Saemundr Frode Sigfússon

Icelandic chronicler

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Saemundr also spelled:: Saemund

Born:: 1056

Died:: 1133 (aged 77)

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Saemundr Frode Sigfússon (born 1056—died 1133) was an Icelandic chieftain-priest and the first chronicler of Iceland.

Saemundr was the first Icelander to study in France and to write in Latin. His Latin History of the Kings of Norway has been lost but is known through the chronicles of subsequent writers. He founded in Iceland the School of Oddi, a centre of learning whose aristocratic and critical traditions later fostered the development of Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda. The Poetic Edda is known as “Saemundr’s Edda” because it was erroneously attributed to Saemundr by Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson (1605–75).

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