Letter to Margrét Kláusdóttir

This is a letter dated 1 April 1657 from Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson of Skálholt to Margrét Kláusdóttir, the Danish wife of foged Tómas Nikulásson. Margrét had remained at the couple’s residence at Bessastaðir in Iceland while her husband was away for the winter in Denmark. The bishop asks Margrét to provide her account of the dispute between her husband and the local Minister, Rev. Sigurður Torfason, who has accused Tómas of inappropriate behaviour. Wives of foreign-born officials living in seventeenth-century Iceland are typically invisible in surviving documents from the period, and this letter is a rare exception.