Dating Medieval Icelandic Texts

R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts Dating Medieval Icelandic Texts a preliminary guide for students Dating ancient texts, like many other applied branches of the humanities, is an activity at the crossroads between science and art. While the scholar would always strive to follow an empirically rigorous method, the complexity of the objects of their study may be too high, and the variables too many, for any method they may use to be repeatable and verifiable in the same way as it would be for a chemical experiment. Thus, a certain degree of intuition and creativity may be necessary to interpret the maze of ambiguous data that is often seen emerging from ancient texts. Reconstructing the history and transmission of a text through the ages is one of the main goals of philology, a discipline where the study of ancient writings and that of language development intersect. In order to proceed with this reconstruction, it is paramount to build some kind of timeline which can show the development of certain characteristics of the texts (such as the writing style, or the spelling of certain words). The development of language through the ages is the object of study for historical linguistics, while the development of script(s) constitutes the object of study for the discipline called palaeography. 1 1 In some English speaking environments, philology is used as a synonym of historical linguistics. It is preferable to keep the two terms separate: if the text is a mean through which the history of a language is studied, we are dealing with historical linguistics, if language is a mean through which the history of a text is studied, we are dealing with philology. It is evident, however, that these two disciplines go hand in hand, and which of the two is subordinate to the other depends only on what the object of a given research is. Palaeography too can be both a mean (helping a philologist study the history of a text) or an 1 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts Palaeography is further specified by the particular type of script that it will concern itself with. In the case of Icelandic texts, we are in the realm of Latin palaeography, because the alphabet used to write down texts in medieval Iceland was the Latin one. One should not confuse the adjective describing the type of script with the name of the language which was first written down with it. Latin palaeography studies texts written in any language by means of the Latin alphabet. Furthermore, the script types we find in Iceland all follow those we find in Western Europe, so that it is possible to trace their development all the way back to the Archaic Latin inscriptions on stone. In other words, the history of Icelandic script is a chapter of the long and fascinating story of the Latin alphabet. How is it that these disciplines work together to analyse each their preferred aspect of a given textual tradition? Let’s assume that it has been ascertained how a certain type of writing was in use within a specific period. Perhaps the scribes wrote the date in which they finished their work, or they noted that while they were writing some major event took place, and we know the date of that event thanks to some chronicles. If we come across some texts (which are, regrettably, the majority) the dating of which is neither reported by their scribes themselves, nor can be deduced from external references, it is necessary to compare them with the former ones, to try and find out how close they are when it comes to type of script used, language etc. In the case of texts written in European centres of learning, it is often possible to provide a narrower dating because we often have large amount of material which allows us to identify specific styles which were taught in those centres, together with precious end (when the palaeographer tries to trace the development of script(s) through different texts). 