Guðbrandur Þorláksson (ca. 1541-1627) was bishop of Hólar from April 1571 until his death. As a bishop Guðbrandur took on the task of cementing the Reformation in Iceland. In doing so he focused on printing religious works, nearly 100 books, including hymns and the Bible, in Icelandic. Previous hymnbooks published by the bishops Marteinn Einarsson in 1555 and Gísli Jónsson in 1558 were inadequate with few hymns, many of which were badly translated, but nevertheless formed an important base for Guðbrand‘s hymnbook. Ein ný sálmabók was published in 1589 with 343 hymns in six categories was therefore a much needed solution to the request of the congregation singing in their mother tongue.

The hymnbook also brought the novelty of musical notation that Icelanders had never seen before, with notation to 106 hymns. In addition to the hymnbook Guðbrandur published a Graduale in 1594. Congregational singing were then based on those two books until the mid 19th century.

The majority of the melodies came from German and Danish hymnbooks, many of them in variations due to adjustments to the Icelandic text, some melodies came from Latin hymns but few have an unkown origin. Many of the songs lived with the nation for centuries and several are still sung today, while the majority took on numerous variations some were sung unchanged, showing how some melodies are more memorable than others.

With the reissue of 16th century hymnbooks those hymns, that had enormous influence on poetry and musical life for centuries and played a big role in the preservation of the Icelandic language, are made accessible again.

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