Guðni Jónsson (22 July 1901 – 4 March 1974) 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 ...
ic professor of history and editor of
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 ...
texts.
Life and career
Guðni was born at Gamla-Hraun at
Eyrarbakki[Páll Lýðsson]
"GUÐNI JÓNSSON"
Minningargreinar, ''Morgunblaðið
''Morgunblaðið'' (, ''The Morning Paper'') is an Icelandic newspaper. ''Morgunblaðið''s website, mbl.is, is the most popular website in Iceland.
History
''Morgunblaðið'' was founded by Vilhjálmur Finsen and Ólafur Björnsson, brother of ...
'', 22 July 2001 into a poor family who had a total of 17 children. He was raised by relatives at
Leirubakki until he was twelve, worked two seasons as a fisherman and then was taken in by his married sister in
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 pop ...
, enabling him to attend evening school there.
[ He received a ]middle school
A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school ...
certificate in Flensburg in 1921 and a school certificate from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1924.[ In 1923 he served as president of the student society ''Framtíðin''. He then attended the ]University of Iceland
The University of Iceland ( is, Háskóli Íslands ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' s ...
, first in theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...
and then in the faculty of Old Norse studies. He completed a master's degree in Icelandic studies in 1930 with a thesis on ''Landnámabók
(, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE.
is divided into five parts and over ...
'', comparing the manuscripts with each other and with other texts. His doctoral thesis, published in 1952, was in genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
and history: ''Bólstaðir og búendur í Stokkseyrarhreppi''.
He began a career as a teacher at a primary school in the Vestmannaeyjar
Vestmannaeyjar (, sometimes anglicized as Westman Islands) is a municipality and archipelago off the south coast of Iceland.
The largest island, Heimaey, has a population of 4,414, most of whom live in the archipelago's main town, Vestmannaeyj ...
in winter 1926–27, taught evening school himself in Reykjavík in 1927–28, taught at the Commercial College of Iceland
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
in 1928–29, and then taught at Reykvíking Middle School from 1928 until 1945, when he became headmaster.[ In 1957 he became professor of history at the university, and held that position until 1967, when he had a stroke. He died on 4 March 1974.][
]
Personal life
He was married twice: his first wife, Jónína Margrét Pálsdóttir, whom he married in 1926, died in 1936 and two years later he married Sigríður Hjördís Einarsdóttir. He had five children from his first marriage, one of whom died young, and four from his second.[
]
Publications
Guðni Jónsson published extensively in history and genealogy, including ''Bergsætt'', ''Saga Hraunshverfis á Eyrarbakka'' and ''Stokkseyringa saga''. He also published histories of the Flensburg school (1932), the Eimskipafélag Íslands shipping company (1939) and the University of Iceland (1961).[ He edited the works of Brynjúlfur Jónsson and several other popular writers and published twelve volumes of popular histories and legends, ''Íslenzkir sagnaþættir og þjóðsögur'', in 1940–57 and two volumes of ''Skyggni'', studies of Icelandic folklore, in 1960 and 1962.][
He made an important contribution to the availability of Old Norse works. With Bjarni Vilhjálmsson he edited the '' Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda'' (3 volumes, 1943–44), then on his own, volumes 1 to 12 of the complete ]Sagas of Icelanders
The sagas of Icelanders ( is, Íslendingasögur, ), also known as family sagas, are one genre of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives mostly based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early e ...
, which were published in 1946–47 and included some material that had not been readily available before. He completed this edition with an index of names published in 1949, and continued until 1957 to publish editions of other texts, some of which, such as the Bishops' sagas, had only been previously available in 19th-century editions.[''Konunga sögur I-III'' by Guðni Jónsson, review by ]Stefán Einarsson
Stefán Einarsson (9 June 1897 – 9 April 1972) was an Icelandic linguist and literary historian, who was a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the United States.
Life and career
Stefán was born and raised on the farm of Hö ...
, ''Modern Language Notes
''Modern Language Notes'' (''MLN'') is an academic journal established in 1886 at the Johns Hopkins University, where it is still edited and published, with the intention of introducing continental European literary criticism into American schola ...
'' 74.5, May 1959, p. 479
online
at JSTOR).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jonsson, Gudni
1901 births
1974 deaths
Gudni Jonsson
Gudni Jonsson
Old Norse studies scholars
Icelandic scholars