Herdis Thorvaldsdatter

Herdis Thorvaldsdatter, daughter of Thorvald Thoresson of Papa Stour, sysselmann of Shetland, was born around 1305. She married Svein Sigurdsson, regional treasurer in Bergen, who died in 1332, and seems subsequently to have married Bjarne Erlingsson, a nobleman. She inherited and built up a very large landed estate in Shetland, which has been studied by Frans-Arne Stylegar and Liv Kjørsvik Schei ('”Lords of Norroway”: the Shetland estate of Herdis Thorvaldsdatter’, in Beverley Ballin Smith and others, eds., West Over Sea, Leiden 2007). Herdis died at the royal court in Copenhagen in 1363, by poisoning.