Codex Runicus - Runic Manuscripts

Runic Manuscripts

The Codex Runicus is considered by most scholars a nostalgic or revivalist use of runes and not a natural step from the Nordic runic script culture of the Viking Age to the medieval Latin manuscript culture.

A similar use of runes in a Scandinavian manuscript from this era is known only from the small fragment SKB A 120, a religious text about Mary's lament at the cross. The two manuscripts are similar in how the runes are formed and also in their language use, and it has therefore been suggested that it they were both written by the same Scanian scribe. Some scholars argue that they were written at the scriptorium at the Cistercian monastery at Herrevad in Scania, although the idea is contested.

Some historians have considered it feasible that the Codex is a part and remainder of a formerly substantial collection of Scandinavian runic manuscripts, obliterated during the destruction of monasteries and libraries that followed the Protestant Reformation. Support for this idea has been found in reports written by Olaus Magnus, a Catholic ecclesiastic active during the 16th century in Uppsala, Sweden, who fled the country due to the Reformation. According to Olaus Magnus, there were many books written with runes in important Swedish religious centres, such as Skara and Uppsala, before the Reformation. Other historians have questioned the accuracy of his report.