Saemundur the Learned was a chieftain and a priest at Oddi and the first important person to reside at Oddi, in the 11th century. Saemundur is believed to have brought some Latin books from Paris, where he studied at the 'Black College', the forerunner of the present Sorbonnne. This hasn't been proved, however! In one of the folktales about Saemundur the Learned and the Devil, Saemundur hits the devil on the head with a book which contained King David's Psalms, after he'd sat on the Devil's back across the Atlantic, on his way from France to Iceland. One thing is certain, however, that there must have been a fairly good collection of books in Latin at Oddi which Saemundur had other people write on skin for him and also various study books in Latin. From this you can see that Snorri had many opportunities to read and study in the library of Oddi.
The most famous men of Oddi:
