ABSTRACT
Research on medieval manuscripts in Sweden and other Nordic countries depends upon the records of the administrations that systematically dismembered and destroyed them. Throughout the Middle Ages outdated or worn manuscripts were often dismembered and reused in bindings of new books, and parchment leaves were turned into flyleaves, pastedowns and strips reinforcing the spines in the binding of new books. This recycling of manuscripts was common all over Europe, and also in Sweden. A local provenance can be presumed only when several fragments from the same manuscript, at least four or five, were used exclusively during a period of several years in the same bailiff's district or adjacent districts. The connection between a medieval fragment and the sixteenth-century account to which it is bound is important, and many questions concerning the provenance of the fragment are related to this connection.
