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Reviewed by:
  • Opuscula 13
  • Kirsten Wolf
Opuscula 13. Edited by Britta Olrik Frederiksen and Jonna Louis-Jensen. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, 47. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010. Pp. 300; 5 plates. DKK 375.

This recent volume in the Bibliotheca Series, edited under the auspices of the Arnamagnaean Collection, contains nine articles in Danish and German on a variety of topics related to Old Norse, Icelandic, and Danish manuscripts.

Two articles concern Danish and Danish-Latin manuscripts. Lena Rohrbach's "Pragmatik in Szene gesetzt. Mediale Dimensionen spätmittelalterlicher Handschriften des Jyske Lov" examines three major changes made in late-medieval manuscripts of Jyske Lov: the introduction of systematic indices, glosses, and the production of a short version of the law code itself. Rohrbach points out that these changes appear around the same time in a small group of manuscripts from the second half of the fifteenth century and virtually only in Jyske Lov, one of the four Danish provincial laws, and argues that they were introduced by an elite with close connections to the royal house in order to establish Jyske Lov as a binding, authoritative law code by the end of the Middle Ages. Britta Olrik Frederiksen's "Qve ista que ascendit. Et fragment af en latinsk prædiken i AM 76 8vo" discusses a fragment of a Latin sermon in AM 76 8vo, which begins with a quotation of Cant. 8,5 followed by the words "Filius dei hodierna die matrem suam honorans secundum cursum mundi." In contrast to Jørgen Raasted, who proposed to emend "(secundum cursum) mundi" to "(secundum cursum) anni" and associate the occasion with the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, Olrik Frederiksen proposes to associate the occasion with the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and reads "secundum cursum mundi" as "after her life on earth." She finds support for her argument in a sermon with the same wording as in AM 76 8vo in the manuscript Graz 1423 and prints the section in Graz 1423 as documentation and in order to help understand the fragmentary and distorted text in AM 76 8vo. [End Page 274]

Of the seven articles on Old Norse-Icelandic, two present editions of Old Norse-Icelandic texts. In "Liebe und Durst. Der Heilige Bernhard von Clairvaux in der altisländischen Mirakelüberlieferung," Wilhelm Heizmann gives a survey of C. R. Unger's edition of Maríu saga and the large collection of miracles appended to the vita of the Madonna. Included among the many miracles is a short legend of Saint Bernhard of Clairvaux, which is the topic of Heizmann's essay. His examination of the manuscripts and the transmission of the legend reveals that there is only one redaction of the legend and not two redactions, as Unger's edition suggests. He demonstrates that AM 655 4to XXXII presents the closest rendering of the Latin sources and, accordingly, bases his edition and translation on this manuscript, but notes variants from three other manuscripts of textual value. As an introduction to his edition, Heizmann gives a thorough and very learned analysis of the Old Icelandic legend in relation to the source material about Saint Bernhard and concludes that the legend is based on Wilhelm of St. Thierry's Vita prima and Saint Bernhard's sermon De aquaeductu. Michael Chesnutt's "To fragmenter af Egils saga. AM 162 A fol. (R) fragm. β og ι" presents a discussion and diplomatic edition of two fragments in AM 162A fol. of Egils saga. As Chesnutt points out, Jón Helgason's plan for an edition of Egils saga presupposed the publication of all the medieval fragments of the saga in extenso. With the publication of the A- and B-redactions of Egils saga in 2001 and 2006, respectively, Alex Speed Kjeldsen's examination of the older fragments in AM 162 A fol. and Chesnutt's edition of the first six chapters of the saga as they appear in Stock. Perg. 4to no. 7 in Opuscula 12, this plan has now been realized with the exception of the Wolfenbüttel manuscript Cod. Guelf. 9. 10. Aug. 4to and the Arnamagnaean fragments 162A fol. β og ι (all three representatives of the B-redaction). Chestnutt's contribution therefore brings the editing...

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