The Development of Flateyjarbók: Iceland and the Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of 1389. by Elizabeth Ashman Rowe. The Viking Collection. Studies in Northern Civilization, Vol. 15. Gylling: the University Press of Southern Denmark, 2005. Pp. 486; 16 plates. Dkr 260.

Flateyjarbók ("the Book of Flatey") is the name given to GKS 1005 fol., an Icelandic manuscript now housed in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík. It is the largest of all extant Icelandic parchments and beautifully illuminated. In its original form, it contained 202 leaves. It was commissioned by Jón Hákonarson (1350­before 1416), a wealthy farmer in Vídidalstunga. The first scribe to work on it was the priest Jón Pórdarson, who began in 1387, and who on fols. 4v­134v copied Eiríks saga vídforla, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, and most of Óláfs saga helga. The work was continued in 1388 by another priest, Magnús Pórhallsson, who from 134v to the end of the manuscript copied the rest of Óláfs saga helga, Noregs konungatal, Sverris saga, Hákonar saga gamla, excerpts from Styrmir Kárason's Óláfs saga helga, Einars páttr Sokkasonar, Helga páttr ok Úlfs, Játvardar saga, and annals that he compiled himself. He added three leaves to the front of the codex, on which he wrote a short foreword and copied Geisli, Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar, Hyndluljód, an Icelandic excerpt from Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, Sigurdar páttr slefu, Hversu Noregr byggdist, and Ættartolur, and also illuminated the entire book. In the late fifteenth century, the manuscript was expanded to its now 225 leaves. These added leaves contain Magnúss saga góda ok Haralds hardráda interpolated with eleven pættir.

Kirsten Wolf
University of Wisconsin, Madison