Among Iceland’s medieval treasures, Codex Scardensis stands out for both its scale and the journey it has travelled. Written in the fourteenth century and containing sagas about the apostles in Old Norse-Icelandic, this manuscript is rivaled in size only by Flateyjarbók among works from its era.
A monumental manuscript emerges
Around 1360, the canons regular at Helgafell monastery completed the manuscript at the request of Ormr Snorrason, a lawman and chief who had inherited the estate of Skarð in 1322. Its content centres on the lives and deeds of Christian apostles, anchored by both younger sources and older Latin originals. Across its 95 original parchment leaves, Codex Scardensis contains a series of sagas such as “Péturs saga postula” (Saga of Peter the Apostle), “Páls saga postula” (Saga of Paul), as well as stories of Andrew, John, James, Thomas, and others.
The heart of the codex (from the first to the eighty-first folio) draws mostly on sources only slightly older than itself. Certain parts, like the saga of John and James, were copied directly from a contemporary manuscript, AM 239 fol. Later sections, judged by spelling and style, stay close to their Latin exemplars, showing less local adaptation.
Shifting hands, national importance
The manuscript’s documented history begins with Ormr Snorrason’s donation. In 1401, a note in the codex itself records Ormr giving his share of the manuscript to the church at Skarð. By then, ownership had already partly passed to a resident farmer, as an earlier document from 1397 reveals.
For four centuries, Codex Scardensis remained at the Skarð church, drawing the attention of scholars. Árni Magnússon, Iceland’s great manuscript collector, borrowed the book from 1710 to 1712 and commissioned handwritten copies. These eighteenth-century copies became the basis for later printed editions, especially after the original went missing.
After its last mention in Skarð church records in 1807, the manuscript’s trail disappeared. By 1827, it was feared lost. It surfaced again in London in 1836, offered for sale by Thomas Thorpe. That same year, it entered the vast private library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, an Englishman whose collection ran to nearly 24,000 manuscripts. The codex spent the next 130 years in British hands, changing ownership several more times, even surviving wartime storage in the cellars of Thirlstaine House.
By the mid-twentieth century, interest in reclaiming the manuscript for Iceland grew. Scholars such as Desmond Slay helped to trace its location, and diplomatic efforts followed. In 1965, thanks to a consortium of Icelandic banks and careful negotiation, Codex Scardensis made its return to Iceland. Today, it is preserved in Reykjavík at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, the Árni Magnússon Institute.
Physically, Codex Scardensis is imposing. One of its largest leaves measures over 41 by 27 centimetres. Seven scribes worked on the manuscript, but only Eilífr, a priest who recorded a tithe in 1401, is known by name. The main body of the text was written by unnamed hands designated by scholars.
Codex Scardensis remains a symbol of Iceland’s literary continuity and the movement of cultural heritage over turbulent centuries.
