handskriftar

Handsriftar is the Icelandic term for handwritten manuscripts. In scholarly use, it refers to handwritten copies or records produced before the widespread use of print, and to handwritten materials held as sources for research. The category includes literary, religious, legal, and administrative texts, as well as letters and marginalia.

Materials and form: Most early handskriftar were written on vellum or paper and bound as codices or in loose leaves. Scribes used various scripts and decorative elements; many bear illuminations, marginal notes, and corrections. Paleography—the study of historical handwriting—helps determine date, place of origin, and authorship.

Significance: Handskriftar are primary sources for history, linguistics, theology, and literature. They preserve versions of texts that may differ from printed editions and enable textual criticism, provenance research, and linguistic analysis. The transition to printing did not immediately erase handwritten copies, which continued to be produced in academic, religious, or administrative contexts.

Preservation and access: Libraries, archives, and monastic collections conserve handskriftar under controlled climate and handling conditions. Many are digitized in modern projects, allowing global access; metadata and encoded text (for example TEI) facilitate scholarly search and comparison.

Notable examples: Icelandic manuscripts such as Flateyjarbók and Konungsbók (Codex Regius) are among the most important medieval handskriftar for Norse literature. In Europe, manuscripts like the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells illustrate the artistic and textual diversity of scribal culture.