Murder Letters Case

The case of letters of murder (Isl. Morðbréfamálið , there is no established translation into other languages) is a high-profile and lengthy trial in Iceland at the end of the 16th century.

At the center of the case were four letters presented in 1590 and charged to Joun Sigmündsson, who had long been dead, as evidence of his several murders. The letters were supposed to be an additional justification for the fact that the descendants of Joun can’t make any claims for his property, taken at the beginning of the century in court (formally for non-payment of church tithes) by Bishop Gotskaulk Nikulausson ^[1] . In that lawsuit, Joon’s marriage with his wife was invalidated due to an unacceptably close degree of relationship between them (Isl. Fjórmenningar - when spouses have a great-grandfather or great-grandmother ^[2] ), so their children were declared illegal.

After the Reformation in Iceland, most of the church property, which no one could claim, became the property of the Danish king (since Iceland was then part of Denmark ), but those who could prove their rights to property taken from him by the church were allowed to file claims . This was used by the grandson of Joun Sigmündsson, the future bishop of Goodbrandur Torlaksson , who even received the blessing of his mother for the return of his grandfather’s property, part of which was then owned by the descendants of Gotskaulk, Oulavur Jounsson and his daughter, Güdrunar Oulavsdouttur. Initially, he succeeded in this matter, having managed to get twenty farms by 1571, but in 1590, when Gudbrandur planned to prove the legitimacy of his rights to the Hols and Bessastad farms , four letters were presented to the alting , in which there was evidence not only of Nicolausson’s suspicions about Sigmundsson , but also information about the allegedly last brutal murders, including his brother, which cast a shadow on the legality of possessing all his wealth. Gudbrandur in response to them issued three so-called "letter brochures" (in 1592, 1594 and 1608), in which he tried in every possible way to prove their falsity ^[3] and accused the lawyer Jone Jounsson of the case in slander; after the death of the latter in 1606, he continued to attack his successor, Joun Sigyurdsson, who in 1611 was publicly accused of adultery.

The case came to the Danish king, and Gudbrandur in 1620 was removed from office and sentenced to a fine of one thousand rikiddalir for slander ^[4] , which did not prevent him from making the last (failed) attempt to obtain land rights. Goodbrandur managed to destroy most of the copies of the printed “brochures about letters,” and only a few of them have survived to this day.