Sturla Þórðarson (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

pronunciation: ; ; 29 July 1214–30 July 1284) was 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 s ...

ic chieftain and writer of sagas and contemporary history during the 13th century.

Biography

The life of Sturla Þórðarson was chronicled in the

Sturlunga saga ''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 ...

. Sturla was the son of Icelandic chieftain Þórður Sturluson and his mistress Þóra, and grandson of Sturla Þórðarson the elder. He was a nephew and pupil of the famous saga-writer

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ...

. His brother was Icelandic skald and scholar Ólafur Þórðarson hvítaskáld. He fought alongside

Þórður kakali Sighvatsson Þórður kakali Sighvatsson (c.1210-56) (the nickname ''kakali'' probably means "The Stammerer", although Cleasby-Vigfússon and Elizabeth Ashman-Rowe translate it as “the Claypot”) was a 13th-century Icelandic chieftain during the Age of the ...

during the

Age of the Sturlungs The Age of the Sturlungs or the Sturlung Era ( is, Sturlungaöld ) was a 42–44 year period of violent internal strife in mid-13th century Iceland. It is documented in the Sturlunga saga. This period is marked by the conflicts of local chieftai ...

. Sturla was appointed

law speaker A lawspeaker or lawman (Swedish: ''lagman'', Old Swedish: ''laghmaþer'' or ''laghman'', Danish: ''lovsigemand'', Norwegian: ''lagmann'', Icelandic: , Faroese: ''løgmaður'', Finnish: ''laamanni'', kl, inatsitinuk) is a unique Scandinavian ...

over all of

for a brief period after the dissolution of the

Icelandic Commonwealth The Icelandic Commonwealth, also known as the Icelandic Free State, was the political unit existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king with the Old Covenant in 1262. With t ...

, and wrote the law book '' Járnsíða.'' Like his uncle, Snorri, and his brother, Óláfr, Sturla was a prolific poet. He is reported in ''Sturlu þáttr'' as telling a saga called ''

Huldar saga ''Huldar saga'' is the name of a lost Icelandic saga said to have been told by Sturla Þórðarson in 1263. Though the saga is no longer extant, the account of its telling has attracted extensive commentary as a rare account of medieval Icelandic s ...

''.Úlfar Bragason,
Um hvað fjallaði Huldar saga?', ''Tímarit Máls og menningar'', 51.4 (1990), 76-81. He is best known for writing ''Íslendinga saga
'', the longest saga within ''

,'' and ''Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar,'' the story of Haakon IV of Norway. He also wrote a saga of Haakon's son, Magnus VI of Norway, Magnus the lawmender (''Magnúss saga lagabœtis''), of which only fragments have survived. Some scholars also believe him to have written ''

Kristni saga ''Kristni saga'' (; ; "the book of Christianity") is an Old Norse account of the Christianization of Iceland in the 10th century and of some later church history. It was probably written in the early or mid-13th century, as it is dependent on the L ...

'' and '' Sturlubók'', a transcript of '' Landnáma''. He is moreover listed in ''

Skáldatal ''Skáldatal'' (''Catalogue of Poets'') is a short prose work in Old Norse. It is preserved in two manuscripts: DG 11, or ''Codex Uppsaliensis'', which is one of the four main manuscripts of the ''Prose Edda'' (first quarter of the 14th century), an ...

'' as the court ''

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

'' of the Swedish ruler

Birger Jarl Birger Jarl, also known as ''Birger Magnusson'' (21 October 1266), was a Swedish statesman, ''jarl'', and a member of the House of Bjelbo, who played a pivotal role in the consolidation of Sweden. Birger also led the Second Swedish Crusade, whi ...

References

Other sources

* Jón Viðar Sigurðsson; Sverrir Jakobsson (2017) ''Sturla Þórðarson: Skald, Chieftain and Lawman'' (Boston: Brill)

External links

* * 1214 births 1284 deaths Icelandic writers Sturlungar family clan 13th-century writers Scandinavian folklore Lawspeakers 13th-century Icelandic people Goðar {{Iceland-writer-stub