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“EYRSILFR DRUKKIT, ÞAT GERIR BANA” 221
have only included content of medicinal nature. Additionally, they encom-
pass the most diverse assortment of medical material among all of them.
The last two manuscripts bear the closest textual resemblance to 655,
especially 434, and they are also of a small handbook-size, similar to
655. This raises the idea that the codex to which 655 belonged may have
included additional medical topics, similar to those found in 434 and D.
The missing outer part of the quire, and possibly additional quires, might
have included a more substantial list of diseases and cures, as well as a
richer herbal pharmacology, in addition to other topics frequently found
in medieval medical texts, such as sections on seasonal regimens, prognos-
tics, phlebotomy, and so on. However, any attempt to estimate the length
and possible other content of the codex to which the fragment originally
belonged can only be speculative. As the descriptions of the other five
manuscripts show, the extant Old Norse medical manuscripts are far from
uniform. The same applies to the surviving medical manuscripts in other
vernacular languages, such as English, of which the vast majority is derived
from Latin source texts: they exhibit significant variation in complexity
and range of subjects covered.54 Comparing 655 xxx with 434 and D is
further complicated by the fact that they are separated by two centuries.
Turning to the practice of medicine, it has been argued here that 655
was made to be used as a practical handbook and that the manuscript’s fea-
tures indicate that it was valued as such. But if it was really used, then how,
and by whom? The available knowledge concerning actual medicinal prac-
tices in Iceland during this period is unfortunately very limited.55 There
is evidence suggesting that medical practice was somewhat regulated. The
contemporary law code contains a clause addressing liability for medical
adverse effects: the lawbook Grágás includes a section on the exemption
from punishment of a well-intentioned healer if the patient suffers death
or harm due to cauterisation, phlebotomy, or other healing practices.56
54 Linda Ehrsam Voigts provides a handy list of the most common topics in “Multitudes
of Middle English Medical Manuscripts, or the Englishing of Science and Medicine,”
in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays, ed. Margaret R. Schleissner
(London: Routledge, 1995), 192. For an overview, see also Getz, Medicine in the English
Middle Ages, 35–64.
55 An overview is provided in Finnur Jónsson, Lægekunsten. See also Jón Steffensen,
“Alþýðulækningar”.
56 Grágás. Lagasafn íslenska þjóðveldisins, ed. Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson, and
Mörður Árnason (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 1992), 267. A similar paragraph is in the