Manuscripts

Magnús Jónsson í Vigur owned a large collection of manuscripts produced by several scribes over several decades. Some of them he also copied himself, and in addition to seeing that new books were produced for his library during the course of his own lifetime (making up the majority of his collection), Magnús also owned a smaller number of older manuscripts from earlier generations, which he inherited or received as gifts.

Today at least 43 manuscripts survive that can be connected in some way to Magnús í Vigur. Many of these are known with reasonable certainty to have been associated with him, based on evidence either internal or external to the manuscript. A handful of these manuscripts, however, could have been made for him but the connection, though very likely, is not certain. These manuscripts are counted among the 43 because, for example, their style is consistent with Magnús’s other manuscripts and/or they were copied by scribes known to have produced other materials for him. So far it has been impossible in these few cases to confirm precisely for whom they were copied, but further research may prove otherwise. Other manuscripts listed here were copied by Magnús í Vigur himself, or were older books that one way or another came in his possession.

Magnús’s manuscripts are now kept in seven institutions in four countries, although the majority remain in Iceland. The links in the list below provide further information about the libraries and the manuscripts kept there.

Detailed catalogue entries for each of Magnús’s manuscripts are being produced as a part of the ICELANDIC SCRIBES project, and the pages for the individual manuscripts will continue to be updated as these entries are completed.

Iceland (29 manuscripts)

United Kingdom (8 manuscripts)

Denmark (5 manuscripts)

Sweden (1 manuscript)

Other ways of organizing Magnús í Vigur’s manuscripts in order to appreciate the scope of his collection as he may have experienced it himself will be added to this page as work in these areas is completed.

This will ideally include a chronological list of manuscripts, manuscripts grouped according to the types of texts they contain, and a complete list of texts in Magnús’s collection, to name a few possibilities.

Manuscripts grouped according to which scribe(s) worked on them can be seen on the individual scribes’ pages.

Last updated: 2018-09-15