Skapti Þóroddsson (

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

: ;

Modern Icelandic Icelandic ( ; , ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language, it ...

: ; died 1030) was an Icelandic

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

and

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

. He became lawspeaker in 1004, succeeding his uncle Grímr when the latter's voice failed him. He held office till his death in 1030, longer than anyone else. According to the ''

Íslendingabók (, , ; ) is a historical work dealing with early history of Iceland, Icelandic history. The author was an Icelandic priest, Ari Þorgilsson, working in the early 12th century. The work originally existed in two different versions but only the y ...

'' he instituted judicial reform by establishing the "fifth court", a national court of appeals. According to the ''

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

'', Skapti was a court poet of

Hákon Sigurðarson Haakon Sigurdsson ( , ; 937–995), known as Haakon Jarl (Old Norse: ''Hákon jarl''), was the '' de facto'' ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. Sometimes he is styled as Haakon the Powerful (), though the '' Ágrip'' and ''Historia Norwe ...

but no details on that career are known. According to the ''

Heimskringla () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (117 ...

'', he composed a poem on king Óláfr Haraldsson and sent his son Steinn to perform it for the king. The only piece of poetry by Skapti which has come down to us is decidedly Christian and can not have been composed at Hákon's court.

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 th ...

cites the following half-stanza by Skapti in a discussion of Christian

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

s in the ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

''. Skapti is mentioned in some of the

Icelanders' sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early ele ...

, for example ''

Njáls saga ''Njáls saga'' ( ), also ''Njála'' ( ), or ''Brennu-Njáls saga'' ( ) (Which can be translated as ''The Story of Burnt Njáll'', or ''The Saga of Njáll the Burner''), is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 a ...

'' where he is insulted by

Skarphéðinn Njálsson Skarphéðinn Njálsson (Modern Icelandic: ; Old Norse: ) was a semi-legendary Icelander who may have lived in the 10th century. He is known as a character in ''Njáls saga'', a medieval Icelandic saga which describes a process of blood feuds. T ...

References

Íslendingabók
Finnur Jónsson's edition
Lovsigemandsrækken
Brodeur's translation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skapti Thoroddsson Lawspeakers 10th-century Icelandic poets 11th-century Icelandic poets 1030 deaths Year of birth unknown