SNORRI, STURLASON (1179-1241), the celebrated Ice landic historian, the youngest son of a chief in the Vestfir6ir (western fiords), was brought up by a powerful chief, Jon Lopts son, in Odda, who seems first to have awakened in him an interest for history and poetry. His career begins with his marriage, which made him a wealthy man; in 1206 he settled at Reykjaholt, where he constructed magnificent buildings and a bath of hewn stones, preserved to the present day, to which water was con ducted from a neighbouring hot spring. He early made himself known as a poet, especially by glorifying the exploits of the con temporary Norse kings and earls; at the same time he was a learned lawyer, and from 1215 became the logsogumaJr, or presi dent of the legislative assembly and supreme court of Iceland. The prominent features of his character seem to have been cun ning, ambition and avarice, combined with want of courage and aversion from effort. By royal invitation he went in 1218 to Norway, where he remained a long time with the young king Haakon and his tutor Earl Skuli. When, owing to disputes be tween Icelandic and Norwegian merchants, Skuli thought of a military expedition to Iceland, Snorri promised to make the inhabitants submit to Haakon of their own free will. Snorri him self became the lendrmaer, vassal or baron, of the king of Nor way, and held his lands as a fief under him. On his return home Snorri sent his son to the king as a hostage, and made peace between Norway and Iceland, but his power and influence were used more for his own enrichment and aggrandizement (he was logsogumaJr again from 1222 to 1232) than for the advantage of the king. Haakon, therefore, stirred up strife between Snorri's kinsman Sturla and Snorri, who had to fly from Reykjaholt in 1236; and in 1237 he left the country and went back to Norway. Here he joined the party of Skuli, who was meditating a revolt. Learning that his cousin Sturla in Iceland had fallen in battle against Gissur, Snorri's son-in-law, Snorri, although expressly forbidden by his liege lord, returned to Iceland in 1239 and once more took possession of his property. Meanwhile, Haakon, who
had vanquished Skuli in 124o, sent orders to Gissur to punish Snorri for his disobedience either by capturing him and sending him back to Norway or by putting him to death. Gissur took the latter course, attacked Snorri at his residence, Reykjaholt, and slew him on Sept. 22, 1241.
Snorri is the author of the great prose Edda (see EDDA), and of the Heimskringla or Sagas of the Norwegian Kings, a connected series of biographies of the kings of Norway down to Sverri in 1177. Snorri's sources were partly succinct histories of the realm, such as the chronological sketch of Ari; partly more voluminous early collections of traditions, as the Noregs Konungatal (Fag rskinna) and the Jarlasaga, partly legendary biographies of the two Olafs; and, in addition to these, studies and collections which he himself made during his journeys in Norway. His critical principles are explained in the preface, where he dwells on the necessity of starting as much as possible from trustworthy con temporary sources, or at least from those nearest to antiquity— the touch-stone by which verbal traditions can be tested being contemporary poems. He inclines to rationalism, rejecting the marvellous and recasting legends containing it in a more historical spirit ; but he makes an exception in the accounts of the intro duction of Christianity into Norway and of the national saint, St. Olaf. Besides his principal work, he elaborated in a separate form its better and larger part, the History of St. Olaf (the great Olaf's Saga). In the preface to this he gives a brief extract of the earlier history, and, as an appendix, a short account of St. Olaf's miracles after his death. (See further ICELAND : Litera ture, and EDDA.)