Gripla - 2022, Síða 250

GRIPLA248
were always interchangeable, but the charters of the church of Hrafnagil in
Eyjafjörðr hint that they may have been: a collectarium in the 1318 máldagi
appears to have morphed into a capitularius in the 1394 máldagi.41
Lesbók almost certainly indicates a Lectionary, but Lectionaries were a
broad category of books that could contain readings for either Office or
Mass; only the Office Lectionaries were compiled into the Breviary. There
is no close English equivalent to lesbók, and it is possible that it is a Norse
invention.42 The standard Old English term for an Office Lectionary,
according to Gneuss, was rædingaboc;43 an equivalent Norse term, redd-
ingbók, does appear in the 1318 list for that same church of Hrafnagil in
Eyjafjörðr, but it impossible to judge the significance or motivation behind
such an isolated usage.44 The term málbók also probably originally referred
to a Lectionary, and has the same general semantic sense as lesbók and redd-
ingabók. Like the reddingabók, however, málbók only appears in a single
list.45 Finally, a definition for the term legendubók was not attempted by
Oleson, and no definition appears in any Old Norse dictionary, but it is
possible it also refers to a Lectionary of some kind.46
41 DI II, 453; DI III, 560–61. The two lists have a number of differences, and of course these
may be entirely different books. However, there is a clear tendency for small variations bet-
ween scribes in such lists; in the Hrafnagil lists there is a notable variation between Latin
gradualia and the adapted loanword grallari when referring to Graduals. So it is at least
feasible that collectarium and capitularius could be used by different scribes to describe the
same book. See also footnote 19.
42 However, further research into German and other vernacular traditions could uncover
parallels: even if it has a completely different meaning from lesbók, the existence of the
modern German Lesebuch is a compelling hint that there could be a connection.
43 Gneuss, “Liturgical Books,” 120–21.
44 There were nine reddingabœkr at Hrafnagil in 1318 (DI II, 453). However, in the 1394
list for the same church, the reddingabœkr have disappeared, and a very conspicuous nine
legendubœkr have appeared (DI III, 560–61). See note 45 below. The Old Norse term
ræðingr was also used for Latin lectio, in the sense of a liturgical reading (onp.ku.dk/onp/
onp.php?o65829).
45 DI I, 256.
46 By my own count, there are one or more legendubœkr at ten churches in Hólar diocese in
the 1318 lists (DI II, 434–85). Cleasby-Vigfússon gloss legenda simply as “legend” (Richard
Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1874), 378). The different names used for a Lectionary refer to the fact that it is a
collection of lectiones, readings used in various parts of the liturgy, generally taken from
scripture or saints’ lives. Legenda could also indicate such a reading, perhaps specifically
a reading from a saint’s life: Gneuss uses the term “legendary” to describe collections of
saints’ lives for liturgical use, though he does not reference any medieval uses of such a