Resident stranger: Sæmundr in the Ashkenaz

• Main Author: North, R
• Other Authors: Thomson, SC
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Brill 2022
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082256/3/North%202%20Resident%20stranger.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082256/

When did the Jews reach Iceland?1 There is no evidence that Jews lived there before the seventeenth century. Conversely, however, it may be suggested that Sæmundr inn fróði [the learned] Sigfússon (1056–1133), priest of Oddi and Iceland’s first book-learned historian, lived as a stranger among the Jews of Germany in the 1070s.2 This is partly because he was probably in the Rhineland for more than a decade, partly because one of the Icelandic snippets derived from his writing appears to be based on a commentary on Genesis for which the best analogue is found in Rabbinic commentary. Let us go over Sæmundr’s schooling and writing to see how this suggestion may be made.