Manuscript of the month

Manuscript of the Month

2025.01.15

Three Scripts, One Scribe: Ingólfr Dagfinsson and his Lawbook AM 68 4to

Medieval scribes were skilled in multiple script types. A Norwegian legal manuscript from the…

Manuscript of the Month

2024.04.15

Danish scribes and German Bibles

Biblical paraphrases in the local language were popular in the late Middle Ages. In 1482 a Danish…

Manuscript of the Month

2024.03.15

The Danish Conquest of Dithmarschen

The Low German law codex AM 2 4to contains the younger redaction of the Land Law of Dithmarschen. A…

Manuscript of the Month

2024.02.14

One final dictionary from the first Faroese lexicographer

The Faroe Islands’ first lexicographer kept producing manuscripts of his dictionary until his death…

Manuscript of the Month

2024.01.15

From Margrethe to Frederik: Danish history as told by royal lines

A new chapter of Danish history was written Sunday, 14 January 2024 with the succession of the new…

Manuscript of the Month

2023.12.15

A Prayer Book for the Entire Year — And Every Occasion

December means another year is coming to a close, at least according to our modern secular calendar…

Manuscript of the Month

2023.11.15

Let me guide you through this! The interaction between scribe and readers in the main manuscript of Konungs skuggsjá

The oldest and most complete manuscript of the Old Norwegian Konungs skuggsjá, AM 243 bα fol.,…

Manuscript of the Month

2023.10.15

Learned prehistory and Danish genealogies

A miscellany manuscript written by several hands contains some genealogical material thought to…

Manuscript of the Month

2023.09.15

An Educational Poem by Petrus Riga

A previously unidentified fragment can now be shown to contain the educational poem De venditione…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.10.15

Behold! A Funen Clog!

Humorous marginal drawings are not uncommon in medieval manuscripts. The wooden shoe from Funen…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.09.15

Revising Danish Royal Genealogies Anno 1664

Since the time of Saxo Grammaticus and his monumental Gesta Danorum, Danish royal lineage was trace…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.05.15

Indulgences for nuns in the early days of print

A handwritten letter of indulgence given to the Poor Clares of Roskilde tells the story of…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.04.14

A Low German fragment of St Birgitta's Heavenly Revelations

AM 79 8vo consists of a heterogeneous collection of medieval manuscript fragments in several…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.03.13

Getting a fair share: an Icelandic letter of partition from 1673

Two small fragments found in the binding of an Icelandic manuscript tell the story of how a farmer…

Manuscript of the Month

2020.02.15

A Reunited Law: AM 6 8vo

In 2020 Denmark will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the reunification with Southern Jutland. Th…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.12.13

How to Count a Manuscript - The Faroese Collection in Accessoria 4

Accessoria 4 is a single shelfmark, but is it a single manuscript? This collection of Faroese paper…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.11.14

Naked Angels and Stolen Herring in AM 79 4to

AM 79 4to is a particularly beautiful part of the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection. The manuscript…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.09.15

An English Saint in a Danish Manuscript

The story of an English saint is found in a Danish lawbook from the late 15th century. A study of…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.06.15

A Medieval Love Story

Persenober og Konstantianobis is the title of a courtly romance in Danish from the fifteenth…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.04.15

Hernando Colón’s Book of Books: AM 377 fol.

One of the manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection, AM 377 fol., has recently been identified as…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.03.15

Chronicle of the Slavs in the Arnamangæan Collection

While the twelfth century is generally associated with great social, political and economic…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.02.15

Rask 113: A Ballad Manuscript in Two Parts

A small 22-page manuscript, half Danish, half Faroese, tells the story of a common interest in…

Manuscript of the Month

2019.01.15

AM 370 fol. Antiquities from the Bergen District

In the Arnamagnæan collection, there are six illustrated manuscripts, AM 366 fol.-AM 371 fol., all…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.11.14

Rasmus Rask's Investigation Turns 200 in 2018

Rasmus Rask's foundational text on the origin of Icelandic was originally written as a prize essay.…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.10.15

Notes from the Sixteenth Century: AM 828 4to

For the most part, AM 828 4to contains critical notes and commentaries about classical works by the…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.09.14

AM 673 b 4to: The Oldest manuscript of medieval Scandinavia's most prolific poetic form

20 September is the feast of St. Eustace in the Western Christian calendar and this month’s…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.06.17

Modern technology casts new light on old manuscripts

One of the treasures of the Arnamagnaean Collection is the manuscript AM 468 4to, which dates from…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.05.16

Sad remains of once proud books

Árni Magnússon made an effort to preserve every manuscript he could, even fragments. Among others A…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.04.16

While we wait for Game of Thrones

Who needs Iron Thrones and dragon queens, when you have manuscripts from the 15th century? Dwarf…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.03.15

A Scribe’s Favourite Exemplum?

