Þormóður Torfason

Born in 1636. Died in 1719. He was an Icelandic-Norwegian historian who can be considered one of the founders of modern historiography in Norway. In 1662, he was commissioned by King Frederick III to create a Danish translation of the Flateyjarbók, which had been brought to Denmark from Iceland a few years earlier. However, this translation was never processed or published, but it ensured that he established a historical connection to the royal house. In 1682, he received King Christian V's blessing and support to write an extensive history of Norway in Latin, as the royal "Historiographus."

In his home on Karmøy, north in Rogaland, he then began extensive authorship, at times with assistance from two scribes who helped him copy old manuscripts that he kept in a fireproof earth cellar. Among these are copies of both versions of Fagerskinna, which have thus been preserved for posterity after the original manuscripts were lost during the great fire in Copenhagen in 1728. Torfæus also named several saga manuscripts based on how well they were preserved, such as Fagerskinna and Morkinskinna. The result of his years of effort was the monumental Latin-language work Historia Rerum Norvegicarum, which was published in four large volumes in 1711. It was the first comprehensive history of Norway from ancient times up to 1387. Due to its Latin language, the work was more or less inaccessible to modern historians until the publication of a modern Norwegian translation (2008–2014).

Article by Sigvald Grøsfjeld.