The Kings of Norway
The Civil Wars — the Long Bloodletting
The pretender from Ireland
It began with a stranger's claim. Harald Gille, raised in Ireland, came to Norway saying he was a son of Magnus Barefoot and so a brother of King Sigurd the Crusader — and to prove it he underwent the ordeal of carrying red-hot iron, and passed it.[1] Sigurd let him be acknowledged, on condition he claim no kingship while Sigurd or his son lived.
Harald Gille was everything charming — gay, generous, pleasing in company, open-handed to a fault. But an acknowledged royal claimant was a loaded weapon, and the oath he swore would not hold once Sigurd was dead. The whole long catastrophe of the civil wars uncoils from this moment: a kingdom that had no fixed law of succession, and now had one more man of the blood than it had room for. The ordeal that proved Harald's right also lit the fuse.
The source text · 1
Harald Gille, on the other hand, was very pleasing in intercourse, gay, and full of mirth; and so generous that he spared in nothing for the sake of his friends. He willingly listened to good advice, so that he allowed others to consult with him and give counsel. With all this he obtained favour and a good repute, and many men attached themselves as much to him as to King Magnus. Harald was in Tunsberg when he heard of his brother King Sigurd's death. He called together his friends to a meeting, and it was resolved to hold the Hauga Thing.mw-parser-output .wst-sup{font-size:66%;vertical-align:0.6em;line-height:0}1 there in the town. At this Thing, Harald was chosen king of half the country, and it was called a forced oath which had been taken from him to renounce his paternal heritage. Then Harald formed a court, and appointed lendermen; and very soon he had as many people about him as King Magnus. Then men went between them, and matters stood in this way for seven days; but King Magnus, finding he had fewer people, was obliged to give way, and to divide the kingdom with Harald into two parts. The kingdom accordingly was so divided (October 3, 1130) that each of them should have the half part of the kingdom which King Sigurd had possessed; but that King Magnus alone should inherit the fleet of ships, the table service, the valuable articles and the movable effects which had belonged to his father, King Sigurd. He was notwithstanding the least satisfied with his share. Although they were of such different dispositions, they ruled the country for some time in peace. King Harald had a son called Sigurd, by Thora, a daughter of Guthorm Grabarde. King Harald afterwards married Ingerid, a daughter of Ragnvald, who was a son of the Swedish King Inge Steinkelson. King Magnus was married to a daughter of Knut Lavard, and she was a sister of the Danish King Valdernar; but King Magnus having no affection for her, sent her back to Denmark; and from that day everything went ill with him, and he brought upon himself the enmity of her family.— heimskringla
Harald Gille, charming and generous, the acknowledged claimant (Laing).
Two kings, one kingdom
When Sigurd the Crusader died, his son Magnus was proclaimed king by his father's oath-bound men — but Harald Gille at once broke his promise and had himself taken as king too, and Norway had two kings where it had room for one.[1] For a few uneasy years they shared the country; then it came, inevitably, to war.
The saga shows the descent with grim clarity. There was no machinery for two kings to coexist — no law to divide the realm, no custom to defer one to the other, only the naked fact of two armed men each called king. The shared throne was a fight waiting to happen, and when it came, uncle and nephew drew up their banners against each other. The age of single strong kings — Fairhair, the Olafs, Hardrada — was over; the age of kings at each other's throats had begun.
The source text · 1
When the two relations, Harald and Magnus, had been about three years kings of Norway (A.D. 1131-1133), they both passed the fourth winter (A.D. 1134) in the town of Nidaros, and invited each other as guests; but their people were always ready for a fight. In spring King Magnus sailed southwards along the land with his fleet, and drew all the men he could obtain out of each district, and sounded his friends if they would strengthen him with their power to take the kingly dignity from Harald, and give him such a portion of the kingdom, as might be suitable; representing to them that King Harald had already renounced the kingdom by oath. King Magnus obtained the consent of many powerful men. The same spring Harald went to the Uplands, and by the upper roads eastwards to Viken; and when he heard what King Magnus was doing, he also drew together men on his side. Wheresoever the two parties went they killed the cattle, or even the people, upon the farms of the adverse party. King Magnus had by far the most people, for the main strength of the country lay open to him for collecting men from it. King Harald was in Viken on the east side of the fjord, and collected men, while they were doing each other damage in property and life. King Harald had with him Kristrod, his brother by his mother's side, and many other lendermen; but King Magnus had many more. King Harald was with his forces at a place called Fors in Ranrike, and went from thence towards the sea. The evening before Saint Lawrence day (August 10), they had their supper at a place called Fyrileiv, while the guard kept a watch on horseback all around the house. The watchmen observed King Magnus's army hastening towards the house, and consisting of full 6000 men, while King Harald had but 1500. Now come the watchmen who had to bring the news to King Harald of what was going on and say that King Magnus's army was now very near the town.— heimskringla
Magnus proclaimed king; Harald Gille co-king; the realm shared uneasily (Laing).
