Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 65

63GENESIS AND PROVENANCE OF THE OLDEST SOUL
the farmer Ólafur Jónsson (d. 1800) on the island of Arney
(northwestern Iceland) between 1780 and 1790. The text
is introduced by a rubric that records another erroneous
attribution of the text: “Her Biriast Bernardi Leidsla” (WB
280/382) (Here begins the vision of Bernard).18
The present essay traces the manuscript filiation and the paths of trans-
mission of Viðrǿða líkams ok sálar. Through a qualitative analysis of
concurrent readings, it has been possible to confirm and expand the
stemma hypothesized by Widding and Bekker-Nielsen. Furthermore,
from a complete collation of Viðrǿða líkams ok sálar with variants of
the Desputisun, the study argues that the presence of readings typical
of a so-called “Continental tradition” indicates that the lost manuscript
source was a French codex, produced in a Benedictine monastery in
Flanders. Subsequently, it was transferred from Flanders to a Norwegian
Benedictine monastery, such as Munkeliv in Bergen, via a profitable
network that connected Norwegian Benedictine foundations with their
Flemish sister houses.
Manuscript Filiation
The relationship between the four manuscripts—NAR1R2—has been stud-
ied by Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen, who have postulated the
existence of a now-lost archetype of the Norse text, designated in their
study by the siglum Y.19 It was soon clear to Widding and Bekker-Nielsen
that the Old Norwegian Homily Book (N) retains the highest stemmatic
value within the Norse tradition and that it must be fairly close to the
archetype Y.20 Two additional branches are derived from Y, one which
18 With “Bernard,” the scribe refers to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). However, the de-
scription that follows does not correspond to the biography of the well-known Cistercian
monk. As a matter of fact, the Bernard referred to in A is defined on fol. 10r as follows:
“Einn Vis oc vellærdr madr Bernhardus ad nafne var i einum Stad á leid á Englande” (WB
280/33–34) (A wise and well-educated man named Bernard was in one location travelling
in England). However, this attribution is erroneous: the copist of A probably confused the
texts of Nuper with that of Visio Philiberti, which has been often attributed to Bernard of
Clairvaux. See the discussion in Jonas Wellendorf, Kristelig visionslitteratur i norrøn tradi-
tion, Bibliotheca Nordica 1 (Oslo, 2009), 51–42.
19 Widding and Bekker-Nielsen, 278.
20 Widding and Bekker-Nielsen, 275.