Old Norse Law Books from a Material Perspective

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Nummer 18 i Nota bene-serien presenterer ny forskning på manuskripter, arkivmateriale og trykte bøker fra middelalderen helt opp til 1900-tallet. Gjennom studier av bøker og manuskripter som blant annet inneholder Magnus Lagabøtes landslov, viser forfatterne hvordan norrøne lover ble betraktet og brukt gjennom historien.

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This volume presents new research on manuscripts, archival material and printed books containing Old Norse laws from the high middle ages until the twentieth century.

The study begins with three fourteenth-century parchment codices: the illuminated Codex Hardenbergianus and two smaller, somewhat older volumes containing King Magnus the Lawmender’s Laws of the Land. It passes through sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paper manuscripts containing the laws in Old Norse as well as in translation, and goes all the way to modern printed editions and translations as well as archival material. Each of the objects expresses the ideas of their makers and owners through its material, provenance and physical aspects such as paratext, and these features provide clues about how laws were regarded and used throughout history.