Gripla - 2022, Side 238

GRIPLA236
This record is most complete for the northern diocese of Hólar, from
the early fourteenth century to the time of the Reformation. The first
major collection of máldagar was compiled by Bishop Auðunn of Hólar
in 1318.2 As an inventory of church books these máldagar have been little
studied: the main scholarship is a series of articles published by Tryggvi J.
Oleson between 1957 and 1961; these respond to and expand upon a 1948
article by Guðbrandur Jónsson, as well as a short book published by Emil
Olmer in 1902.3
The present study has two core aims: first, to resolve a long-standing
misidentification of the term aspiciensbók – a word that only survives in
these máldagar book lists – exploring its meaning and significance in the
context of the source texts and medieval liturgical terminology; second,
to use this example to emphasize the need for updating and expanding
upon Tryggvi Oleson’s articles. While quite thorough and detailed in
2 According to Grágás, the law code for Iceland during much of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, a máldagi was to be kept by every Icelandic church that owned property (Grágás:
Konungsbók, ed. by Vilhjálmur Finsen (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1852), vol.
1, 15). However, a number of these episcopally directed collections of máldagar have
been identified for the fourteenth century and later: for Hólar there is Bishop Auðunn
Þorbergsson’s 1318 collection (DI II, 423–89), Bishop Jón Eiríksson’s from 1360 (DI III,
155–78), Bishop Pétr Nikulásson’s from 1394 (DI III, 508–95), the máldagar of Bishop
Óláfr Rögnvaldsson from 1461 (DI V, 247–361), and a collection made by Sigurðr Jónsson,
the son of Jón Arason, the final Catholic bishop of Hólar, the oldest part of which is from
1525 (DI IX, 293–334). A number of máldagar survive from Skálholt, but the only known
and dated collection is that of Bishop Vilchin Hinriksson from 1397 (DI IV, 27–240).
Several of these collections were produced over several years, and the dates of individual
máldagar can vary – Bishop Óláfr’s, for example, range from 1461 to 1470 – but it is con-
ventional to use the shorthand of assigning them a single year. The vast majority of them
also survive only in post-medieval copies, and when a dating does not survive in the text of
the máldagi itself or a clear attribution to a particular bishop’s collection, it is difficult and
often impossible to accurately date them. Most of the máldagar dated to before 1318 in the
Diplomatarium Islandicum, particularly those attributed to 1179 and the tenure of Bishop
Þorlákr Þórhallsson, are only very speculatively dated and are in need of re-examination
and re-editing.
3 See bibliography for full references. Oleson wrote three articles on the book collections of
Hólar diocese between 1957 and 1960: the first on the 1318 collection, the second on the
1394 one, and the final on the 1461 list. In 1957 and 1961 Oleson also published two articles
on book donations made to Icelandic churches during the medieval period. Though critical
of it in places, Oleson presents Guðbrandur Jónsson’s 1948 article “Íslenzk bókasöfn fyrir
siðabyltinguna” as the best scholarship on the topic available, while he is dismissive of
Olmer’s study (Tryggvi J. Oleson, “Book Collections of Mediaeval Icelandic Churches,”
Speculum 32.3 (1957): 502).