Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition in Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia: Essays in Honor of Kirsten Wolf, 2022
In the following study, I investigate the provenance and circulation of Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna M... more In the following study, I investigate the provenance and circulation of Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 624 4to (c. 1500), a voluminous composite miscellaneous manuscript in small quarto format transmitting mostly Old Norse-Icelandic translations of Latin theological, catechetical, homiletical, and computistic literature, along with numerous edifying short tales adapted from Middle English, and fewer original texts composed in the vernacular. Despite its late date of production, the codex bears an enormous historical and literary value within the corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic literature by virtue of its inclusion of some of the most rare and sophisticated devotional texts of the Old Norse-Icelandic corpus. The reason is threefold: AM 624 4to is often the sole surviving witness transmitting its texts (Items 1; 5; 7–8; 13; 15; 19; 27; and 32–33); in several cases it is the oldest extant witness within a given textual tradition (Items 9–11; 14; and 22); in three instances it shares significantly old texts with manuscript material that dates to around 1200 or earlier (Items 6; 10; and 31). In light of new manuscript evidence, I intend to complement previous studies on the codex by presenting a fresh assessment of its codicological composition and paleographic features, producing a more informative analysis of its provenance and circulation, and providing a first exhaustive catalogue of its items. Particular attention is payed to the idiosyncrasies of the first codicological unit (pp. 1–14), which has hitherto received virtually no scholarly attention.
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cult of the saints within its wider European context, the contributions trace new historical routes of cultural transmission and define the creative processes of the accommodation and adaptation of foreign hagiographic sources and models in medieval and early modern Iceland. They provide a clear picture of an Icelandic hagiographic literature and culture that celebrates the splendour of the saints; they also show how an engaging literary genre, which became immensely popular on the island throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, was created.
Ten Commandments. It found an ever-expanding audience among Lutherans interested in wisdom drawn from Scriptures, history, and the natural world and circulated widely in Europe in both German and Latin. The present study demonstrates that in all likelihood Ólafur Jónsson translated sections of the rearranged Latin text of the "Promptuarium" published by Philip Lonicer (1532– 1599) in 1575 under the title "Theatrum historicum".
cult of the saints within its wider European context, the contributions trace new historical routes of cultural transmission and define the creative processes of the accommodation and adaptation of foreign hagiographic sources and models in medieval and early modern Iceland. They provide a clear picture of an Icelandic hagiographic literature and culture that celebrates the splendour of the saints; they also show how an engaging literary genre, which became immensely popular on the island throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, was created.
Ten Commandments. It found an ever-expanding audience among Lutherans interested in wisdom drawn from Scriptures, history, and the natural world and circulated widely in Europe in both German and Latin. The present study demonstrates that in all likelihood Ólafur Jónsson translated sections of the rearranged Latin text of the "Promptuarium" published by Philip Lonicer (1532– 1599) in 1575 under the title "Theatrum historicum".
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The present paper aims at surveying two of the four interpolations of Niðrstigningar saga that concern two highly divergent descriptions of Satan. In the first instance, the regular course of the apocryphon is interrupted to describe Satan as the terrifying seven-headed dragon of Revelation 12:3, who threatens to destroy the world. In the second instance, the Latin text is amplified with a description of Satan’s rushed trip to Jerusalem to swallow the dying Christ. Yet, at the moment of gulping down his pray, the body of Christ served as a human bait and the Cross functioned as a divine hook: thus Christ is said to have “deceived the Deceiver” through the concealment of his divinity within His human form, while Satan is figuratively described as entrapped on the Cross “like a fish on a fishhook, a mouse in a mousetrap or a fox in a snare”. The paper argues that these mighty metaphors are likely derived from Augustine’s Sermo 265D (De Quadragesima Ascensione Domini), a sermon originally delivered against the Manicheans and their heresies, which contemplated Christ as a pure emanation of the deity and neglected his human substance. The Icelandic compiler might have been acquainted with its text in the form of a marginal gloss to Peter Lombard’s Sententiae in IV libris distinctae (ca. 1157) that expanded upon one of the New Testament loci that alludes to Christ’s victory over the Devil through the Cross. Finally, it is advanced that the typological connection between the historical Harrowing of Hell and Christ’s ultimate dealing with Satan of the first interpolation renders the Icelandic translation more topical and confers on it a more liturgical character, while the second interpolation places great emphasis on Satan’s inability to recognize Christ’s inseparable natures, the human and the divine, and might well reflect antinihilistic positions that spread rapidly throughout Europe after the Third Lateran Council (1179).