Jens Lauritz Arup Seip (11 October 1905 – 5 September 1992) was a Norwegian historian originally trained as a medieval historian, but stood out as the strongest of his time in interpreting Norwegian political history in the 1800s, particularly known for having created the term "embedsmannsstaten".
He was a professor at the University of Oslo from 1952 to 1975, he specialized in political history and the history of ideas.
He was married to fellow historian Anne-Lise Seip.
Seip's use of the Norwegian language and his writing style which numerous historians have described as brilliant, and often tried emulating.
Seip was included among the 16 authors of " The Norwegian literary canon" from 1900 to 1960 and 2nd among 20 authors in a ranking of nonfiction writers conducted by Dagbladet in 2008.
Seip received an honorary doctorate at the University of Bergen from 1975.