The blinding of Magnus
Harald Gille won the war, and what he did to his defeated nephew became the era's defining horror. His counsel decreed that Magnus should be deposed and called king no more — and he was handed to the king's slaves, who blinded him in both eyes, cut off a foot, and maimed him further still.[1] Thereafter he was 'Magnus the Blind,' a mutilated ex-king put away in a monastery.
The saga reports it flatly, and the flatness is its own indictment. This was not a battlefield death but a deliberate, cold mutilation of a kinsman and an anointed king — a new depth of atrocity, the more shocking for being done by judgment and counsel rather than rage. The civil wars had found their characteristic note: not glory, not even honest slaughter, but the calculated maiming of rivals. Norway had entered a darkness the earlier sagas never plumbed.
The source text · 1
Thereafter King Harald had a meeting of his counsellors, and desired their counsel; and in this meeting the judgment was given that Magnus should be deposed from his dominions, and should no longer be called king. Then he was delivered to the king's slaves, who mutilated him, picked out both his eyes, cut off one foot, and at last castrated him. Ivar Assurson was blinded, and Hakon Fauk killed. The whole country then was reduced to obedience under King Harald. Afterwards it was diligently examined who were King Magnus's best friends, or who knew most of his concealments of treasure or valuables. The holy cross King Magnus had kept beside him since the battle of Fyrileiv, but would not tell where it was deposited for preservation. Bishop Reinald of Stavanger, who was an Englishman, was considered very greedy of money. He was a great friend of King Magnus, and it was thought likely that great treasure and valuables had been given into his keeping. Men were sent for him accordingly, and he came to Bergen, where it was insisted against him that he had some knowledge of such treasure; but he denied it altogether, would not admit it, and offered to clear himself by ordeal. King Harald would not have this, but laid on the bishop a money fine of fifteen marks of gold, which he should pay to the king. The bishop declared he would not thus impoverish his bishop's see, but would rather offer his life. On this they hanged the bishop out on the holm, beside the sling machine. As he was going to the gallows he threw the sock from his foot, and said with an oath, "I know no more about King Magnus's treasure than what is in this sock;" and in it there was a gold ring. Bishop Reinald was buried at Nordnes in Michael's church, and this deed was much blamed. After this Harald Gille was sole king of Norway as long as he lived.— heimskringla
Magnus deposed, blinded and maimed by the king's slaves (Laing).
Murder in the bed
Harald Gille's own turn came soon, and in kind. Yet another claimant of royal blood, Sigurd Slembe — the 'sham-deacon' — came with his men in the night to where Harald slept, killed the watchman, broke in the door, and cut the king down in his bed; Harald, drunk and asleep, scarcely woke before he died.[1]
So the man whose claim lit the wars was murdered by the next claimant in line, in the most ignoble way a king could die. The pattern is now fully set and will simply repeat: every king a target, every throne a provocation to the next man of the blood, every reign ended by a knife in the dark or a banner on a field. The saga's tone has curdled completely — where once it sang of kings winning kingdoms, it now numbly records them being murdered in their sleep.
The source text · 1
Sigurd Slembe, and some men who were in his design, came in the night to the lodging in which King Harald was sleeping; killed the watchman first; then broke open the door, and went in with drawn swords. Ivar Kolbeinson made the first attack on King Harald; and as the king had been drunk when he went to bed he slept sound, and awoke only when the men were striking at him. Then he said in his sleep, "Thou art treating me hardly, Thora." She sprang up, saying, "They are treating thee hardly who love thee less than I do." Harald was deprived of life. Then Sigurd went out with his helpers, and ordered the men to be called to him who had promised him their support if he should get King Harald taken out of the way. Sigurd and his men then went on, and took a boat, set themselves to the oars, and rowed out in front of the king's house; and then it was just beginning to be daylight. Then Sigurd stood up, spoke to those who were standing on the king's pier, made known to them the murder of King Harald by his hand, and desired that they would take him, and choose him as chief according to his birth. Now came many swarming down to the pier from the king's house; and all with one voice replied, that they would never give obedience or service to a man who had murdered his own brother. "And if thou are not his brother, thou hast no claim from descent to be king." They clashed their weapons together, and adjudged all murderers to be banished and outlawed men. Now the king's horn sounded, and all lendermen and courtmen were called together. Sigurd and his companions saw it was best for them to get way; and he went northward to North Hordaland, where he held a Thing with the bondes, who submitted to him, and gave him the title of king. From thence he went to Sogn, and held a Thing there with the bondes and was proclaimed king. Then he went north across the fjords, and most people supported his cause. So says Ivar Ingemundson: --— heimskringla
Sigurd Slembe murders Harald Gille in his bed at night (Laing).