2 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts information on the periods of activity. We do not have such a luxury when working with Icelandic texts: a very few are securely dated, and the deterioration and disappearance of Icelandic buildings, together with the dispersal of the texts they produced, makes it hard to attribute particular styles to specific centres (such as monasteries). We know the location of many of these centres, sometimes we also know that some texts were likely written there because their commissioner is known and his property was located in the vicinity of a specific monastery. Some dialectal features may also emerge, but it is normally impossible to attribute it to the location of the place in which it was written as opposed to that in which the scribe was born. The result of this lack of a secure foothold for the dating, makes it necessary to deduce it from clues that can be found in the text itself: its script, its orthography (spelling) and its language. We don’t write with the same style as our grandparents, the spelling of some has changed too in the last decades, and the language itself has evolved, losing some elements and acquiring others. In order to date texts, it is necessary to reconstruct the history of these changes, helping ourselves with the few texts which are miraculously dated, to then see how undated texts compare to these. When dating an Icelandic text approximately, that is, when you give a rough estimate of its age with the naked eye, as opposed to (among other methods) encoding it and tagging its items to generate statistics and get more refined results, you are supposed to weigh the relevance of certain features you are going to look for, which you know to be revealing. There is no official textbook explaining how to date texts, and any instruction must be, by its nature, somewhat vague, given the degree of variation that can be encountered in these texts. For a long time, the discipline of palaeography had some kind of mystical aura, given that the practical expertise achieved 3 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts by the palaeographers is very hard to translate into a rigorous set of rules. Most textbooks on palaeography will offer you a history of ideal/typical types, but most text you will meet are likely to show some degree of overlap between these, and it will be your goal to train your eyes to “weigh” relevant features, so as to build a convincing case for the dating you are going to suggest. Your starting point should be a solid knowledge of the chronology for the development of language and script. It is not strictly necessary to be a trained linguist and grasp all the intricacies of phonological change, as long as you can identify changes through the orthography, but a solid command of palaeography is indispensable. In other words, you should train your eyes to spot crucial clues that will provide you with valuable information on the age of the text. However, not all features are created equal, and very few of them have the power of narrowing the dating of a text reasonably. This makes it necessary to cross-examine multiple features of the language, of its orthography and of the script, in order to establish the date to which the majority of the elements traceable seem to point. Such apparent vagueness in the methodology is often very off-putting and hard to come to terms with for many students; it is however an integral part of the discipline, and it is important to come to terms with the fact that there cannot be a definitive instruction book on how to date ancient texts. A bit like when you translate from Old Icelandic: you may feel like you studied all the grammar rigorously, you are perhaps able to parse every single word in a given sentence and yet the translation does not seem to make any sense. In that case you are forced to guess what the author may have wanted to say, and of course your guess may be very different from that of another. 