Codex Regius

The Codex Regius ( Signature: GKS = Gammel Kongelig Samling nr 2365, 4 °. ) Is a Norse parchment manuscript from the late 13th century, containing the central version of the Poetic Edda.

Tradition history

1643 the manuscript came into the possession of the Icelandic bishop and manuscript collector Brynjólfur Sveinsson. Together with the Flateyjarbók on suitable Brynjólfur 1662 the Danish king Frederik III. this manuscript, which it ( hence the name of the Codex as "Royal handwriting " ) to Copenhagen found its way to the Royal Library. These priceless texts survived the great fire of 1728 and in 1971 returned with great ceremony to Iceland, where they are now preserved in Arnamagnäanischen Institute of Manuscripts of Iceland in Reykjavik.

It was called the texts of handwriting formerly Older Edda, to distinguish them from the Edda titled poet Snorri Sturluson textbook. In the songs of the Codex Regius is a collection of texts, which is very similar to the working basis for Snorri's Edda. This Older Edda or Poetic Edda wrote Brynjólfur to the Icelandic poet Sæmundr Sigfússon, who had recorded according to an Icelandic saga tradition as one of the first such songs to writing in 1087. That's why they called the elder Edda once called " Sæmundar Edda ".

The Codex Regius was made according to some researchers in 1271 by a single unknown writer, which is, however, is a copy of an older text, which in turn must have been the result of a collective work. The songs themselves but are much older and may have originated in the British Isles and Greenland in its present form between 800 and 1000 in Iceland, Norway or the Norwegian colonies. The individual authors are also unknown; some songs give deities as the author. The recording of the verses is continuous, neither verses nor stanzas are discontinued.

The Codex Regius consists of 45 parchment leaves in 6 layers. After missing eight leaf 32 leaves; the body has been "filled" in the 18th century with 8 blank sheets of parchment. The affected from this lacuna the text parts, known as " Songs of the gap" has especially the older research attempts, on the basis of often (though not undisputed ) as " prose paraphrase " the eddischen Sigurdlieder to reconstruct designated Völsunga saga, so that the gross content of the missing digits can be traced.

Up to this large gap the songs obtained are almost completely preserved. The best-known song, the Völuspá, stands at the very beginning and is a prophecy of a seer of the origin of the world, the apocalypse and the re-emergence.

Also one of the manuscripts of the Snorra - Edda is known as codex regius, ( signature: nr GKS 2367 4 °. ). This manuscript was built around 1325 and is the second oldest of the three full parchment manuscripts; it represents the basis for most modern translations and editions of Snorra Edda