20 December 2017

20th of December

Manuscript Advent Calendar

Concentration is key

(Click on the picture for a larger version)

If you're sitting in the office dreaming about Christmas holidays, you may find that your mind begins to wander. Don't worry, the scribe of today's manuscript, AM 674 a 4to, has had trouble concentrating as well. It would seem that way, at least, as he's written the same sentence twice in a row - a so-called dittography. Can you spot it?

AM 674 a 4to was written in Iceland in the second half of the 12th century and is therefore one of the earliest extant Icelandic vernacular manuscripts. It contains Elucidarius, which was a popular textbook in theology written in Latin as a dialogue between a teacher and student. It was translated into numerous languages in the Middle Ages.

It's worth noting about the dittography on f. 8r that the scribe has written the exact same sentence, but abbreviates differently, which indicates that abbreviations had more to do with how much space was left in any given line than they had to do with a specific style or custom. 

You can read more about the manuscript on Handrit.org 
(https://handrit.is/da/manuscript/view/en/AM04-0674-a)