Om variationen i Codex Thott 4 4:o – ett tolkningsförslag

This article examines the linguistic variation and paleographical phenomena in the 15th century Old Swedish manuscript Codex Thott 4 4:o. The manuscript contains the Pentateuch Paraphrase, the oldest known Bible text in the Swedish vernacular. A comparison between Cod. Thott 4 4:o and Codex Holm A 1, the other remaining Old Swedish manuscript containing the Pentateuch Paraphrase, reveals significant linguistic variation even though the manuscripts are thought to share a common source. Cod. Thott 4 4:o has been considered the work of one person, an experienced scribe, albeit not always consistent in his actions. One of the most interesting features of Cod. Thott 4 4:o is that the linguistic variation vis-à-vis Cod. Holm A 1 seems unevenly distributed. This seeming inconsistency of the Cod. Thott 4 4:o scribe also seems to somewhat correlate with paleographical phenomena. A combination of analyses of the linguistic variation vis-à-vis Cod. Holm A 1 and the paleographical phenomena in Cod. Thott 4 4:o suggests that Cod. Thott 4 4:o could in fact be the work of two scribes with somewhat different work principles. Similar to Haukur Erlendsson in Hauksbók, one of the scribes of Cod. Thott 4 4:o frequently changes and adapts his material whereas the other scribe more often follows the source.