Beeke Stegmann, Arnamagnæan Institute, University of Copenhagen

The intended and unintended traces of a collector: Studying the history of Arnamagnæan manuscripts based on accompanying slips

Numerous manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection (now housed jointly in Copenhagen and Reykjavík) carry slips with notes by their collector Árni Magnússon (1663-1730). The information contained on the slips is often invaluable for modern scholarship as the notes may elucidate the provenance or textual origin of the manuscripts in question. In many cases, the slips indicate that Árni formed the manuscripts by removing texts from larger codices and recombining them with other parts. Thus, the notes help to establish the physical history of the manuscripts.* However, Árni’s slips being inconsistent in detail and often rather sparse, the textual contents alone are not enough to understand the complete physical history of the manuscripts, and with that the history of the collection. This paper shows that a codicological analysis of the so-called AM slips reveals additional important information, expanding and refining the knowledge about the manuscripts’ provenance and former context. Moreover, studying the material aspects of the slips elucidates Árni Magnússon’s custodial habits and working methods with respect to the organisation of his large collection.

In the paper, I examine a variety of manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection for their accompanying slips, using the combined evidence of their textual contents and material features. The focus lies on paper manuscripts, which make up the majority of artefacts in the collection. Nonetheless, their physical history is not yet fully understood. Taking examples from manuscripts in different formats and with changing contents, I illustrate the various kinds of AM-slips found. The support used for writing the notes ranges from parts of an old envelope to blank leaves that were removed from the end of another manuscript.

The material found in the AM-slips allows a relative dating of the manuscripts’ acquisition and treatment. Furthermore, the study reveals that some manuscripts were equipped with almost identical slips, suggesting that they were treated at the same time. These manuscripts usually being parts of the same former codex hint at standardised working habits in Árni Magnússon’s collection. Nonetheless, common features also occur in manuscripts of different origins, which the collector combined into a new, heterogeneous manuscript number.

The study is based on both codicological and textual methods. In addition to the examination of the intended text of the AM-slips, other text, for example writing found on the verso-side of the AM-slips, is considered. Further on, the size, quality and watermarks of the paper are compared. On top of that, I analyse the ink, with which Árni or one of his assistants wrote the text of the slips. For this part of the study, non-invasive multi-spectral imaging is employed. Comparing spectral signatures and thereby chemical properties of the ink, it can be shown for selected manuscripts that the same ink was employed to write the slips as to make additions to the texts or cross out unwanted passages in the manuscripts. Thus, different steps in the treatment of the manuscripts can be linked to each other in temporal terms.

In general, the paper draws attention to the potential of combined research, extracting information from both material features and textual evidence. Analysing the accompanying slips in Arnamagnæan manuscripts in that way, the study provides hitherto unknown details about the origins of some of the manuscripts and gives insight into how one of the most important collections of Scandinavian and Icelandic manuscripts was formed and organized. Including the codicological evidence of the slips, a more accurate picture about Árni Magnússon’s approach towards the manuscripts as well as his working methods is achieved.

* Transcriptions of AM-slips can often be found in the catalogue entries of the manuscripts both in the printed form and online (see Kristian Kålund (1889-1894). Katalog over den Arnemagnæanske Håndskriftsamling. Ed. By Kommisionen for Det Arnamagnæanske Legat. Vol. 1-2. København: Gyldendal. See also www.handrit.is [18 June 2015]). Moreover, Már Jónsson edited many slips (see Már Jónsson, ed. (1995). Sýnishorn úr seðlaveski Árna Magnússonar. Reykjavík: Bókaforlagið Bígerð) and Gustav Storm reprinted slips found in law manuscripts (see Gustav Storm, ed. (1885). Norges gamle Love indtil 1387. Vol. 4. Christiania: Grøndal & Søn).