Torgny the Lawspeaker

Torgny the Lawspeaker, Old Icelandic Thorgnyr logmadr, is the saga name for at least three generations of lawspeakers of Tiundaland in Sweden, an office to which every other lawspeaker of the Swedish kingdom was subordinate. The best-known of them is placed in the reigns of the Swedish king Olof Skotkonung and the Norwegian king Olav the Holy. According to Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, this Torgny was an elderly man presiding over an extensive court, considered one of the wisest men in Sweden, who served as foster-father to Earl Ragnvald Ulfsson; in 1018 he is credited with persuading Olof Skotkonung to make peace with Norway and to marry his daughter Ingegerd to the Norwegian king, a promise Olof later broke. Modern Swedish historians regard this figure as having a historic basis but doubt the detail of Snorri's account, since it is not corroborated by native Swedish documentation from the period.