AM 578 i 4to is an Icelandic paper manuscript, which among other things contains a copy of the stor…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.02.15

A hand-written copy of a printed book

Among the more recent acquisitions of the Arnamagnæan manuscript collection in Copenhagen is a grou…

Manuscript of the Month

2018.01.15

The Law of Gotland in Danish Hands

The Arnamagnæan Collection contains a manuscript written in the medieval language of Gotland in the…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.11.15

Early Modern Translations into Latin and Manuscripts as Scholarly Editions: The Case of AM 922 4to

When Latin rather than English was the lingua franca in Europe, scholarly versions of Icelandic…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.10.15

A Grab Bag of Early Modern Poetry

Numerous poetical miscellanies, written and collected in Iceland in the 17th and 18th centuries, ar…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.09.08

The Húsavík Letters - A Medieval Faroese Diploma

A diploma from the beginning of the fifteenth century is written in an early form of Faroese and…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.08.15

Medieval romance in early modern Iceland

Rask 33 39r: Large initial at the beginning of part 2 of the saga. (Click on the picture for a…

Manuscript of the month

2017.06.16

Vermundar þáttur og Upsa (The Tale of Vermundur and Upsi) in AM 409 fol.

This short tale about a king and his heroic son, written on only two leaves of paper, is not only…

Medieval charters

2017.05.15

Patronage and Memory in a Medieval Charter

A charter from 1259 issued by Archbishop Jakob Erlandsen charter situates him within a vast web of…

Manuscript of the Month, Easter

2017.04.16

An Easter 'cheat sheet'

Calendars form one of the main categories of medieval manuscripts, owing to the important role they…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.03.15

Medieval law with explanatory glosses

A legal text in a manuscript from the middle ages can be difficult for a present-day reader to…

Manuscript of the Month, Reformation

2017.02.15

Chronicon Skibyense - Contemporary history from the time of the Danish Reformation

The 2017 Reformation Anniversary has been kicked off and is celebrated worldwide. One of the…

Manuscript of the Month

2017.01.20

Inside the binding of AM 779 c 4to

AM 779 c 4to is a seventeenth-century paper manuscript that mostly contains rhymed chronicles about…

Manuscript of the Month

2016.12.25

A Dutch Book of Hours from the 15th Century

Private books of hours were the European bestseller of the 14th-16th centuries, especially among th…

Manuscript of the Month

2016.10.28

Courtly Love under the Bishop's Mitre

How did leaves from a Norwegian 13th-century manuscrip containing French profane tales of fervent…

Manuscript of the Month

2016.09.01

A schoolteacher's handbook?

AM 76 8vo is a small and unprepossessing paper manuscript, the contents of which rarely rise above…

2016.06.03

A fragment of the younger redaction of the lost Skjöldunga saga

Beginning of chapter 7: "Ok er Haraldr konungr hilditǫnn var orðinn svá gamall, er hann hafði hálf…

2016.04.20

Title deeds from the St. Clara Convent archive

Among the many diplomas in the Arnamagnæan collection, there are three title deeds issued by the…

2016.03.15

The Vatnsfjörður Psalter

The Vatnsfjörður Psalter, 241 a I fol., contains Psalms of David in an extended version, liturgical…

2016.02.10

The labours of the month

The vignets in this calendar depict the labours of the month. The common activities for February…

2015.12.24

Marine Jespersdatter's prayer book

The opening 45v-46r: The Nativity Marine Jespersdatter’s prayer book ‘Dear Lord, almighty…

2015.10.15

The Arnamagnæan leechbook

"Take juniper berries or the root of inula, dry it, grind it well and mix it with wine". Thus read…

2015.08.31

A Spanish rarity.

AM 795 4to (12th century) contains the only extant copy of a sixth-century commentary on the…

2015.07.01

Codex Wormianus - Nordic mythology

Codex Wormianus, Ole Worm’s book, was written c. 1350 and is noteworthy for its contents, its…

2015.06.04

AM 595 a-b 4to

Roman wars on Icelandic vellum. Rómverja saga (The saga of the Romans) is a compilation of Icelandi…

Manuscript of the Month

2015.05.12

Reykjabók

Njáls saga’s many travels. The manuscript AM 468 4to, better known as Reykjabók (the book of…