The present work is a critical edition of manuscript H of the National Law Code of Magnus Eriksson (MELL). The chief problem is to establish the origin of the manuscript. In the Introduction the manuscript is described according to its binding, the way it is folded, the appearance of the text surface and the various styles of handwriting. Then follows a discussion of some characteristic linguistic forms in the manuscripts A and H, in which the two are compared. An important section in this work deals with the age of manuscript H. The age of manuscript His compared with that of A: here the texts of A and H are compared with that in certain statutes from the 1330s and 1340s, which form the basis of some parts of the MELL; furthermore the textual differences between A and H are examined. The actual age of manuscript His also investigated: its writer is identified as being a certain diploma writer, who was active in the Strangnas area in northern Sodermanland and from whose hand eight diplomas from the years 1330-1363 have survived until the present day. The orthography and the palaeography in Hand in these diplomas are compared and remarkable similarities are established, for instance the late use of o to denote a voiced fricative sound. Attention is drawn to the possibility that this writer may have been a Dominican monk in Strängnäs.

Språk i boken: svenska