Two Early Fragments of Njáls saga. A Diplomatic Edition of AM 162 fol. θ and AM 162 fol. κ

The subjects of my M.A. thesis are two 14th century manuscripts of Njáls saga, i.e. the fragments labeled as AM 162 B fol. θ and AM 162 B fol. κ, neither of which has previously been edited. The aims of my thesis are to produce a diplomatic edition of these fragments and to date the manuscripts based on a linguistic and graphematic analysis. The edition presents the fragments on three different levels. The first level is the so called facsimile level, where all special signs and the arrangement of the text are reproduced as close to the original as possible. On the second level, the diplomatic level, abbreviations will be expanded and made visible, using less special signs. The third level gives a normalized spelling of the text according to the orthography and grammar of the scribe. The introduction to the edition gives a detailed description of the fragments focusing on its paleographic and linguistic features. This examination aims at a critical discussion of the previously stated age of the manuscripts. The two fragments are first considered separately to be compared later on. In that comparison, a similar but more detailed description of AM 132 fol. (Möðruvallabók) provides clues to 14th century Icelandic grammar