Grein um Benedikt S. Benedikz - (Bendí) í The Times.

Frændi minn Benedikt Sigurður Benedikz bókavörður lést í Birmingham á Englandi 25. mars sl. Hann var ávallt kallaður Bendí af frændfólki sínu.

Benedikt fæddist 4. apríl 1932 í Reykjavík, sonur Eiríks Benedikz og Margaret Benedikz. Benedikt stundaði nám við háskólann í Oxford, Penbroke College, og lauk þaðan MA-prófi 1958. Hann hlaut Diploma in Librarianship við University College í Lundúnum 1959, fyrstur Íslendinga. Hann varð síðan dr. phil. frá háskólanum í Birmingham 1979.

Benedikt vann við háskólabókasafnið í Durham 1959-67 og var kennari við þann skóla. Hann var bókavörður við háskólann í Ulster 1968-71. Frá 1973 til starfsloka var hann bókavörður við háskólann í Birmingham og kenndi líka handritafræði. Benedikt var félagi í lærdómsfélögunum Society of Antiquaries og Royal Historical Society. Eftir hann liggja mörg rit, þýðingar og greinar.

Þegar Bendí var að alast upp dvaldist hann langdvölum hjá afa sínum Benedikt S. Þórarinssyni (1861-1940) kaupmanni,  bókasafnara, og heiðursdoktor frá Háskóla Íslands. Vafalaust má rekja hinn mikla bókaáhuga hans til þessara ára. Á heimili afa hans komu oft ýmsir þekktir menn og var furðulegt að heyra Bendí á fullorðinsaldri herma eftir þeim og hafa yfir heilu samræðurnar, enda minnið óbrigðult. Ýmis ævintýri sem hann hafði lesið sem barn kunni hann nánast utanbókar.

Þó að hann byggi í Englandi nærri allt sitt líf lét hann sér mjög annt um íslensk bóka- og handritasöfn og þá sérstaklega Benediktssafn, sem svo er kallað, hið mikla bókasafn sem afi hans gaf Háskóla Íslands áður en hann lést og er nú varðveitt sem sérsafn í Landsbókasafni. Benedikt sendi safni afa síns bækur, handrit og peninga.

Árið 1964 kvæntist Benedikt Phyllis Mary Laybourn (f. 1940) bókasafnsfræðingi. Börn þeirra eru Einar Kenneth (f. 1966, dó ungur), Anna Þórunn (f. 1969), Eyjólfur Kenneth (f. 1970). Barnabörnin eru fimm.

Bendí var einstakur maður gæddur óvenjulegum gáfum sem komu fram strax á barnsaldri.  Hann var eins og gangandi alfræðiorðabók. Bendí var frábær eftirherma og góður óperusöngvari.

Morgunblaðið: Andlát Benedikt S. Benedikz.

 

Fyrir fáeinum dögum (28. apríl) birtist í breska stórblaðinu The Times minningargrein um Bendí sem sýnir vel hve sérstakur hann var og mikils metinn. Greinin birtist hér fyrir neðan

 

 

From The Times

April 28, 2009

 

Benedikt Benedikz: librarian and Norse scholar

Benedikt Sigurdur Benedikz was born in Reykjavik in 1932, the eldest son of the diplomat and bibliophile Eirikur Benedikz. At the age of 12, when his father was appointed chargé d’affaires to the newly established Icelandic Legation in London, he moved to England, which remained his home for the rest of his life.

He was educated at Burford Grammar School, Pembroke College Oxford (where he also developed his talent as an operatic tenor) and University College London, where he took his diploma in librarianship in 1956. He was already a formidable linguist, always an asset in a librarian and often in other circumstances, too. His father once sent him round the eastern Mediterranean in a tramp steamer. Obliged to spend a night ashore in Turkey, Benedikz accepted hospitality in the tiny cell of an Orthodox monk, the only language they shared being Latin.

His first post was with Buckinghamshire County Library. In 1959 he was offered two positions — one in the chorus at Covent Garden and one in the university library at Durham. He chose the latter and here he met Phyllis Laybourn, also a librarian. They married in 1964, having spent part of their courtship cataloguing the collection of the See of Durham at Auckland Castle. There followed three years in charge of the humanities collections at the New University of Ulster and two teaching bibliography at Leeds Polytechnic. His final move, in 1973, was to the University of Birmingham, as head of special collections, where he remained until his retirement in 1995.

Benedikz was equally at home in a library, lecture room or cathedral cloister. His particular forte was in the field of acquisitions. Thousands of rare books and the papers of Charles Masterman, Oliver Lodge, Oswald Mosley and the Church Mission Society came to Birmingham during his tenure. He nurtured and developed the two “star” collections — the Avon and Chamberlain papers — maintaining excellent relations with the families who had donated them. He taught bibliography, palaeography and Old Norse, and he was consultant to the cathedral libraries of Lichfield and Worcester and the magnificent library of Bishop Hurd at Hartlebury Castle.