The sham-deacon's war
Sigurd Slembe did not win by his murder; he had to fight for it. He allied himself even with the blinded Magnus, dragging the maimed ex-king out of his monastery as a figurehead, and made war up and down the coast against Harald Gille's faction.[1] The fighting dragged on, vicious and inconclusive, until Slembe was at last taken and put to a slow and terrible death.
His career is the civil wars in miniature: a man of royal blood, a murder, a desperate coalition with another broken claimant, a few seasons of raiding and battle, and a grisly end — accomplishing nothing but more bloodshed. The saga is no longer building toward anything; it is documenting a kingdom eating itself. Each pretender burns through his violence and dies, and the next one is already rising. Norway has become a machine for destroying its own royal house.
The source text · 1
Sigurd Slembe sailed north around Stad; and when he came to North More, he found that letters and full powers had arrived before him from the leaders who had given in their allegiance to Harald's sons; so that there he got no welcome or help. As Sigurd himself had but few people with him, he resolved to go with them to Throndhjem, and seek out Magnus the Blind; for he had already sent a message before him to Magnus's friends. Now when they came to the town, they rowed up the river Nid to meet King Magnus, and fastened their land-ropes on the shore at the king's house; but were obliged to set off immediately, for all the people rose against them. They then landed at Monkholm, and took Magnus the Blind out of the cloister against the will of the monks; for he had been consecrated a monk. It is said by some that Magnus willingly went with them; although it was differently reported, in order to make his cause appear better. Sigurd, immediately after Yule (January, A.D. 1137), went forth with his suite, expecting aid from his relations and Magnus's friends, and which they also got. Sigurd sailed with his men out of the fjord, and was joined afterwards by Bjorn Egilson, Gunnar of Gimsar, Haldor Sigurdson, Aslak Hakonson, the brothers Bendikt and Eirik, and also the court which had before been with King Magnus, and many others. With this troop they went south to More, and down to the mouth of Raumsdal fjord. Here Sigurd and Magnus divided their forces, and Sigurd went immediately westwards across the sea. King Magnus again proceeded to the Uplands, where he expected much help and strength, and which he obtained. He remained there the winter and all the summer (A.D. 1137), and had many people with him; but King Inge proceeded against him with all his forces, and they met at a place called Mynne. There was a great battle, at which King Magnus had the most people. It is related that Thjostolf Alason carried King Inge in his belt as long as the battle lasted, and stood under the banner; but Thjostolf was hard pressed by fatigue and fighting; and it is commonly said that King Inge got his ill health there, and which he retained as long as he lived, so that his back was knotted into a hump, and the one foot was shorter than the other; and he was besides so infirm that he could scarcely walk as long as he lived. The defeat began to turn upon Magnus and his men; and in the front rank of his array fell Haldor Sigurdson, Bjorn Egilson, Gunnar of Gimsar, and a great number of his men, before he himself would take to his horse and fly. So says Kolle: --— heimskringla
Sigurd Slembe fights on, allied with the blind Magnus, after the murder (Laing).
The brothers who divided the realm
Harald Gille's young sons — Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein — were set up as kings together, and for a while ruled the realm in shares.[1] But Sigurd grew ungovernable and restless, Eystein little better, and only the lamed Inge had much sense; and three kings of one blood, each with his faction, could no more share Norway than Harald and Magnus had.
The wars simply continued into the next generation, now brother against brother. The saga's long middle is a grim accounting of their quarrels, alliances, and betrayals — Sigurd killed, then Eystein, the brothers destroying one another as their fathers had. There is no villain and no hero in it now, only the remorseless logic of too many kings: the royal blood, once Norway's glory, has become its curse, multiplying claimants faster than war can kill them.
The source text · 1
When King Sigurd grew up he was a very ungovernable, restless man in every way; and so was King Eystein, but Eystein was the more reasonable of the two. King Sigurd was a stout and strong man, of a brisk appearance; he had light brown hair, an ugly mouth; but otherwise a well-shaped countenance. He was polite in his conversation beyond any man, and was expert in all exercises. Einar Skulason speaks of this: --— heimskringla
Harald Gille's sons Sigurd, Inge and Eystein, restless co-kings (Laing).
