Our oldest book
Vår eldste bok: Skrift, miljø og biletbruk i den norske homilieboka (Our oldest book: Script, Milieu, and Image in the Norwegian Homily Book) edited by Odd Einar Haugen and Åslaug Ommundsen.
Main content
This book is a collection of new articles on the Old Norwegian Homily Book (AM 619 4to), containing contributions from scholars from Finland, Norway and England. The Homily Book was written in Bergen around 1200 on the basis of older exemplars, and is the oldest Norwegian book that we have preserved almost complete. While it has been argued that were up to four scribes of the Homily Book, two of the contributors to Vår eldste bok claim that there has probably been just one scribe in the book, and that it is this same scribe who is responsible for the interpolation from another book that one now finds towards the end of the Homily Book. Another contributor shows how the script can be reconstructed stroke for stroke. This type of analysis has, until now, never been done before for Norwegian manuscripts.
In another contribution, material is presented that shows what other book this scribe is probably responsible for. This builds on a comprehensive review of the major fragment material in the National Archive in Oslo, particularly fragments of liturgical manuscripts.
Consensus is that the Homily Book was written in Bergen, but where? In two of the contributions, this questions is discussed thoroughly, although no firm conclusion can be drawn. The two likely candidates are the Augustinians at Jonsklosteret or the priests at the cathedral.
Elsewhere, the books offers two articles on the preaching tradition of c. 1200 and possible influence from England, and finally a discussion of the relationship between the textual and the visual in the church space.
Finally, there is a review of the structure of the Homily Book in AM 619 4to, both in terms of the individual quires and the texts included in these. In addition, there is also a glossary of palaeographical, codicological and liturgical terminology, a bibliography and a comprehensive, three part index of people, works and manuscripts.
The book was published in November 2010. It is third in the series Bibliotheca Nordica (published by Novus in Oslo), and is illustrated throughout in colour.