July 2025: Konráð Maurer, Konrad Maurer – not just a coincidence

If you have read the December 2024 Find of the Month (which I’m sure you have), you might remember a certain Konráð Maurer, whose letters and legal files in Þjóðskjalasafn caused quite a bit of confusion. But for those who have spent the last few months wondering whether someone really named their child after the legal historian Konrad Maurer—or if it was just an amusing coincidence—I can now reveal: it was not.

Let’s start in 1858, when Konrad Maurer made his first and only visit to Iceland. After a ten-day boat ride from Copenhagen to Reykjavík, Maurer spent the months from April to October on the island. During his stay, he met a number of influential local Icelandic scholars, politicians and artists, while also traveling across the country, visiting historical sites—especially those associated with íslendingasögur—as well as destinations popular with today’s tourists, like the geyser Strokkur.

Maurer’s guide on this journey was a man named Ólafur Ólafsson, also known as Ólafur fagri (Ólafur ‘the fair’ or ‘the beautiful’). Ólafur had previously guided Lord Dufferin (1826–1902), whose 1856 published travel account Letters from High Latitudes became a notable success. Later, Ólafur became the janitor of Mentaskólinn í Reykjavík, then called Lærðiskólinn or Latínuskólinn, the oldest grammar school Reykjavík. He appears frequently in Maurer’s travel accounts, which were translated and published in Icelandic under the title Íslandsferð 1858 in 1997, and later edited and published in German in 2017. In Maurer’s yet unpublished travel diary, he often refers to Ólafur as ‘mein Ólaf’ (‘my Ólaf’) and records a visit to his home after the death of his children (see Harmen Biró’s 2011 thesis and the unpublished transcript of the diary, which he kindly shared with me).

But Ólafur did not remain childless: four years later, he and his wife Jarþrúður Pétursdóttir had a son—and they decided to name him Konráð Maurer Ólafsson (1862–1897). This Konráð became a tradesman and, upon moving to Copenhagen, also worked as a scribe for Tryggvi Gunnarsson (1835–917), parliament member and director of Landsbankinn. Together with his wife, Ragnheiður Simonardóttir, he had a son himself to whom he passed on his first name: Konráð Ragnar Konráðsson (1884–1929).

Konráð Maurer Ólafsson's letterhead and signature suggest that he eventually dropped his patronym, using only his first and middle name instead. Other sources refer to him as Konráð Ó. Maurer or Konráð Ólafsson.

Beyond the name there are further connections between Konrad Maurer and Konráð Maurer: Both were members of Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, and both were acquaintances of Tryggvi Gunnarsson. Their correspondence with Tryggvi is now kept in the same letter collection at Þjóðskjalasafn. Whether Konráð Maurer Ólafsson ever met his namesake in person—or whether Konrad Maurer even knew about the child named in his honour—remains unknown.