1350-1360, issued while
he was on visitation in the Vestfirðir (DIIII, 92-95). The notices obvi-
ously came into being in their present form after Jón helgV s transla-
tion was established as a feast-day by Bishop Auðun rauði in his time
in Iceland, 1314-22 (Laurentius saga, 37; DN XVII B:l, 273-74), but,
as Guðbrandur Jónsson also noted, Bishop Gyrð’s injunction, ‘Lysi ok
merkiliga j kirkiu vm heilagra daga halld ok fostu tiða’ could have
been no sort of nýmæli. That such a messudagakver had a more or less