Gripla - 2023, Page 210
208 GRIPLA
Table 1. Medieval fragments and manuscripts of medical books in Old Norse
Collection Shelf mark No. of leaves Dating Origin
1. Copenhagen, Arna-
magnæan Institute
AM 655 xxx 4to 4 1250–1300 Iceland
2. Copenhagen, Arna-
magnæan Institute
AM 696 I 4to 2 c. 1350
Norway
or Iceland
3. Reykjavík, Arna-
magnæan Institute
AM 673 a II 4to [27 lines] c. 1370 Iceland
4. Copenhagen, Arna-
magnæan Institute
AM 194 8vo 12 1387 Iceland
5. Copenhagen, Arna-
magnæan Institute
AM 434 a 12mo 40 1450–1500 Iceland
6. Dublin, Royal Irish
Academy
23 D 43 [8vo] 74 1475–1500 Iceland
Three scholars have dated AM 655 4to to the second half of the thirteenth
century.2 This date means the fragment was produced towards the end
of an exceptionally transformative period in Europe, marked by signifi-
cant social changes and prolific cultural activity. These transformations
occurred broadly from c. 1050 to 1250, spanning what is known as the
long twelfth century, with periods of transitions before and after.3 This
was a time of robust economic and population growth, the development
of towns and cities, the emergence of new institutions and structures for
learning, and the rise of the international orders of the Roman Catholic
Church. Extensive translations of Arabic and Greek philosophical and
scientific works into Latin were made at the beginning of this period. The
by Árni Magnússon at an auction in Denmark, and there is no indication that this manusc-
ript has ever been in Iceland. The text is printed in Viggo Såby, ed., Det Arnamagnæanske
håndskrift nr. 187 i oktav, indeholdende en dansk lægebog (Copenhagen: Thieles, 1886).
2 Hreinn Benediktsson, ed., Early Icelandic Script, as Illustrated in Vernacular Texts from the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Icelandic Manuscripts: Series in Folio II (Reykjavík:
Manuscript Institute of Iceland, 1965), xlix; Kristian Kålund, Katalog over den
Arnamagnæanske håndskriftsamling, 2 vols., vol. II (Copenhagen: Kommissionen for det
Arnamagnæanske legat; Gyldendal, 1889–1894), 66; and Konráð Gíslason, Um frumparta
íslenzkrar túngu í fornöld (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafjelag, 1856), lxxxv.
3 On the demarcation of the period, see Robert Norman Swanson, The Twelfth-Century
Renaissance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 212–213.