Gripla - 2023, Page 277
THE LIBRARY AT BRÆÐRATUNGA 275
S U M M A R Y
The Library at Bræðratunga: Manuscript Ownership and Private Library-Building
in Early Modern Iceland
Keywords: Helga Magnúsdóttir of Bræðratunga, Icelandic manuscript culture,
circulation of manuscripts before 1700, private book ownership, early modern
women’s libraries
Library institutions did not exist in early modern Iceland, meaning that private
ownership was central to the preservation of pre-modern manuscripts and
literature. However, personal collections are poorly documented in comparison
to the activities of manuscript collectors such as Árni Magnússon. This article
examines the case study of Helga Magnúsdóttir (1623–1677) and book ownership
at her home of Bræðratunga in South Iceland, concluding that Helga Magnúsdóttir
engaged in library-building as a social strategy following the death of her husband,
Hákon Gíslason (1614–1652). The inventory of the Bræðratunga estate from 1653
includes only four books, all printed. However, nine manuscripts are conclusively
identified as having been at Bræðratunga at least briefly during the period from c.
1653 to 1677, and evidence for the presence of another five items is discussed.
Examination of surviving volumes suggests that Helga’s goal was to participate
in an active culture of sharing manuscript material across distances, rather than
to accumulate a large stationary collection of printed books and codices for
Bræðratunga. She thereby played an important but easily overlooked role in the
survival of Old Norse-Icelandic literature in the early modern period. Of the
manuscripts at Bræðratunga, at least two likely came from Helga’s childhood home
of Munkaþverá in North Iceland, the former site of a Benedictine monastery. Her
cousin Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson of Skálholt (1605–1675) also gifted books
to Helga and her family, and on his death she inherited half of his collection
of Icelandic books and manuscripts, making her the owner of one of the most
significant collections of Icelandic manuscripts in the country. The survival of
books from Helga’s library was negatively impacted by the Fire of Copenhagen
in 1728, the extinction of her family line in the eighteenth century as a long-term
consequence of the 1707–1709 smallpox epidemic and collector Árni Magnússon’s
antagonistic relationship with two of her children’s heirs. Árni’s relationship with
Oddur Sigurðsson (1681–1741), Helga’s grandson and last living descendent, did
eventually improve; an appendix includes a list of manuscripts that Oddur loaned
to Árni and may have come from the library at Bræðratunga.