The Old Icelandic Homily Book (Stock. Perg. 4to no. 15), also known as the Stockholm Homily Book, is one of two main collections of Old West Norse
sermon
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present context ...
s; the other being the
Old Norwegian Homily Book (AM 619 4to), with which it shares eleven texts.
[McDougall, D. (1993) "Homilies (West Norse)" in ''Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia'' ed. Pulsiano, P. and Wolf, K. pp. 290-2] Written in around 1200, and both based on earlier exemplars, together they represent some of the oldest examples of
Old West Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their ...
prose.
The Old Icelandic Homily Book (OIHB) contains 62 texts and parts of texts,
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 7] 50 of which are
homilies
A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered e ...
.
[Óskarsdóttir, S. (2007) "Prose of Christian Instruction" in McTurk, R. ed. ''A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture'' Oxford: Blackwell Publishing pp. 338-53] For this reason it is better considered a homiletic hand-book rather than a
homiliary
A homiliarium or homiliary is a collection of homilies, or familiar explanations of the Gospels.
History
Late Antiquity
From a very early time the homilies of the Fathers were in high esteem, and were read in connection with the recitation of ...
.
Further, the ‘homilies’ it contains, as with most Old Norse homilies, conform more closely to the definition of sermons.
The other texts are wide-ranging and include excerpts from Stephanus saga, a translation of part of pseudo-Ambrose’s Acta Sancti Sebastiani,
and a fragment of a text dealing with musical theory, amongst others.
History
Nothing of the history of the OIHB is known for certain until 1682 when it was bought by Jón Eggertsson for the Swedish College of Antiquities.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 1] In 1789, it was moved, along with the other manuscripts of the college, to the
Royal Library of Sweden
The National Library of Sweden (, ''KB'', meaning "the Royal Library") is Sweden's national library. It collects and preserves all domestic printing, printed and audio-visual materials in Swedish language, Swedish, as well as content with Swedis ...
.
The manuscript has been variously dated between the end of the 12th century and the middle of the 13th century, but it is now generally accepted that it was written ‘around 1200’.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 3-4] Both the handwriting and
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
confirm that the manuscript was written in
Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 18]
Description of the manuscript
The manuscript is written on 102 leaves of
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...
, bound in a sealskin cover, which folds over in a flap at the front.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 25] Both the front cover and the flap have a number of signs carved into them, most of which can be identified as
runes
Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...
.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 26] The back cover has three signs which appear to be in
Gothic script.
The text is predominantly in
Carolingian minuscule
Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one ...
script with insular
thorn and
wynn
Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, win, ƿynn, ƿyn, ƿen, and ƿin) is a letter of the Old English Latin alphabet, Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .
History The letter "W"
While the earliest Old English texts ...
,
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 35] written in brown ink.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 27] There are a number of headings in red ink and occasionally the first word of a sermon has been filled in with red ink.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 32] There are numerous marginal entries; some contemporary with the manuscript and others dating from the 16th – 19th centuries.
There are a number of very early alterations to the manuscript which appear to date from a controversy between Theodor Wisén, the text's first editor, and Ludvig Larsson, who published a study which contained nearly 2000 corrections of Wisén’s edition.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 5] Linbald (1975) concluded that in almost 1200 instances Larsson’s readings were correct and in around 150 cases, his readings were incorrect.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 6] But in the majority of the instances where Larsson’s readings seem to be incorrect, there have been alterations to the text: identified as very young by the “shape of additions, ink and the quality of pen used”.
Page 77v has three drawings: two lions engraved by dry-point and an ink drawing of a man pointing with his hand. The clearest lion is of
Romanesque-type and has been dated to the first part of the 13th century.
There has been much debate concerning the number of hands involved in the writing of the manuscript, with opinions ranging from 1 to 14.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 32-3] The two most recent studies quoted by van Leuwen, (Rode 1974) and (Westlund 1974) place the number of hands at 14 and 12 respectively.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 33] Van Leuwen states that she is drawn to there being only one hand involved.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 34] Stefán Karlsson similarly holds this view.
Contents
The OIHB is principally distinct from the
Old Norwegian Homily Book (ONHB) in that unlike the latter it is not arranged according to the church year.
The source material for the OIHB has been traced to a number of the
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...
, though a full study of the sources has yet to be carried out.
However, the OIHB also made use of material available in other homiliaries. For example, it contains a close translation a sermon included in the “Pembroke-type homilary”: a
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...
preacher’s anthology.
The style of the OIHB is closer to that of the
Íslendingasögur
The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic Saga, sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and earl ...
than the Latinate vocabulary and syntax of later Old West Norse religious prose. It makes use of abrupt changes in tense and from indirect to direct speech, particularly in paraphrases of the gospels. It occasionally uses “native proverbs and everyday similitudes” which contribute to its simple, practical style. However, rhetorical devices are sometimes used to achieve a high style and some sentences can be scanned as verse.
Of the 11 sermons in the OIHB and ONHB have in common, two are found in what is possibly the oldest Icelandic manuscript fragment, AM 237a fol: dated to 1150.
These texts are the ‘
Stave-church Homily’ and a sermon for St. Michael’s Day.
has shown that the 11 sermons in common are copies of copies, at least. Similarly, he concluded that AM 237a fol is a copy of a copy, and was itself probably a remnant of a
homiliary
A homiliarium or homiliary is a collection of homilies, or familiar explanations of the Gospels.
History
Late Antiquity
From a very early time the homilies of the Fathers were in high esteem, and were read in connection with the recitation of ...
itself.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 19] This implies that at least some material in the manuscript belongs to before 1150.
As well as sermons found in the ONHB and AM 237a fol, some sermons feature in other Old Norse manuscripts such as
Hauksbók
Hauksbók (; 'Book of Haukr') is a 14th-century Icelandic manuscript created by Haukr Erlendsson. Significant portions of it are lost, but it contains the earliest copies of many of the texts it contains, including the '' Saga of Eric the Red''. ...
.
[de Leeuw van Weenen, A. (1993) ''The Icelandic Homily Book : Perg. 15o in the Royal Library, Stockholm'' Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, p. 8]
See also
*
Old Norwegian Homily Book
References
External links
Uncritical edition in modern Icelandic orthography provided by Orðabók Háskolans(in Icelandic)
Wisén's 1872 edition at septentrionalia.net(in Icelandic)
David McDougall, review of ''The Icelandic Homily Book, Perg. 15 4° in the Royal Library, Stockholm,'' ed. Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, and ''Íslensk hómilíubók: Fornar stólræður,'' ed. Sigurbjörn Einarsson, Guðrún Kvaran, and Gunnlaugur Ingólfsson, ''Alvíssmál'' 5 (1995): 107–11.
Icelandic literature
Icelandic manuscripts
Old Norse literature