Stitches in the Margins: The Embroidery Pattern in AM 235 fol.

• Main Author: Van Deusen, Natalie M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Bymålslaget 2013
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://ojs.novus.no/index.php/MOM/article/view/325

AM 235 fol., a collection of translated saints' lives from ca. 1400, contains a wide variety of marginalia, ranging from religious invocations to childish pen-trials. Perhaps the most unique of the manuscript's marginalia is a seventeenth-century embroidery pattern on fol. 20v, a grid with large black ornamented letters reading "ION A MIG" (Jón owns me). In addition to the finished pattern is a smaller, blank grid on fol. 52v. This article discusses the pattern within the tradition of women and embroidery in medieval and early modern Iceland. It speculates as to who may have used the pattern through an examination of other marginalia in the codex, and concludes with a discussion of the significance of the pattern not only for the study of women and needlework in Iceland, but also for our understanding of women's use and ownership of manuscripts in Iceland, particularly during the early modern period.