Manuscript of the month

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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