Leiðbeiningar Árna Magnússonar

Abstract

This article discusses the accuracy of ÁrniMagnússon's work and how it shows itself in the instructions he gave to his scribes and in the judgments he made concerning his contemporaries. Printed here for the first time is a slip of Árni's, found in JS 480 4to, which contains instructions for one of his scribes, Eyjólfur Björnsson, on how to copy a manuscript, for example by distinguishing between the two kinds of "s", between regular "r" and "r rotunda" and so forth. Other slips on the same subject are printed, all of which shed light on his working methods and his concern for accuracy. Árni began as a young man to copy manuscripts letter-for-letter, but he seems not to have encouraged his scribes to follow the same method until after 1700, when Eyjólfur Björnsson and others were engaged to copy manuscripts and diplomas letter-forletter. It is probable that Árni had manuscripts and diplomas which he had no prospects of owning copied in this way first and foremost. Earlier he had engaged Ásgeir Jónsson to copy manuscripts carefully, even though these copies could not be called letterfor-letter. It also happened that he let his scribes have earlier copies of the same manuscript, for comparison and to make their task easier (see slips in JS 480 4to and AM 399 4to). A recent biography of Árni Magnússon neglects to discuss the influences which may have affected Árni and formed his working habits. His passion for accuracy cannot of course be attributed to any one person; his own natural endowments played the biggest role, and yet his working habits and his attitude doubtless owe something to the intellectual currents of the last half of the seventeenth century. Arni must have become acquainted with these when he was in the service of Thomas Bartholin in Copenhagen, and also during his travels in northern Germany. To shed light on this there is some discussion of the dispute between Papenbroeck and Mabillion over the forging of diplomas and other matters which had a revolutionary effect on humanistic studies in the late seventeenth century and on Árni's view of himself as primarily a historian, who collected manuscripts Iargely for historical purposes.