a blog by Peter Leonard
I've processed some more pictures from my recent trip to the Arnamagnæan Institute, which holds many medieval manuscripts in Old Norse.
Peter Springborg shows us how to read a manuscript
The star of the show was definately Reykjabók, a wood-bound copy of Njál's Saga from 1300 AD.
You can get a good view of the thickness of the wooden covers in this shot:
Of course, finding an unblemished piece of cow- or sheepskin was not always easy. Sometimes the animal had a scar or other imperfection in the skin, which resulted in texts like this:
Modern layout artists have enough trouble wrapping text around round graphics, imagine what it was like to be a medieval monk and have to write around a literal hole in the text.
Even if the parchment started off whole, it didn't always end up that way. If I recall the story correctly, the below example was cut into such a strange shape in order to fit into a piece of clothing -- perhaps a bishop's mitre? -- and provide structural support:
The Institute also has a number of more recent, though still quite old, texts. Here is what I believe to be the first printed edition of Njál's Saga, from the 18th-century, next to the 13th-century manuscript:
Finally, a jewel-like example of Sjællandske lov, the laws of Zealand from the middle ages until 1683. The curator's gloved hands give a sense of the size of this volume:
