On this fine Icelandic National Day (hip hip hooray!), we’ll look at a manuscript that contains drafts of a jarðabók, a land register. The best known land register was compiled by Árni Magnússon and Páll Vídalín on behest of the king of Denmark. Árni and Páll spent most of the years 1702-1710 in Iceland, collecting material for the register and for the famous census from 1703. AM 463 fol, though, contains slightly older material, the majority of which was collected in 1693.
Most of this manuscript was written on good quality writing paper, and contains the land rent and tax value of each farm in each district. At the end of each district register, we find colophons with signatures and often also seals of the people in charge. Many of these fascicles were previously folded and, in some cases, sealed. The bulk of the fascicles is in folio-size, although there are some in quarto and some in quarto-oblong, a common format for accounts.
What makes this manuscript so interesting for Life of Paper is that it is written on paper with a multitude of watermarks; on 376 leaves we find more than 30 different watermarks. Such a high number suggests that the officials were not supplied with paper for the task at hand but used their own paper stock.
Additionally, we find a few note slips by Árni Magnússon that he wrote on recycled paper. In one instance, on f. 87v we can still read parts of a letter that was written to a bishop. The verso sides of some other note slips are notes that Árni made with regard to the land register, i.e. in these instances, Árni reused paper immediately.
And last but not least, we find paper that was previously used as a wrapper of one of the fascicles, with “Muule=Syssel 1.” written on it by Árni Magnússon. The paper is dark brown and very coarse. Chain lines and laid lines, as well as brighter fibres, perhaps straw fibres, are visible to the naked eye. It seems possible that wrapping paper was used here! If you have ever seen such paper, please let us know!
Note: We’ll be back after our summer holidays.
Further reading:
Björn Lárusson, The Old Icelandic Land Registers, translated by W. F. Salisbury. Lund: Gleerup, 1967.
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