4 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts In order to make the task of dating a text more accessible for a beginner, here is a simplified “check-list” with examples. It is important to stress that no such check-list (nor any other, for that matter), can be expected to work in every case – or even any case! You should not feel frustrated if, after following every step, you feel like you do not possess enough elements to provide a definitive answer. It’s part of the game, and perhaps it’s one of the things that make palaeography so much fun! You will want to start with the most obvious features, such as “þ” for “ð”, or Carolingian “f” which will tell you a text cannot possibly be younger than around 1200, or “ꝺ” for “ð”, which makes it unlikely that the text was written before 1350 or 1400 at the latest, and then you can try and narrow it down further looking for other features you know to have taken place in the range that your first clue has suggested. Once you identified other clues, look for more instances of the same feature (how many times is the sound ð written with an “ð” and how many times is it written with a “ꝺ”? Sometimes the difference between conservative vs innovative features will be extremely obvious (for example, mik may be spelt “mig” in every instance but one or two), other times it will be more ambiguous, and will force you to look more closely at other features in order to establish whether the general character of the text is more conservative or more innovative. Individual elements are not to be trusted, some scribes with an antiquarian interest may have written with a consciously archaizing intent, and only some linguistic “slips” may reveal their younger age. 1st step: The first characteristic you want to look at is the type of script. Despite the fact that from a strictly taxonomical perspective, Icelandic script can be further subdivided into a perhaps intimidating number of subgroups, it will still be helpful to use the macro-groups that are known to 5 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts have been used in the course of the Middle Ages. Despite significant overlapping from one century to the other, we can very roughly subdivide types as such: 1. Carolingian minuscule: 1100-1200 a. Are the horizontal axes of the letter broad? b. Are the letters somewhat round and separated from one another? c. Is the “f” standing on the line? 2. Protogothica: 1200-1300 a. Are the horizontal axes somewhat narrow? b. Is the ductus (the way the pen flowed on the page) somewhat broken and angular? c. Are there insular letter-forms, such as “ð; ꝼ; ꝩ”? d. Are letters starting to touch one another? e. Are the minims beginning to be so regular that a word like minni would look something like “ııııııııı” or (at best) “ıııíııııí”? 3. Textualis: 1250-c1400 a. Is the space between letters extremely narrow? b. Is the shading (difference between bold and thin lines) very accentuated? 4. Textualis with cursive influence/Late textualis (such as loops and connecting lines): 1350-1500 a. Is it still a quite pronounced Textualis but with occasional cursive features such as loops and connecting lines that are obviously added to achieve an aesthetic effect? 5. Cursiva antiquor (with “a”): 1400-1500 a. Are the cursive features seemingly less of an aesthetic choice and more functional to writing speed? b. Is the a the two-storey variant (a)? 6 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts c. Is the long-s extending below the baseline (ſ vs ſ)? d. Is the “f” written with two closed lobes and 6. Cursiva recentior (with “a”): 1450-1650 a. Are the cursive features seemingly less of an aesthetic choice and more functional to writing speed? b. Is the a the one-storey variant? c. Is the long-s extending below the baseline? 2nd step: Once you established the macro-type of the script, you may proceed to examine some smaller features of the script itself. Remember that every feature should be observed in the light of all the others. Some texts may seem very innovative in some features, and extremely conservative in others. A check list may be: • Is “þ” the sole symbol used for the dental fricative? o Yes: the text is older than 1225. o No: the text is younger than 1200. • Is etymological ǫ distinguished from á? o Yes: the text is older than 1200. o No: the text is likely younger than 1200. • Is “f” standing on the line? o Yes: older than 1225. o No: younger than 1225. • Is “f” the insular type “ꝼ”? o Yes: younger than 1225. o No: older than 1225. • Is “c” used in positions other than the combination “ck”? 7 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts • • • • • • o Yes: it is unlikely to be younger than the 13th century. o No: may be from the 13th century or younger. Is the “ꝩ” (wynn) used? o Yes: the text was most likely written between 1200 and 1300. o No: the text is likely either older than 1200 or younger than 1300. Is “ð” used? o Yes: the text was likely written between 1200 and 1350/1400. o No: the text was written either before 1200 or after 1350. Is “ꝺ” used for ð? o Yes: the text was likely written after the end of the 14th century. o No: check whether “þ” or “ð” are used. Are small capitals used? o Yes: the text may be older than 1350. o No: the text is likely younger than 1400. Are there consciously added cursive features? o Yes: the text is likely younger than 1350. o No: the text is likely older than 1400. Are there cursive features caused by a faster ductus (the way the pen flows on the page)? o Yes: the text could have been written after 1450. o No: the text may be older than 1450. Below is a list with some of the major features to look for in every century. Symbols between // indicate phonemes (sound units), those between ⟨⟩ and “” indicate graphemes (written symbols): 8 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts /ö/= ⟨ǫ⟩ ⟨ꜹ⟩ ⟨au⟩ ⟨o⟩ ⟨ø⟩ should be read as “the sound /ö/ can be written as ⟨ǫ⟩ ⟨ꜹ⟩ ⟨au⟩ ⟨o⟩ ⟨ø⟩”. You should not (at least at this stage of your studies) “dissect” the text and look for every single letter variant: given the short length of the samples you are going to look at, finding a couple of variants of contrasting nature (for example one conservative and one innovative) is likely going to be misleading. Start with the macro features of the script, and perhaps resort to some minute orthographic or palaeographic features in case the former appear too ambiguous to you. Unfortunately, there is no official and universally agreed method to date texts. Although researchers are constantly working in order to refine the criteria, when one is working with language and script only, to provide an estimate on the age, it is hard to obtain something better than a (very!) educated guess, and disagreement among scholars is not at all uncommon. Data is often scarce and ambiguous, and we must work with we what we have. . . . . . . . . . 1100: /ð; þ/ = ⟨þ⟩ → “meþ” for með Incomplete rhotacism of the inherited Proto-Germanic/z/ in some word-final positions → “vaſ” for var; “eſ” for er. á ≠ ǫ́ → “hǫtíþ” for hátið Unstressed /u; i/ = ⟨o; e⟩ →“ſender” for sendir; “enge” for engi; “þessom” for þessum /ø/= ⟨eo; ø; o; ey⟩ → “geoꝛa” for gøra /ǫ/= ⟨ǫ; ꜵ; ꜹ; o⟩ → “ſꜹgo” for sǫgu /æ/ = ⟨e⟩ ⟨ę⟩ ⟨æ⟩ → “fęrre” for færri ⟨d⟩ ⟨⟩ ⟨g⟩ ⟨ꞇ⟩ ⟨ca⟩ ⟨co⟩ ⟨ke⟩ ⟨ki⟩ → “calla” for kalla; “miſcun” for miskun; 9 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts . Some small capitals to denote long consonants → “beɢia” for beggja 1200: . . . . . . ⟨ꝩ⟩ → “ꝩit” for vit ⟨qv⟩ → “qveða” for kveða ⟨ð⟩ ⟨ꝼ⟩ ⟨⟩ ⟨qv⟩ ⟨k⟩ (=/kk/) ⟨A⟩ ⟨t⟩ /ö/= ⟨ǫ⟩ ⟨ꜹ⟩ ⟨au⟩ ⟨o⟩ ⟨ø⟩ (rare) → “sogu”, “saugu” etc. for sǫgu 1225: ⟨ꝼ⟩ ⟨h⟩ ⟨ꝺ⟩ ⟨ð⟩ ⟨ꝛ⟩ (after round letters) → “goꝛa” for gøra; “ꝺꝛaga” for draga; “bꝛoður” for bróður. . . 1250: ⟨f⟩ ⟨⟩ ⟨⟩ ⟨a⟩ (=closed two-storey a) ⟨ꞅ⟩ (=long r) ⟨ꝼ⟩ ⟨f⟩: have descenders Unstressed /u; i/ = ⟨u⟩ ⟨i⟩ (sporadic) → “ſkipinu” for skipinu. Some small capitals to denote long consonants. Norwegianisms become common. . . . . . 1300: ⟨f⟩ ⟨f⟩ ⟨x⟩ ⟨ᵶ⟩ ⟨ck⟩ ⟨I⟩ /ð/ = ⟨ꝺ⟩ → “maꝺꝛ” for maðr. /ö/ = ⟨⟩ ⟨au⟩ ⟨o⟩ /á; é; ó; ú/ = ⟨a̋;aa;; e̋; ő; ű; æ̋; etc.⟩ ⟨æ⟩ becomes dominant → “bær” for bœr; “fær” for fær. . . . 1350: 10 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . ⟨f⟩ becomes predominant. ⟨ꝛ⟩ appears after some non-rounded letters → “eꝛ” for er “faꝛa” for fara. Unstressed /u; i/ = ⟨u⟩ ⟨i⟩ (increasingly common) ⟨ꝩ⟩ disappears 1400: ⟨ꝛ⟩ also after ⟨e⟩ ⟨æ⟩ at first, and later on after most letters. Towards the end of the century also word-initially. Unstressed /u; i/ = ⟨u⟩ ⟨i⟩ more common, but not universal. ⟨ǫ⟩ disappears. Small capitals denoting long consonants disappear. ⟨w⟩ occasionally used for /ú/ and /w/(/v/?) → “wt” for út; “wera” for vera. Norwegianisms disappear, except the use of writing “ꝺ” for ð 3rd step: the next thing to do is to look for evidence of linguistic changes. This is the most difficult part, as a strong command of Icelandic is indispensable. You need to be able to decipher the sounds that emerge from the orthography of certain key words, and promptly recognize how these are different from