Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson‘s Paper Trails

One of the watermarks, a large VE with crown, in Guðbrandur's Bible from 1586

On this day, 448 years ago, Guðbrandur Þorláksson was consecrated as bishop of Hólar, Iceland‘s northern diocese. During his 56 years in office, he published 100 books, including the Bible. It was the first time the whole Bible was printed in Icelandic and this book became an influential publication on Icelandic language and culture.

Guðbrandur‘s Bible consists of c. 1250 pages in folio-size and contains three title pages, as well as 29 wood-cut illustrations. It is said to have been printed in 500 copies. By multiplying the copies with the leaves per copy, we can calculate how much paper was needed for this ambitious printing venture: 625 x 500 = c. 312,500 folio-leaves, or approx. 625 reams of printing paper. No small feat for a publisher from a country without paper mills!

Unfortunately we have no information where Bishop Guðbrandur got his paper from. In his book of correspondence, AM 241 a and b 4to, which was published in 1919-42, we only find a few comments between 1573 and 1576 that he got paper from Hamburg merchants and that he asked his friend Povl Madsen, Bishop of Sjælland in Denmark, for paper. Alas, nothing concrete can be gleaned from Guðbrandur‘s comments.

Watermarks can shed more light on the origin of the paper used in Guðbrandsbiblía. During a preliminary analysis of seven copies in Iceland, I found five watermark motifs. One of them I was able to find in a watermark database: the letters VE intertwined with a crown on top. It was used between 1579 and 1602 in Rostock, Schwerin, Grabow, Güstrow, Neukloster, all in Germany, and Dorpat/Tartu in Estonia. Now we can add 1584, Hólar/Iceland to this list. The German places are in close vicinity, and Rostock and Dorpat were Hanseaic towns. Hanse merchants were furthermore active in Iceland, too.

So far, all the information seems to point towards Hanse merchants as Guðbrandur‘s paper suppliers! Stay tuned for more paper trails!

Further reading:

Bréfabók Guðbrands byskups Þorlákssonar, edited by Páll Eggert Ólason and Jón Þorkelsson. Reykjavík : Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1919-1942.

Adolf E. Hofmeister, “Hansische Kaufleute auf Island im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert,“ in Kirche – Kaufmann – Kabeljau: 1000 Jahre Bremer Islandfahrt, edited by Adolf E. Hofmeister and Alfred Löhr, 33-46. Kleine Schriften des Staatsarchivs Bremen 30. Bremen: Staatsarchiv Bremen, 2000.