Kirkjubæjarbók (Codex AM 429 12mo) is an Icelandic manuscript produced in around 1500 containing female
saints' sagas Saints' sagas (Old Norse ''heilagra manna sögur'') are a genre of Old Norse sagas comprising the prose hagiography of medieval western Scandinavia.
The corpus of such sagas and their manuscript attestations was surveyed by Ole Widding, Hans Bekker ...
. It is notable for being the only extant
Old-Norse Icelandic legendary which exclusively deals with female saints and for being the only extant text which contains Old Norse-Icelandic prose and poetic accounts of
St Dorothy. The book takes its name from the
convent of Kirkjubær, which likely held the codex until
King Christian III of Denmark dissolved the Icelandic monasteries in the mid sixteenth century.
Contents
The codex contains material in
Old-Norse Icelandic and
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
relating to eight saints' legends:
St Margaret of Antioch,
St Catherine of Alexandria,
St Cecilia,
St Dorothea of Caesara,
St Agnes,
St Agatha,
St Barbara, and
Sts Fides, Spes and Caritas. Apart from the prose and poetry relating to St Dorothy, the legends all exist in other manuscripts written before 1500, though it is the only text which preserves the legend of St Cecilia in its entirety. Wolf suggests that it is likely that the material in the codex was copied from individual lives of saints that were available in Iceland, rather than from another legendary, as the arrangement of the legends appears arbitrary, and is not organised according to the
liturgical year
The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be obse ...
.
A gathering of 10 leaves appears to be missing between folios 18v and 19r of the legend of St Catherine and around four leaves from the end of the legend of Fides, Spes and Caritas are also lost. Apart from this, the texts in the codex are complete.
The contents of the codex is given below; unless indicated otherwise, the texts are written in Old Norse-Icelandic:
* St Margaret
**
Margrétar saga
** Prayer to St. Margaret (Latin)
* St Catherine
**
Katrínar saga
* St Cecilia
**
Cecilíu saga
** Cecilíu diktur
* Saint Dorothy
**
Dórótheu saga
** Dorotheudiktur - Dorotheu kvæði
** A Verse of St. Dorothy (Latin)
* St Agnes
**
Agnesar saga
* St Agatha
**
Agöthu saga
* St Barbara
**
Barbare saga
* Sts Fides, Spes and Caritas
**
Saga af Fides, Spes og Karitas
Provenance
The codex was collected by
Árni Magnússon
Árni Magnússon (; 13 November 1663 – 7 January 1730) was an Icelandic scholar and collector of manuscripts who assembled the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection.
Early life and education
Árni was born in 1663 at Kvennabrekka in Dalasýsl ...
from 'Páll á Flókastoðum', who was likely Páll Ámundason, the administrator of the Kirkjubær's land from 1681-1708. There is no direct record of the codex belonging to the convent; an inventory of 1397 notes that it held 20 Latin and Norse books. However, based on its specialised contents referring to female saints, some of whom were known to be venerated by the nuns at Kirkjubær, Wolf considers there to be 'little doubt' that it was written for convent. She suggests that rather than by being written by the nuns themselves, it may have been produced at the monastery of
Þykkvabær.
Description
The codex is formed of 84 leaves of calfskin divided into 11 gatherings, measuring 11.5 cm x 8.8 cm. The codex has been rebound with cardboard plates, but was probably originally bound with a leather cover. Accounting for the missing leaves mentioned above, Wolf suggests that the codex would have originally consisted of 94 or 98 leaves.
The codex was written by at least four scribes and is illustrated using red and blue. There are full-page illustrations of Sts Margaret, Catherine, Cecilia, Dorothy and Agnes, who are distinguished by their attributes. Some of the illustrations may have used those in ''
Teiknibók
''Teiknibók'' (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, AM 673 a III 4to) is an Icelandic manuscript of drawings used as models for manuscript illumination, painting, carving and metalwork. It is remarkable for being one of only three dozen books ...
'' as models.
References
Further reading
* {{Cite book, title=A Female Legendary from Iceland: "Kirkjubæjarbók" (AM 429 12mo) in The Arnamagnæan Collection, Copenhagen, last=Wolf, first=Kirsten, publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press, year=2011, series=Manuscripta Nordica: Early Nordic Manuscripts in Digital Facsimile 3, location=Copenhagen, pages=79–91
Icelandic manuscripts
Sagas of saints