Gabriel Turville-Petre

• 1. Bosworth Hall And Oxford

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  Gabriel Turville-Petre entered the world at Bosworth Hall in Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire on the 25th of March 1908. He was the youngest of five children born to Lieutenant-Colonel Oswald Henry Philip Turville-Petre and Margaret Lucy Cave. His family belonged to the Catholic landed gentry of England. His father served as sheriff of Leicestershire during the years 1912, 13. The young Gabriel developed a strong interest in Iceland while still a child. This fascination with the island nation would persist throughout his entire life.

  He received a traditional Catholic upbringing before attending Ampleforth College. In 1926 he entered Christ Church, Oxford University. He took a Third degree in English in 1930. From 1931 to 1934 he studied for a B.Litt in English under the supervision of J.R.R. Tolkien. He graduated from this program in 1936. Alongside Alan S.C. Ross, he was strongly influenced by Charles Leslie Wrenn.

  Turville-Petre made his first visit to Iceland as an undergraduate in 1931. He spent much time on remote farms in the northern and eastern parts of the island. During these travels he developed a strong fascination with the traditional way of life of the Icelanders. He also traveled to Scandinavia and Germany where he befriended many influential scholars of Old Norse studies. Þórbergur Þórðarson became one of his most important teachers.

• 2. War Service And Early Appointments

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  Turville-Petre served as Honorary Lecturer in Modern Icelandic at the University of Leeds from 1935 to 1950. He joined the Viking Society for Northern Research in 1935. He was elected to its Council in 1936. He remained closely associated with the Society for the rest of his life. The organization published numerous papers, reviews, translations and editions that he contributed to over decades.

  From 1936 to 1938 Turville-Petre worked as Lektor in English at the University of Iceland. During this period he served as the British pro-consul in Reykjavík. For a time he also lectured at the University of Turku. In 1939 he became Joint Honorary Secretary and Joint Editor of the Saga-Book. This publication is produced by the Viking Society for Northern Research. He resigned as an editor in 1963 but continued holding the position of Joint Honorary Secretary until his death.

  In 1940 his graduate work on the Víga-Glúms saga appeared as the first volume of the Oxford English Monographs series. It drew influence from research conducted by Björn M. Ólsen and Sigurður Nordal. By this time he had already published several influential papers on Old Norse literature and religion. He had established himself as a major authority in these fields.

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• 3. The Cryptoanalyst And Scholar

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  Turville-Petre was appointed the first Vigfússon Reader in Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities at University of Oxford in 1941. At that moment he was serving as a cryptoanalyst at Bletchley Park. He spent much of World War II in the Foreign Office. He could not take up his position at Oxford until 1946.

  In August 1942 he was dispatched by the Foreign Office to the Faroe Islands. The mission required him to study the inhabitants, their politics and conditions of life. He stayed there for two months. In 1941, 1942 Turville-Petre entered into a notable dispute with Charles Leslie Wrenn over the date of composition of the sagas of Icelanders.

  His notes titled Notes on the intellectual history of Icelanders appeared in 1942. This work provided a summary of early Icelandic literary history which remains considered authoritative today. He argued that these sagas were composed from the 13th century. This view has since become generally accepted among scholars. Apart from the dispute with Wrenn, Turville-Petre was not involved in many scholarly controversies.

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• 4. Origins Of Icelandic Literature

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  Turville-Petre published Origins of Icelandic Literature in 1953. A revised second edition appeared in 1967. It is considered his magnum opus and most influential work. Critics noted that it made his major contribution to our understanding of early Icelandic civilization. With good cause it has proved the most influential of all his writings.

  The book provides a detailed account of the settlement and early history of Iceland. Turville-Petre contended that the Icelanders produced the richest and most varied literature of medieval Europe. He suggested that Icelandic writers both preserved older Scandinavian oral traditions and developed newer ones. He also proposed that Celtic settlers in Iceland significantly contributed to distinctive characteristics of Icelandic literature particularly its poetry.

  He further suggested Old English and Irish influences existed within the texts. Turville-Petre believed that the fact that the Icelanders were an uprooted people who had left their Scandinavian homelands made their conversion to Christianity easier and more peaceful. This may explain the relative tolerance of Christian Icelanders towards pagans in the years after the conversion around 1000 AD. The text gives accounts of early Icelandic writers including Sæmundr Sigfússon and Ari Thorgilsson.

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• 5. Myth And Religion Of The North

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  The book provides a comprehensive overview of Old Norse religion. It cites Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Baltic and Germanic material throughout its pages. Like Georges Dumézil, Turville-Petre was considered an expert on Germanic Antiquity. He became greatly interested in research conducted by the celebrated French philologist Georges Dumézil known for comparative studies of Indo-European mythology.

  Between 1953 and 1955 Turville-Petre published sympathetic reviews of three of Dumézil's monographs in the Saga-Book. In 1956 he invited him to lecture at the University of Oxford. Although certainly influenced by the theories of Dumézil, Myth and Religion of the North does not accept all of Dumézil's theories. Turville-Petter believed that Old Norse religion contained many archaic features derived from earlier Indo-European and Germanic components.

  He received the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Falcon in 1956. Even more prestigious honors followed with the Grand Knight's Cross of the Order of the Falcon in 1963. Both awards were conferred upon him by the President of Iceland. He also received honorary doctorates from

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• 6. Leadership And Honors

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  University of Iceland in 1961 and Uppsala University in 1977.

  Turville-Petre retired from Oxford as Professor Emeritus in 1975. From 1975 to 1978 he worked as a Research Fellow at University College London. In his later career he devoted himself particularly to the study of Old Norse poetry. He was especially interested in the origins of the dróttkvætt form.

  He believed this poetic structure derived from Celtic influences particularly Irish ones. In 1954 he had already published a celebrated paper in Icelandic on that particular subject. It was later translated into English and published under the title On the poetry of the scalds and of the filid.

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• 7. Later Research And Poetry Studies

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  Turville-Petter saw clear parallels between the Norse skalds and the Irish filí.

  His research culminated in publishing Scaldic Poetry in 1976. This work devoted particular focus to early Icelandic poets such as Egill Skallagrímsson and Þjóðólfr of Hvinir. The book provides testimony to his mastery of the subject as a result of a long life of passionate study. He also made significant contributions to the development of Icelandic studies in Australia during visits starting in 1965.

  Turville-Petre died of cancer in Oxford on the 17th of February 1978. He bequeathed his personal library to the English Faculty Library of Oxford University. The collection is now known as the Icelandic Collections. At Oxford the room which houses the university's collection of books on Old Norse and Icelandic bears his name.

  Speculum Norroenum appeared in 1981 as a festschrift in Turville-Petre's honor edited by Ursula Dronke. The volume included an affectionate memoir of Turville-Petre by his Icelandic friend Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. Some of whose works Turville-Petre had translated from Icelandic into English.

  He married Joan

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• 8. Death And Personal Legacy

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  Elizabeth Blomfield on the 7th of January 1943. She was a distinguished scholar on Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse studies at Oxford. They had three sons: Thorlac Francis Samuel born the 6th of January 1944, Merlin Oswald born the 2nd of July 1946 and Brendan Arthur Auberon born the 16th of September 1948. Turville-Petter had a strong passion for ornithology alongside his academic pursuits.