Árni Magnússon's Rearrangement of Paper Manuscripts
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Árni Magnússon’s rearrangement of paper manuscripts Beeke Stegmann PhD Thesis Faculty of Humanities University of Copenhagen 2 Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the help of numerous people. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors Anne Mette Hansen and Matthew Driscoll for their great support which began before I officially started my PhD project and continued throughout the process. Their encouragement as well as critical feedback has provided extremely valuable help and guidance. Thanks are due to all my colleagues at the Arnamangæan Institute in Copen- hagen, including former colleagues, guests and otherwise associated people. They al- ways had an open door and time for my questions, and the warm and welcoming atmos- phere at both work-related events and more social gatherings quickly made me feel at home. The conservators Natasha Fazlic and Mette Jakobsen deserve special mention for sharing their expertise on the history of manuscripts and their bindings with me, and Suzanne Reitz for processing my orders so promptly. Furthermore, I would like to thank my colleagues from the other sections of the Department of Nordic Research for fruitful collaboration as well as the administrative and technical employees for providing exceptional research conditions. I am grateful to the staff and affiliates at our sister institute, the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík. During my repeated stays in Iceland I en- joyed their great hospitality and support in both practical and academic matters. Par- ticular thanks go Haukur Þorgeirsson and Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir for supplying me with manuscript images. I am further indebted to Peter Springborg for sharing his unpublished notes and wide knowledge with me, to Florian Grammel for LaTeX-help and to Philip Lavender for being witty and wise. I am grateful to Astrid Marner for stimulating feedback and discussions, to Stephen Werronen (and others) for proofreading, and to my fellow PhD students from the PhD Club who ensured a good work-life balance. Special thanks are due to Sam Scott for sharing this journey with me and his uncon- ditional support. I equally want to say Danke to my family. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who was brave enough to ask a “silly” ques- tion, since it was often these questions that, by first throwing me off, brought me further in my studies. 3 4 Contents Contents 5 List of Figures 9 List of Tables 11 1Introduction 13 1.1 Aim of the present study . 14 1.2 Historical background . 14 1.2.1 Rise of Humanism and interest in manuscripts . 16 1.2.2 Private book and manuscript collections outside Iceland . 17 1.2.3 Árni Magnússon and his collection . 20 1.3 Previous research ............................. 23 1.4 Theoretical background and central concepts . 25 1.5 Methodology ............................... 27 1.5.1 Overview based on secondary sources . 28 1.5.2 Analysis of primary sources . 32 1.5.3 Description and discussion of rearrangement . 35 1.6 Encoding principles and data processing . 36 1.6.1 XML: Data encoding . 36 1.6.2 XSL: Data transformation and harvesting . 38 1.7 Naming and normalisation practices . 41 2Physical history of selected manuscripts 47 2.1 AM156 fol. and related manuscripts . 49 2.1.1 Mass-produced fornaldarsögur .................. 50 2.1.2 Large composite volume of two originally distinct parts . 52 2.1.3 Árni’s multiplex rearrangements of Ms28 . 64 2.1.4 Excursus: AM 144 fol. – Different treatment of the same sagas? 69 2.2 Markús Bergsson’s book . 74 2.2.1 Parts of Markús Bergsson’s book in four different places . 80 2.2.2 Texts disappearing from the University Library . 86 2.2.3 A codex containing Thomas Bartholin’s working material . 87 2.3 Amanuscript takes shape over several years . 91 5 6 CONTENTS 2.3.1 Rearrangements with a common pattern? . 91 2.3.2 A single, not dismembered text . 96 2.3.3 A separately bound manuscript part . 100 2.3.4 Some rímur accompanied by Árni’s notes . 103 2.3.5 AM-slips of similar waste paper in related manuscripts . 104 2.3.6 A provisional binding allowing additions . 109 2.4 A former codex from Leirárgarðar? . 111 2.4.1 AM218 a 4to: Acopy commissioned by Árni . 112 2.4.2 AM 218 b 4to: A manuscript with two separate provenances . 113 2.4.3 AM218 c 4to: Atripartite manuscript . 115 2.4.4 Other material from Leirárgarðar . 