[1] Written in around 1200, and both based on earlier exemplars, together they represent some of the oldest examples of Old West Norse prose.
[6] The manuscript is written on 102 leaves of parchment, bound in a sealskin cover, which folds over in a flap at the front.
[8] The text is predominantly in Carolingian minuscule script with insular thorn and wynn,[9] written in brown ink.
[13] But in the majority of the instances where Larsson’s readings seem to be incorrect, there have been alterations to the text: identified as very young by the “shape of additions, ink and the quality of pen used”.
[9] The OIHB is principally distinct from the Old Norwegian Homily Book (ONHB) in that unlike the latter it is not arranged according to the church year.
For example, it contains a close translation a sermon included in the “Pembroke-type homilary”: a Carolingian preacher’s anthology.
[1] The style of the OIHB is closer to that of the Íslendingasögur than the Latinate vocabulary and syntax of later Old West Norse religious prose.
[1] Of the 11 sermons in the OIHB and ONHB have in common, two are found in what is possibly the oldest Icelandic manuscript fragment, AM 237a fol: dated to 1150.