Coat of arms were popular motifs for watermarks and are often found Icelandic paper charters and manuscripts.
On the occasion of the Icelandic National Day, celebrated on 17 June, I would like to present a watermark that looks somewhat similar to a coat of arms of Iceland found in AM 700 b 4to, a manuscript dated to c. 1600. The watermark in question is a pavese shield with battlement in a double circle with the inscription: BVDISSEN. It was used in a paper mill in Bautzen, Germany, and a similar one can be found as number 77 in Lindberg’s Paper Comes to the North. Because our Icelandic manuscript is in quarto, the watermark is bisected by the fold and gutter. The battlement is therefore barely visible, obscuring the watermark's origin and making it similar to the Icelandic coat of arms with a cod.
Þorskmerkið, the Icelandic coat of arms with a cod, contains a crowned cod in a shield. Its origins can perhaps be traced to seals of German merchants, such as the seal of Hamburg merchants around 1500 and the Bergen-farers’ from Lübeck around 1415. The oldest extant Icelandic seal with a cod dates to 1593 and was given to royal officials in Iceland. You can find it in the archives of the National Museum of Iceland (Þjóðminjasafn Íslands 4390/1897-29).
Can you see the similarity between the watermark and the Icelandic coat of arms? And what special coat of arms have you found in your work?
Further reading:
Nils J. Lindberg: Paper Comes to the North: Sources and Trade Routes of Paper in the Baltic Sea Region 1350-1700. IPH Monograph 2. Marburg: IPH, 1998.
Icelandic National Day
The Icelandic National Day is set on the birthday of Jón Sigurðsson (1811-1879), who is most famous for his paramount role in Iceland's way to independence. However, he was also a scholar and led for some time Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, the Icelandic Literary Society, as their president. He was furthermore employed at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen, the sister institute of the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, where our project is housed. And most importantly, he was an avid collector of Icelandic manuscripts: his collection is today housed at Landsbókasafn, the National and University Library of Iceland (one of our wonderful cooperation partners!), with the shelf mark "JS".
Comments