119 3Scope and character of custodial changes 125 3.1 Large-scale manuscript manipulation . 128 3.2 Rearrangement activity . 133 4Working procedure for rearrangements 135 4.1 Phase one: Production of small codicological units . 136 4.1.1 Systematic transfer and deletion of overlapping text parts . 143 4.1.2 Highly standardised procedure for phase one . 150 4.2 Phase two: Placement of the units in the collection . 151 4.2.1 Three types of binding conditions . 154 4.2.2 Identifiers facilitate the organisation of manuscripts . 159 4.2.3 Frequent change of placement during phase two . 163 4.2.4 Continuous change central to rearrangement activity . 168 4.3 Creation of AM-slips. 170 4.3.1 Diverse contents and material features of AM-slips . 173 4.3.2 Parallel production of some AM-slips . 186 4.3.3 Two-fold objective of AM-slips . 192 4.3.4 Dating of AM-slips . 198 5Rationale for manuscript alteration 209 5.1 Library structure as flexible framework . 212 5.1.1 Manuscript contents key to collection . 212 5.1.2 Subject- and format-based library system . 214 5.2 Optimal working conditions thanks to rearrangement . 220 5.2.1 Modifications independent of content type . 220 5.2.2 Thematic groupings in manuscripts facilitate research . 223 5.2.3 Low impact of manuscript size . 233 5.2.4 Personal needs superior to object’s history . 235 5.3 Additional factors of alteration . 240 5.3.1 Occasional consideration of visual characteristics . 240 5.3.2 Sporadic aggregation based on scribal hands . 242 5.3.3 No structural impact of support material . 243 5.4 Working collection under continuous change . 248 CONTENTS 7 6Historical context of book rearrangement 255 6.1 Rearrangements by contemporary Icelanders . 255 6.2 Gradually changing notion of books . 258 7Conclusions 267 Bibliography 271 List of Manuscripts 285 Register of Names 291 A Reference keys 295 A.1 Manuscript references by time periods . 295 A.2 Historical manuscript registers used in the study . 295 B Corpus: List of catalogued current manuscripts (t0) 297 C Relevant manuscripts in 1730 (t1) 303 DList of former codices (t2-t3) 323 D.1 Before Árni (t2).............................. 324 D.2 Earlier if different (t3) . 350 E Manuscript overview 355 Summary 439 Resumé 441 Zusammenfassung 443 8 CONTENTS List of Figures 1.1 Jón Ólafsson’s handwritten catalogue . 29 1.2 Encoding example of a primary XML-file . 39 1.3 Encoding example of an authority file record . 40 1.4 Different usages of XSLtransformation . 41 1.5 Example of a catalogue record transformed to XHTML . 42 1.6 Example of DOT-output and its visualisation . 43 2.1 Physical development of Ms92 . 53 2.2 Fols. 1a and 1b of AM 156 fol. that were glued together . 56 2.3 Fols. 7a and 7b of AM 156 fol. that were glued together . 57 2.4 Physical development of Ms28a . 59 2.5 Quire structure of AM297 b 4to . 61 2.6 Physical development of Ms28b . 63 2.7 Physical history of Ms28 . 65 2.8 Quire structure of AM130 fol. 66 2.9 Fol. 29v of AM345 4to containing a table of contents . 76 2.10 Lines 21-26 of fol. 1v of AM585 b 4to . 79 2.11 Lines 1-4 of fol. 1r of AM585 b 4to . 79 2.12 Lines 9-13 of fol. 2v of AM585 c 4to. 80 2.13 Fol. 1r of AM536 4to. 81 2.14 Fol. 15v of AM536 4to . 82 2.15 Physical history of Ms35 . 84 2.16 Physical history of Ms83 . 90 2.17 Origins and development of number 615 in 4to . 92 2.18 Fol. 1r of AM615 e 4to. 97 2.19 Quire structure of AM615 e 4to . 99 2.20 Fol. 17 of AM615 m 4to and fol. 1 of AM615 l 4to . 101 2.21 AM-slips in AM615 o 4to and AM612 c 4to . 107 2.22 Origins and development of number 612 in 4to . 109 2.23 Quire structure of AM218 a 4to.. 113 2.24 Quire structure of AM218 b 4to CU1 . 113 2.25 Quire structure of AM218 b 4to CU2 . 114 2.26 Quire structure of AM218 c 4to CU1-3 . 116 2.27 Watermark commonly found in AM-slips . 122 9 10 LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Number of changed manuscripts . 129 3.2 Frequency of altering categories for manuscripts changed onces . 130 3.3 Matrix of co-occurring altering categories . 132 4.1 Physical history of AM118 a 8vo. 136 4.2 Quire structure of AM118 a 8vo . 137 4.3 Physical history of AM109 a 8vo. 138 4.4 Number of CUs according to the number of texts they contain . 142 4.5 Frequency of leaf numbers per CU . 143 4.6 Fols. 13r-v of AM113 h fol. 145 4.7 Fols. 1r-v of AM716 a 4to . 146 4.8 Spectrum of ink found in AM716 a 4to. 148 4.9 Fol. 1v of AM 716 a 4to after nCDA transformation. 148 4.10 Árni’s addition on fol. 2v of AM716 b 4to . 149 4.11 Frequency of number of texts per single-CU manuscript in 1730 .