Scribal networks in 17th-century Iceland: The patronage of Magnús Jónsson í Vigur

Project Information

ICELANDIC SCRIBES

Grant agreement ID: 654825

DOI

10.3030/654825

Project closed

EC signature date 9 April 2015

Start date 1 April 2016

End date 31 March 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 212 194,80

EU contribution

€ 212 194,80

Coordinated by

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ICELANDIC SCRIBES (Scribal networks in 17th-century Iceland: The patronage of Magnús Jónsson í Vigur)

Reporting period: 2016-04-01 to 2018-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

While the introduction of print in the 15th century altered literary production in Europe, its influence was somewhat less definitive than was once thought. Especially in Iceland, people continued to copy books by hand, keeping alive medieval scribal practices long after they had ended elsewhere, while also adopting innovations in book production in response to the new but highly restricted and inaccessible medium of print.

By researching how and why new copies of popular medieval and early modern texts were made in 17th-century Iceland, this project has made insights into early modern reading culture, the preservation of literary culture and heritage through active patronage, and the ways that small, local communities can be linked with larger, international ones through the transfer of textual materials. The project’s main focus was a detailed study of the manuscripts themselves, to uncover what they tell us about their scribes and readers, and about the texts they transmit.

The project had three main objectives:
1. to examine the scribal networks cultivated by Magnús Jónsson, a wealthy patron of manuscripts in 17th-century Iceland, and to record his role in the development of secular manuscript production in the century after the end of the Middle Ages and the Icelandic Reformation.
2. to produce a detailed record of Magnús Jónsson’s manuscripts, their early provenance before reaching their current repositories (especially those outside of the Arnamagnæan collection), and the scribes who copied them.
3. to consider the broader areas of early modern Icelandic literacy, patronage, and reading culture as seen in this manuscript collection, which is a representative cross-section of the material available in Iceland at the time, and to relate the Icelandic case to that of the wider area of early modern Europe.

As a multi-disciplinary investigation of the society and culture of post-Reformation Iceland, the project advances our understanding of the significance of literature, reading, and physical books to society. It also brings new perspectives to the wider fields of the history of the book and the reception and transmission of texts.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

1. Reassessment of the existing scholarship and source material on Magnús Jónsson í Vigur, his manuscripts, and his scribes.
2. Detailed study of the manuscripts, starting with those that have previously undergone the least scholarly work, those that have previously been insufficiently catalogued, and those that do not already have digital catalogue descriptions.
3. Creation of digital XML-based catalogue descriptions of the manuscripts, either from scratch or by expanding and updating previous cataloguing work, depending on the case.
4. Creation of an index of texts contained in the collection of manuscripts, including the itemisation of several previously unidentified and uncatalogued texts.
5. Creation of an index of scribes responsible for copying the texts and producing the manuscripts in the collection, along with an overview of their different tasks and roles.
6. Creation of a project website to present an overview of the project and to act as an Open Access repository to host the digital XML catalogue descriptions
7. Compilation of a bibliography of scholarship for the project that continues to be updated.

Overall, the project has shown that Magnús Jónsson, the owner and patron of the manuscript collection, developed a deliberate program of text acquisition and manuscript production, and that especially towards the end of his life he was concerned with carefully organising his manuscripts into a coherent library. He did this with the help of several scribes who were instrumental in preserving and also producing the textual cultural heritage that we find in these books. A correspondence between some of the manuscripts’ paratextual features – like their title pages – and their textual contents was also discovered. The project has updated, corrected, and augmented a significant amount of data that can be used in future research in the field of Old Norse-Icelandic studies and related areas such as manuscript studies in general, the history of the book, and early modern European history.

The project and its results were presented at a number of international conferences and smaller workshops. The researcher also organised two sessions with a total of six speakers presenting work related to the project at a major international conference. One paper has been published in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, one article is forthcoming in a leading international peer-reviewed journal, and a book chapter is in preparation for an edited volume of essays. A monograph presenting the cumulative results is also in preparation. The project website hosts electronic manuscript descriptions and related information, making them freely available under a Creative Commons license. It also includes blog posts for a general audience and is promoted by a project Twitter account. A Wikipedia page on Magnús Jónsson í Vigur was created in English and Danish, as well as two popular science blog posts for the host institution’s public engagement website, also in English and Danish. The researcher taught at the International Summer School in Scandinavian Manuscript Studies, attended by Master’s and PhD students, early career researchers, and GLAM-sector professionals from around the world.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results of the project have increased our knowledge of how books were copied by hand and how (and why) the texts these books contain were read in early modern Iceland. The results also confirm the usefulness of analysing whole manuscripts comprehensively. The project produced detailed descriptions of several of the manuscripts in the collection, which had not been sufficiently catalogued before, and a number of errors in existing catalogues were identified and are in the process of being corrected. Several previously unidentified texts were also identified and itemised in the descriptions. This will allow future research in the field to build upon reliable data.

The results benefit society by foregrounding the importance of literacy, literature, and material culture in the human past, and by recovering the otherwise lost voices of people who existed beneath the upper levels of society. By starting with manuscripts known for their wealthy and highly privileged male owner and patron, the project highlights the less privileged and often forgotten scribes whose labour produced the manuscripts and preserved the texts they contain; the women associated with the collector and the collection are also highlighted as far as possible. Additionally, by focusing on aspects of human culture and its preservation, reception, and transmission within society at a particular time in the past, relevant parallels will be able to be drawn with other cultural case studies at other times and in other places – in this way the results will benefit research and increase knowledge in related and adjacent fields of study.

The data and results produced by the project will also support the researcher’s future research project on the significance of particular medieval literary genres within late medieval and early modern Icelandic society. The results relating to the variety of different texts preserved together in the manuscripts and their relationship to the manuscripts’ paratextual features will be particularly useful to build upon in the new research.

Screenshot from the project website