those of classical old Icelandic. It may be the case that some language changes will seem to point to a different date from that suggested by the script. This is a thorny issue that some researchers are still addressing, as it is hard to decide which should carry more weight. A securely dated text such as GKS 1005 fol., Flateyjarbók, was written by two 11 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts contemporary scribes, and the first of them seem to show a more conservative script (textualis), together with a more innovative language and orthography, while the second shows a more innovative script (hybrid) together with a more conservative orthography and language. The recommended way to proceed is to acquire as much experience as possible, in order to be able to build as a convincing case as possible, but one has to accept that definitive and unquestionable results may be an ideal and unreachable goal. . End of the 12th century // + /á/ > /á/; hǫ́tíð → hátið, spelt “hatíþ”. 13th century . . . . . . . /ø/+/ǫ/ > ⟨ö⟩; /ǿ/+/ǽ/ > ⟨æ⟩; “bær” for bœr2 /-t/⟩→/-ð/ (sporadic); “landid” for landit, “vid” for vit, “ad” for at, “ad”, “talad” for talat. /-k/→/-g/ (sporadic); “eg, mig, þig, sig, og, miog” for ek, mik, þik, sik, ok, mjǫk. /é/→/je/ (sporadic); “mier, þier, vier, liet, fie, brief” for mér, þér, vér, lét, fé, bréf. 14th century /-t/→/-ð/; “landid” for landit, “vid” for vit, “ad” for at. /-k/→/-g/; “eg, mig, þig, sig, og, miog” for ek, mik, þik, sik, ok, mjǫk. 2 “ǿ” and “œ” are two different conventional orthographic symbols for the same phoneme, which must have been [œː], a long low-mid front rounded vowel. 12 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts . . . . . . . /eng/→/eing/; “eingi, eingan, eingum etc., eingland, feingi, leingi, eingill etc.” for engi, engan, engum etc., England, fengi, lengi, engill etc. /é/→/je/; “mier, þier, vier, liet, fie, brief” for mér, þér, vér, lét, fé, bréf. /vá/→/vo/;“svo” for svá, “vogr” for vágur. u-epenthesis; “maður, armur, okkur, *okkr, *broðr, feður, *sögr” for maðr, armr, okkr, okkur, bróður, feðr, sögur.3 /i; í/ = /y; ý/ (sporadic); “firer” for fyrir. /ll/→/tl/; “padl” for Páll. /rl/→/rtl/→/tl/ (sporadic); “jall” for jarl, “kelling” for kerling. 3 The symbol * is here used to indicate that the spelling has no justification either synchronically (according to how the language was at that particular time) or diachronically (according to how the language had been before that time): the u in certain words had always been there since the older period, but the rise of u-epenthesis made it impossible for speakers of the time to disambiguate between words containing -ur which originally had a simple -r, and those who already had -ur. The older “r” spelling they found in books for what they likely pronounced as ur led them to believe there was some kind of spelling rule for which ur should be (at least in some cases) written “r”. The results were spellings like “bróðr” (it was always bróður in the oblique cases), or “sǫgr” (pl. of saga, which has always been sǫgur). These “inverted spellings” tell us that the u-epenthesis had taken (or was taking) place, showing the inability of the scribe to distinguish correctly between etymological -r and etymological -ur. Care should be taken with words like okkr, ykkr, yðr (personal pronouns: etymologically without u in the accusative and dative) and okkur, ykkur, yður (possessives: etymologically with u in the nominative singular feminine and nominative and accusative plural neuter): “han er með okkr” (he is with us) is not sign of inversed spelling, since okkr is an accusative dual pronoun here. Similarly, “ek sá bǫrnin ykkur” (I saw your children) does not indicate u-epenthesis, because the u has always been there in this possessive. 13 R. L. Pagani Háskóli Íslands Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts . . /nn/→/tn/; “þoꝛteiꝛn” for Þorsteinn, “eirn” for einn. /rn/→/rtn/→/tn/ (sporadic); “fordn” for forn. . . . . . . 15th century /i; í/= /y; ý/; “firer” for fyrir, “skildi” for skyldi, /ll/→/tl/; “padl” for Páll. /rl/→/rtl/→/tl/; “jall” for jarl, “kelling” for kerling. /nn/→/tn/; “þoꝛteiꝛn” for Þorsteinn. /rn/→/rtn/→/tn/; “fordn” for forn. /gj/→/j/; “deigi” for degi, “seigir” for segir. 14