Brusi Sigurdsson
| Brusi Sigurdsson | |
|---|---|
| Earl of Orkney | |
| Title held | 1014 to the early 1030s, jointly with his three brothers |
| Predecessor | Sigurd Hlodvirsson |
| Successor | Thorfinn Sigurdsson |
| Spouse | Unknown |
| Issue | |
| Noble family | Norse Earls of Orkney |
| Father | Sigurd Hlodvirsson |
| Mother | Unknown |
| Died | before 1035 |
Brusi Sigurdsson (died between 1030 and 1035) was one of Sigurd Hlodvirsson's four sons (together with Thorfinn, Einar and Sumarlidi ). He was joint Earl of Orkney from 1014. His life is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga.
The sources for Sigurd's life are almost exclusively Norse sagas, none of which were written down at the time of the events they record. The main source is the Orkneyinga Saga, which was first compiled in Iceland in the early 13th century and much of the information it contains is "hard to corroborate".
The Orkneyinga Saga reports that when their father Earl Sigurd was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the Norse earldom was divided between his three oldest sons, Brusi, Sumarlidi, and Einar "Wry-Mouth". The youngest son Thorfinn was only five years old and being fostered by his maternal grandfather Malcolm II of Scotland on the Scottish mainland who gave him the earldom of Caithness, which Sigurd had held from the Scottish crown. Brusi is described as "gentle, restrained, unassuming and a fine speaker". Sumarlidi was the oldest of the brothers and had a similar disposition to Brusi. Einar, on the other hand was "ruthless and grasping, a hard and successful fighting man".
Joint earldoms were a frequent feature of the Norse earldom of Orkney and usually one of the partners was recognised as the senior figure, responsible for military activities. However, such arrangements were often unstable and the Orkneyinga saga is less than explicit about how these shares were divided up geographically. It is possible that Brusi's share, described as the "northernmost part of the isles", was those islands lying north of the Orkney mainland, that Einar's was originally the east Mainland and the south isles and that Sumarlidi's was the west Mainland. However, it is also possible that Brusi's share was Shetland, which formed part of the earldom throughout the Norse period. This possibility is supported by a later reference to his son Rögnvald as "Lord of the Shetlanders" and Thompson (2008) is in "no doubt " that Shetland was in Brusi's possession.
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