The Old Norse-Icelandic Legend of Saints Mary Magdalen and Martha.

Abstract

This dissertation presents a new edition of the Old Norse-Icelandic legend of Saints Mary Magdalen and Martha, extant in the late medieval Icelandic manuscripts NoRA 79 fragm. (ca. 1350), AM 233a fol. (ca. 1350-1375), AM 235 fol. (ca. 1400), Stock. Perg. 2 fol. (ca. 1425-1445), and AM 764 4to (ca. 1376-1386). The edition is preceded by an introduction comprising four chapters, which detail the origins and developments of the legends and cults of Mary Magdalen and Martha in the West, and in Scandinavia and Iceland in particular. The introductory chapters also provide codicological, paleographic, and orthographic descriptions of the manuscripts preserving the legend. They moreover present a discussion of noteworthy literary features and an examination of the legend's Latin sources, which range from the Vulgate to works of the Church Fathers to Vincent de Beauvais' encyclopedic work, Speculum historiale. An analysis of the Old Norse-Icelandic text as compared to the various Latin sources reveals that the five manuscripts of the legend of Mary Magdalen and Martha constitute an original compilation, preserved in NoRA 79 fragm., and three redactions derived at one or more removes from this exemplar. These comprise: (a) a redaction represented by AM 235 fol. and Stock. Perg. 2 fol.; (b) a redaction represented by AM 233a fol.; and (c) a redaction represented by AM 764 4to. The surviving text of the original compilation in NoRA 79 fragm. and the three redactions are edited separately following the introductory chapters.