Guðbrandur Þorláksson
Icelandic bishop
Guðbrandur Þorláksson (c. 1542 – 20 July 1627) was bishop of Hólar from 8 April 1571 until his death. He was the longest-serving bishop in Iceland and is known for printing the Guðbrandsbiblía, first complete Icelandic translation of the Bible.
Early life
Guðbrandur was the son of Þorláks Hallgrímssonar, a priest based at Melstaður in Miðfjörður, and Helga Jónsdóttir, the daughter of the lawyer Jón Sigmundsson. Guðbrandur studied at Hólar College from 1553 to 1559 and then went to the University of Copenhagen where he studied theology and logic. Guðbrandur was one of the first Icelanders to study in Denmark instead of in Germany. After returning to Iceland in 1564, he served as rector of the Skálholt School for three years before becoming a priest at historic Breiðabólstaður in Vesturhóp.
Bishop
In 1571, the Danish King Frederick II named Guðbrandur Bishop of Hólar on the recommendation of Poul Madsen, bishop of Zealand, who had been his teacher in Copenhagen. Guðbrandur served as bishop of Hólar for 56 years; no Icelander has held the position longer.
As bishop, Guðbrandur focused on cementing the Reformation in Iceland in part by working to publish holy works in Icelandic. He brought the printing press originally brought to Iceland by the Catholic priest Jón Arason to Hólar, printing nearly 100 books during his time as bishop.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guðbrandur Þorláksson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.