Gripla - 2022, Síða 256

GRIPLA254
for the lost corpus of Icelandic liturgical books and the necessity of more
detailed research.
The earliest scholarly attempts to understand aspiciensbók appear in
the later nineteenth century. An Icelandic-English Dictionary, compiled by
Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon and released in 1874, records
both aspiciensbók and aspiciensskrá,63 but only describes it as “a service-
book.”64 Johan Fritzner’s authoritative Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog,
released and revised between 1886 and 1896, makes no mention of the
term, and apart from Cleasby–Vigfússon’s minimalist definition, other
dictionaries of the period appear to have shared Fritzner’s approach.65
This general disinterest among dictionary writers is perhaps understand-
able, when considering that the term only appears in the máldagar, and
Guðbrandur Vigfússon’s interest in these texts and their language was
something of an exception. While Emil Olmer’s 1902 Boksamlingar på
Island 1179-1490, noted at the beginning of this study, compiles references
to aspiciensbœkr, it makes no attempt at a definition.
Two publications in the 1880s identified the aspiciensbók with some
success, but neither made any impact on later scholarship. Gustaf Ceder-
schiöld released a study on the earliest máldagar, those thought to have
been from the so-called Free State period, c. 930–1262, which spends a
few pages discussing and identifying liturgical books. In this section he
suggests that aspiciens could refer to the incipit of the book, but does not
go any further; while aspiciens is not actually the incipit of the Antiphonal,
Cederschiöld was clearly on the right track.66 The second reference is
63 It is not certain what the distinction between bók and skrá in the máldagar may have been.
It is possible that the skrár were simply unbound books or loose gatherings. In any case,
aspiciensskrá is a very rare term, and there only appears to be one example in the extant
corpus, alongside a single aspiciensbókarskrá, both in the 1394 Hólar lists (DI III, 556, 573).
64 Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 25.
65 Aspiciensbók does not appear in Erik Jonsson, Oldnordisk Ordbog (Copenhagen: Det
Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 1863) and is absent from the other early dictionaries
examined in this study. Die Lehnwörter des Altestnordischen specifically notes aspiciensbók
and aspiciensskrá as among those learned loanwords dealt with by Cleasby-Vigfússon that
it would pass over (Frank Fischer, Die Lehnwörter des Altwestnordischen (Berlin: Mayer &
Müller, 1909), 10–11).
66 In the footnote to aspiciensbók: “Denna titel förekommer ofta i Aud måld.; kan benämnin-
gen vara tagen från textens begynnelseord?” (Gustaf Cederschiöld, “Studier öfver isländska
kyrkomåldagar från fristatstiden,” (Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 2 (1887):
62).