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Guðbrandur Vigfússon, known in English as Gudbrand Vigfusson, (13 March 1827 – 31 January 1889Jón þorkelsson, "Nekrolog över Guðbrandur Vigfússon" in ''Arkiv för nordisk filologi'', Sjätte bandet (ny följd: andra bandet), Lund, 1889, pp 156-163.) was one of the foremost
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
n scholars of the 19th century.


Life

He was born of an
Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...
ic family in Breiðafjörður. He was brought up, until he went to a tutor's, by his kinswoman Kristín Vigfússdóttir, to whom, he records, he owed not only that he became a man of letters but almost everything. He was sent to the old school at Bessastaðir and (when it moved there) at
Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...
. In 1849, already a fair scholar, he came to
Copenhagen University The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...
in the Regense College, where as an Icelander he received four-years free boarding under the Garðsvist system. After his student course, he was appointed ''stipendiarius'' by the Arna-Magnaean trustees, and worked for fourteen years in the Arna-Magnaean Library until, as he said, he knew every scrap of old
vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anim ...
and of Icelandic written paper in that whole collection. In 1866, he settled in
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, which he made his home for the rest of his life. He held the office of Reader in Scandinavian at Oxford University (a post created for him) from 1884 till his death. He was made a
Jubilee Doctor {{no footnotes, date=April 2014 A jubilee doctor ( sv, jubeldoktor, fi, riemutohtori, la, doctor jubilaris) or golden doctor (german: Goldene Doktor) is in some countries a person who has held a doctorate for 50 years or more. When 50 years have ...
of
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in 1877, and received the Danish
order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known ...
in 1885. Guðbrandur died of
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on 31 January 1889. He was buried in St. Sepulchre's Cemetery, Oxford, on 3 February 1889.


Work

He was an excellent judge of literature, reading most European languages well and being acquainted with their classics. His memory was remarkable, and if the Eddic poems had ever been lost, he could have written them all down from memory. He spoke English well, with a strong Icelandic accent. He wrote a beautiful, distinctive and clear hand, in spite of (or because of) the thousands of lines of manuscript copying he had done in his early life. His ''Tímatal'' (written between October 1854 and April 1855) laid the foundations for the chronology of Icelandic history. His editions of Icelandic classics (1858–1868), '' Biskupa sögur'', '' Bárðar Saga'', ''Fornsögur'' (with Mobius), '' Eyrbyggia Saga'' and ''
Flateyjarbók ''Flateyjarbók'' (; "Book of Flatey") is an important medieval Icelandic manuscript. It is also known as GkS 1005 fol. and by the Latin name ''Codex Flateyensis''. It was commissioned by Jón Hákonarson and produced by the priests and scribes ...
'' (with Carl Rikard Unger) opened a new era of Icelandic scholarship. They can be compared to the
Rolls Series ''The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages'' ( la, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores), widely known as the is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources publish ...
editions of chronicles by
William Stubbs William Stubbs (21 June 182522 April 1901) was an English historian and Anglican bishop. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford between 1866 and 1884. He was Bishop of Chester from 1884 to 1889 and Bishop of O ...
, for the interest and value of their prefaces and texts. He spent the seven years 1866–1873 on the ''Oxford Icelandic-English Dictionary'', often denoted by the shorthand "Cleasby-Vigfusson", the best guide to classic Icelandic, and a monumental example of single-handed work. The end-product was more a product of Guðbrandur Vigfússon's undertaking than Cleasby's, and is characterized as his most important legacy. His later series of editions (1874–1885) included '' Orkneyinga Saga'' and '' Hákonar Saga'', the great and complex mass of Icelandic historical sagas known as ''
Sturlunga ''Sturlunga saga'' (often called simply ''Sturlunga'') is a collection of Icelandic sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlungs, a powerful family clan ...
'', and the ''
Corpus Poeticum Boreale Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...
'', in which he edited the entire body of classic Scandinavian poetry. As an introduction to the ''Sturlunga'', he wrote a complete, concise history of the classic Northern literature and its sources. In the introduction to the Corpus, he laid the foundations of a critical history of the Eddic poetry and Court poetry of the North in a series of well-supported theories. His little ''Icelandic Prose Reader'' (with F. York Powell) (1879) furnishes a path to a sound knowledge of Icelandic. The ''Grimm Centenary'' (1886) gives good examples of the range of his historic work, while his Appendix on
Icelandic currency Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to: *Icelandic people *Icelandic language *Icelandic alphabet *Icelandic cuisine See also * Icelander (disambiguation) * Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandair * ...
to Sir G. W. Dasent's ''Burnt Njal'' is a methodical investigation into an intricate subject. As a writer in his own tongue, he once gained a high position by his ''Relations of Travel in Norway and South Germany''. In English, as his ''Visit to Grimm'' and his powerful letters to ''The Times'' show, he had attained no mean skill. His life is mainly a record of well-directed and efficient labor in Denmark and Oxford.


Literature

* Hans Fix: ''Gudbrand Vigfusson, Hugo Gering, and German Scholarship: Or, A Friendship Destroyed''. in Frederic Amory in Memoriam. Old Norse-Icelandic Studies, edd. John Lindow & George Clark. Berkeley - Los Angeles: North Pinehurst Press 2015, S. 269–302.


Notes


References

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External links


The grave of Guðbrandur Vigfússon in St Sepulchre's Cemetery, Oxford, with biography

An Icelandic-English Dictionary
by
Richard Cleasby Richard Cleasby (1797–1847) was an English philologist, author with Guðbrandur Vigfússon of the first Icelandic-English dictionary. Life He was eldest son of Stephen Cleasby, and brother of Anthony Cleasby, born on 30 November 1797. He was ...
and Gudbrand Vigfusson, published in 1874. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gudbrandur Vigfusson 1889 deaths 1827 births Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog Academics of the University of Oxford University of Copenhagen alumni Icelandic scholars Old Norse studies scholars 19th-century Icelandic people Burials at St Sepulchre's Cemetery