Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 241
“EYRSILFR DRUKKIT, ÞAT GERIR BANA” 239
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S U M M A R Y
“Eyrsilfr drukkit, þat gerir bana”: The Earliest Old Norse Medical Book, AM 655
XXX 4to, and Its Context
Keywords: AM 655 XXX 4to, medieval medicine, Old Norse medical books,
history of medicine, Henrik Harpestræng, vernacular medical books, Old Norse
medicine
This essay offers an examination of an Icelandic thirteenth-century manuscript
fragment which represents the earliest extant traces of a medical book in the
vernacular in medieval Scandinavian culture. The fragment contains fifty-two
articles, describing various ailments and their cures as well as the medical effects
of different plants and other materials. The origins of this manuscript remain
enigmatic. The essay aims to shed what light is possible on its origins and use.
It includes a description of the manuscript’s physical characteristics, an analysis
of its literary and sociological context, and a critical discussion of what this may
tentatively tell us about the production, purpose, and use of the medical codex
to which the fragment once belonged. The manuscript materially exemplifies
the movement of Arabic and Latin medical knowledge from Italy to Denmark
through Norway to Iceland. The essay further argues that the manuscript’s
obscure relationship to five other Old Norse medical books illustrates the common
medieval tradition of freely reworking medical material into individual specific
contexts. The physical features of the fragment indicate that the codex which it