His scholarship was many-sided. He edited On the Novel, a festschrift presented to Walter Allen, in 1971, and published a string of papers on Icelandic history and literature, Byzantine studies, bibliography, modern political papers and medieval manuscripts.

The work that gave him most satisfaction was The Varangians of Byzantium. This book was a revision and substantial rewriting of a Væringja saga by Sigfús Blöndal, a history of the Byzantine mercenary regiment that included Norsemen. Blöndal had died before its publication in Reykjavik in 1954, which attracted little attention. In 1960 Blöndal’s widow invited Benedikz to produce an English edition. It was published by Cambridge in 1978 and has recently been issued in paperback. For this and other published work the university awarded Benedikz a doctorate in 1979. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1981 and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1985. In 1999 the University of Nottingham, in acknowledgment of the family’s gift of his father’s outstanding collection of Islandica, made him a member of their College of Benefactors. He became closely involved with Viking studies there and delivered the first of the biennial Fell-Benedikz lectures in 2000.

Genuine eccentrics are fast disappearing from academia but Ben Benedikz was certainly one of them. Before his arrival at Birmingham a colleague remarked of him: “Mr Benedikz always strikes me as the sort of person any self-respecting university library ought to have one of.” Snatches of grand opera would waft up and down the lift shaft and imitations of Churchill enlivened the reading room. He was a familiar figure every morning in the senior common room, laden with antiquarian book catalogues, picking up on the gossip and keeping the biscuit suppliers in business. A polymath in the tradition of Dr Johnson, whom he resembled both in build and intellect, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the most diverse facts. He was a walking Who’s Who of theologians, politicians and academics, alive or dead. Cataloguers rarely had to consult reference books, for he could tell them immediately the correct name of a monk on the remote island of Fulda, the author of a long-forgotten Victorian children’s novel or an obscure French dramatist. Occasionally the facts would become tangled. He once memorably confused Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with the children’s classic Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

He was not always at home with the more tedious aspects of library management, but his devotion to scholarship was never in doubt.

He is survived by his wife Phyllis, and their son and daughter.

Benedikt Benedikz, librarian and scholar, was born on April 4, 1932. He died on March 25, 2009, aged 76

 

 

 Bókamerki Eiríks Benedikz        

 

 Minningargreinin í Times er hér.

Athugasemdir

[Hólmfríður Pétursdóttir, 1.5.2009 kl. 21:46]

Vel skrifaðar minningargreinar, bæði sú íslenska og sú enska.  Það er satt sem þar segir að  sérvitringum og mönnum sem hafa gengist svo upp í starfi sínu að það hefur sett svip sinn á þá, þeim fer fækkandi.

Ég er feginn að hafa lesið þessar greinar. 

Settir þú bókamerkið inn, eða fylgdi það greininn í The Times?

[Ágúst H Bjarnason, 1.5.2009 kl. 21:49]

Sæl Hólmfríður.   

Ég setti inn bókamerki Eiríks föður Benedikts.

[Þorvaldur Ágústsson (IP-tala skráð) 1.5.2009 kl. 22:36]

     Heill og sæll Ágúst

     Benedikt frændi þinn hefur sannarlega verið sérstakur og merkur maður. Báðar greinarnar, þín og sú í Times lýsa því vel. Sérstaklega er gaman að setningunni um genuine eccentrics. Það er víðar en á Íslandi, sem menn sakna sérvitringanna, manna sem hafa sérstakan karakter og þora að skera sig úr fjöldanum. Í Times er sagt að hann hafi þýtt og umritað Væringja sögu eftir Sigfús Blöndal. Veistu eitthvað um hana? Er hún skáldsaga eða sagnfræðirit sem fjallar um veru Væringja í Miklagarði?              

                                   Bestu kveðjur.

                                         Þorvaldur Ágústsson                                        

[Ágúst H Bjarnason, 2.5.2009 kl. 09:06]

Sæll Þorvaldur

Ég veit því miur ekkert um Væringja sögu Sigfúsar Blöndal. Sýnishorn úr ensku útgáfuni má sjá hér í "Google Bókaleit". Þar er hægt að lesa allmargar síður og sést að þetta er sagnfræðirit. Sjá líka þessa síðu og þessa.

 

[Halldór Jónsson, 4.5.2009 kl. 18:16]

Takk fyrir frændi að minnast Benedikts   svona vel.

 Hann var virkilega sérstæður maður hann Bendý okkar.  Minnið var með þeim ólíkindum.Ég sá hann ekki oft eftir að hann fór af landinu en af og til þó. Við lékum okkur saman þegar hann bjó í sama húsi og ég á Hringbrautinni.  Svo fór hann af landinu. Hann kom svo af og til sem fulltíða .

 Maður stóð stundum agndofa af þeim kynstrum sem uppúr honum komu, bæði fræðum, sögum og óperusöng.  Virkilega kynlegur kvistur og einstakur lærdómsmaður. Við hittum hann einu sinni í Birmingham ég og Svenni Valfells og áttum stórkostlegt kvöld með honum.