Gripla - 2022, Page 180

GRIPLA178
Helga was sadly not long the owner of the beautifully rebound Mar-
grétar saga, and the widowed Jón never remarried after Helga’s death. He
had a 21-year-old illegitimate daughter named Solveig who was living with
him at the time of the 1703 census. Jón seems to have lived in comfort at
Bakki to the end of his days: the 1703 census lists eight servants employed
in his household. Jón had passed away by the time that Árni received
Margrétar saga, but this and his other manuscripts were well cared for
during his lifetime.
Conclusion
At least for some early modern owners, a medieval copy of Margrétar
saga represented an object of considerable prestige. The showy rebinding
of Margrétar saga in AM 428 a 12mo, with new title-pages declaring its
owner’s name in red and gold and the conspicuous intermingling of newly
copied Lutheran and Catholic prayers, is strong evidence against suppres-
sion of the saga in the seventeenth century. This is consistent with the
findings of earlier research on medieval and Neo-Latin religious literature
in early modern Iceland.72
Although early modern Icelandic clergymen must have been aware
that Margrétar saga was associated with birthing practices, this was not
sufficient to support the systematic destruction of copies of the saga. The
legend of St. Margaret of Antioch received a positive reception from early
modern Icelandic audiences, and the transition from vellum to the more
fragile medium of paper provides the most obvious explanation as to why
so few copies of her saga survive from the seventeenth century, espe-
cially in instances where the saga was originally copied as a small booklet.
Margrétar saga in AM 428 a 12mo belonged to an upper-class Icelandic
72 Guðrún Nordal, “Á mörkum tveggja tíma: Kaþólskt kvæðahandrit með hendi sið-
bótarmanns, Gísla biskups Jónssonar,” Gripla 16 (2005): 209–28, at 224–25; Einar
Sigurbjörnsson, “Ad beatum virginem,” Brynjólfur biskup – kirkjuhöfðingi, fræðimaður og
skáld: Safn ritgerða í tilefni af 400 ára afmæli Brynjólfs Sveinssonar 14. september 2005, ed. by
Jón Pálsson, Sigurður Pétursson and Torfi H. Tulinius (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 2006),
64–77; Einar Sigurbjörnsson, “Lilja: Erindi á málþingi um biblíuleg stef í íslenskum forn-
bókmenntum,” Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunnar 15 (2001): 155–75; Einar Sigurbjörnsson, “‘Má
hún vel kallast makleg þess …’: Um Maríu Guðs móður,” Tímarit Háskóla Íslands 5.1 (1990):
105–15.