Research Group for Medieval Philology: Beeke Stegmann, Copenhagen

The changing form of Árni Magnússon's paper manuscripts

Árni Magnússon (1663-1730) famously collected Icelandic manuscripts and put the bits and pieces of dismembered medieval parchment manuscripts back together. Many of his younger manuscripts, however, were subject to the opposite fate: he frequently took them apart and even rearranged them on a large scale with parts of other manuscripts. This fact is often obscured by the work of later librarians and conservators, who counteracted Árni's efforts by rebinding and cataloguing his compilations based on the origins of their multiple parts.

Studying the codicology of manuscripts from the 17th and early 18th centuries, I uncover the often intricate physical history of paper codices from Árni's own time. In my talk I discuss Árni Magnússon's rearrangement activity with respect to his younger manuscripts based on selected cases. Moreover, I set his habits into context of other owners and collectors of the time.

Beeke Stegmann studied at the University of Bonn (Germany) and the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. Currently she is a PhD fellow at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), where she investigates paper codices which were taken apart and rearranged by Árni Magnússon.

Beeke combines approaches of material philology with digital humanities, producing for example interactive online-editions and digital catalogue records. She contributed among others to the research project ,,Stories for all time: the Icelandic fornaldarsögur".