Gripla - 2022, Page 258

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read from them, and do so from a distance; they were also called
aspiciensbækur.)
Guðbrandur seems to have read into the literal sense of the descriptors
here, aspiciens as “looking upon” and frammistaða as “standing forth/out,”
and presumably then connected the two ideas as different perspectives on
a large format book: the book is both looked upon from a distance and it
stands out in its place in the choir. There is, however, no concrete basis
for drawing a connection between the two terms. Cleasby-Vigfússon’s
dictionary offers a completely different interpretation of frammistöðubók,
suggesting that it was in fact a term for a Missal, and thus actually a book
for Mass rather than the Office, and it was so named “from being read by
the priest while standing.”70 However, both senses may obscure the dis-
tinctiveness of the term: frammistöðubók is only ever used to describe one
or two books at Hólar cathedral itself, never any other books in any other
churches, and as such it may reflect either a unique book or a distinctive
terminology within the cathedral community.71
Guðbandur Jónsson’s definition soon established itself. Without any
discussion of the term, the first volume of the Kulturhistorisk leksikon
for nordisk middelalder, from 1956, has an entry for aspiciensbók, where it
simply references the article on the Breviary.72 Soon afterwards Tryggvi
Oleson’s articles began to appear and became the standard study of me-
dieval Icelandic church books. While Oleson is critical of Guðbrandur
Jónsson in places,73 his 1957 article copied Guðbrandur’s definition of
70 Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 170. Missal is also the
definition given in the 1972 additions to Fritzner’s dictionary, which originally had no entry
for frammistöðubók (Finn Hødnebø, Rettelser og Tillegg: Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog
af Dr. Johan Fritzner (Oslo: Universitetforlaget, 1972), 108).
71 There are two frammistöðubœkr in the 1396 book list for Hólar (DI 3, 612), but only one
copy in 1525, which is said to cover the entire year, with commone (DI IX, 296); commone
is likely referring to common/ferial days, the normal weekday services. The description
is thus emphasizing that it is a very complete book. In both lists the frammistöðubœkr are
stored in the choir of the cathedral, which might be thought to support Guðbrandur’s
definition, but altar books are kept in the same space, and the place of storage cannot be
equated with place of usage. The existence of two copies in 1396 does seem to argue against
the idea of the frammistöðubók being some sort of nickname for a particular codex, but it is
not impossible that a copy had been made of a previously unique book.
72 “Aspiciensbog,” KLNM Vol. 1 (1956), 273.
73 Most notably, Oleson disputes Guðbrandur’s conclusion that Icelandic church book collections
were “small and unimpressive.” (Oleson, “Book Collections of Mediaeval Icelandic Churches,”
509).