Quantifying Medieval Scribal Habits

It has often been pointed out that use of abbreviations is characteristic of Old West Norse manuscripts, especially the Icelandic ones. This article deals with the use of abbreviations primarily in Old Icelandic manuscripts in comparison to Old Norwegian manuscripts and also one Old Swedish manuscript. The material consists of digital editions of manuscripts or parts of manuscripts, mostly from the digital archives of Menota and Emroon. The Icelandic manuscripts in this study are from around 1280 to the beginning of the 16th century, while the Norwegian ones are from 1200–1350, mostly from 1270–1325. The Old Swedish manuscript is dated to around 1280. Among the Icelandic manuscripts, a gradual development can be seen over time towards more abbreviation; in the manuscript from 1280, 33% of the words are abbreviated, while in the manuscript from the beginning of the 16th century, 62% of the words are abbreviated. Such a development is not observed in the Norwegian manuscripts, which were, however, written over a shorter period of time. Another tendency is that the degree of abbreviation is lower in poetry, where there is a high proportion of unusual words compared to ordinary prose. A significant regional variation in the use of abbreviations can also be observed. The Icelandic manuscripts are considerably more abbreviated than the Norwegian ones; the former vary between 33–62% abbreviated words, while the latter between 10–26% abbreviated words. Furthermore, the Norwegian manuscripts are more abbreviated than the Old Swedish manuscript examined in this study. This manuscript has 5.6% abbreviated words, which is a significantly lower percentage than in the Norwegian manuscripts.