Towards a model of intra-scribal variability in medieval Icelandic manuscripts: the case of AM 748 I a + b 4to
Abstract. Taking the Icelandic vernacular manuscript AM 748 I a + b 4to as a starting-point, in which a single hand varies greatly in the space of a few leaves, a model of intra-scribal variability in Icelandic manuscripts is proposed which accounts systematically for the various impetuses behind scribal change, demonstrates the ways in which hands evolved and how rapidly, and is tested against examples from the wider corpus where changeable hands are either certain or possible. This model provides invaluable insight into scribal practice as it relates to ongoing problems of hand identification and disambiguation.
To date, most considerations of scribal hands in medieval Icelandic manuscripts have treated the question of intra-scribal variability lightly, if at all. Most of those investigations which have paid closer attention to the ways individual hands evolved have been mainly concerned with how these developments reflected wider changes in scribal practice, orthographic or palaeographic, across the writing community as a whole; where mention is made of other factors, such as the influence of the exemplar or of other scribes working in proximity, these have been more gestured towards than investigated in depth. Most recently, a growing emphasis on quantitative/statistical methodologies has tended to place excessive prominence on counting of points of difference as evidence for different hands, without consideration of the ways in which one hand might vary from manuscript to manuscript or from text to text. It is clear, therefore, that a more systematic approach to intra-scribal variability is desirable, both in terms of the potential insight into scribal practices in general and as a rejoinder in particular to the tendency to give too much weight to simple enumeration of differences in distinguishing between hands.
The Icelandic manuscript AM 748 I a+b 4to (c. 1300) is the perfect specimen from which to develop and generalise a model of scribal change. Over the course of 28 largely consecutively written leaves, the hand of the main scribe changes drastically in a number of ways: more so than we find in any other contemporary manuscript from Iceland. The unsual degree of variation within a single hand in a single manuscript allows us the rare opportunity to observe a number of distinct impetuses behind the various changes in the hand and draw some testable rules from them (some of which accord well with the observations of previous scholars, some of which are novel):
–Scribal change is not, or need not be, a slow and incremental process over a period of decades; rather, some changes at least, especially those least related to wider developments in writing norms, occur rapidly when the scribe makes a conscious decision to favour a different form;
-After such changes in habitus, the earlier form will tend nonetheless to recur sporadically, presumably unconsciously;
-Orthographic and macro-palaeographic changes are especially associated with the influence of the exemplar rather than other influences;
-Changes under the influence of the exemplar are likelier to be abandoned again than changes under other influences, and do not leave traces in the hand after they are abandoned.
These rules are then tested against other manuscripts/groups of manuscripts where a changeable hand has been observed or where there is disagreement as to whether a single changeable hand or multiple separate hands have been at work (e.g. Hauksbók, Jöfraskinna, the manuscripts ascribed to Helgafell H1), and found to provide a useful rubric for accounting for intra-scribal variation.