Hakon Herdebreid and the rise of Erling
The killing went on into a third generation: Hakon Herdebreid — Broadshoulder — a boy-king raised up by one faction as the heir of the dead brothers, fought the party of the surviving king Inge.[1] And out of that struggle rose the man who would finally master the chaos: Erling Skakke, a chief of great cunning and power, who had married a daughter of Sigurd the Crusader and so had a royal grandson of his own to advance.
Erling is something new in the wars — not a claimant himself, but a king-maker, a statesman of violence who saw that the way to win was not to be king but to make one and rule behind him. When Hakon Herdebreid was defeated and killed, Erling's moment came. The endless free-for-all of royal claimants was about to meet a man cold and clever enough to end it — not by adding another king to the slaughter, but by changing the rules of the game.
The source text · 1
Hakon, King Sigurd's son, was chosen chief of the troop which had followed King Eystein, and his adherents gave him the title of king. He was ten years old. At that time he had with him Sigurd, a son of Halvard Hauld of Reyr, and Andreas and Onund, the sons of Simon, his foster-brothers, and many chiefs, friends of King Sigurd and King Eystein; and they went first up to Gautland. King Inge took possession of all the estates they had left behind, and declared them banished. Thereafter King Inge went to Viken, and was sometimes also in the north of the country. Gregorius Dagson was in Konungahella, where the danger was greatest, and had beside him a strong and handsome body of men, with which he defended the country.— heimskringla
Hakon Herdebreid raised as boy-king; Erling Skakke rises against him (Laing).
The boy king
Erling Skakke made his own young son Magnus Erlingsson king — a child, with no claim through his father at all, only through his mother, Sigurd the Crusader's daughter.[1] It was a weak title by the old reckoning, where kingship passed through the male line; Erling knew it, and knew that to make it stick he needed something stronger than blood.
So the real power was Erling's, ruling Norway in his boy's name with a hard and capable hand. He had done what no claimant before him managed: imposed a single king on the warring country. But a king made by one strong father, on a thin maternal claim, was exactly the kind of king the last fifty years had taught everyone to challenge. Erling's problem was legitimacy — and his solution would change Norwegian kingship forever.
The source text · 1
Erling: "When Magnus was chosen king, it was done with your knowledge and consent, and also of all the other bishops here in the country."— heimskringla
Erling makes his son Magnus king on a maternal claim (Laing).
The bargain with the Church
Erling found his stronger thing in the Church. He fell into long private talks with Archbishop Eystein, and they made a bargain: in return for the Church's rights and revenues being augmented, the archbishop would crown and consecrate the boy Magnus — clothing his weak claim in the unanswerable authority of God.[1] Where blood was thin, holy oil would do.
It is a pivotal moment in Norwegian history, and the saga catches the hard bargaining beneath the piety — Erling and Eystein trading king's rights for Church's rights, the throne and the altar each strengthening the other. The wars had shown that royal blood alone could no longer hold a throne against rival blood. The answer was to put the king beyond rivalry by making him the Church's anointed — a sacred person, not merely a claimant. The deal struck in those private talks would bind crown and Church in Norway for centuries.
The source text · 1
Archbishop Eystein and Erling Skakke often conversed together in private; and, among other things, Erling asked one day, "Is it true, sir, what people tell me, that you have raised the value of the ore upon the people north in Throndhjem, in the law cases in which money-fees are paid you ?"— heimskringla
Erling and Archbishop Eystein bargain rights for the coronation (Laing).
The first crowned king of Norway
Then came the ceremony that had never happened in Norway before. In a great feast at Bergen, the hall hung with costly cloth and tapestry, the boy Magnus Erlingsson received the royal consecration from Archbishop Eystein — crowned and anointed king by the Church.[1] No king of Norway, not Harald Fairhair nor the Olafs nor Hardrada, had ever been crowned; they had been hailed at the Things by the people. Magnus was the first made king by God's anointing.
It is a watershed, and the saga knows it. Kingship in Norway had always flowed up from the assembled people and the royal blood; now, for the first time, it came down from the altar. The change answered the chaos of the civil wars — a consecrated king could not simply be challenged by the next man of the blood — but it also bound the crown to the Church and remade the very idea of a Norwegian king. The age of the Thing-hailed viking kings was formally over; the age of the Christian crowned king had begun.
The source text · 1
Erling Skakke then had a great feast prepared in the king's house. The large hall was covered with costly cloth and tapestry, and adorned with great expense. The court-men and all the attendants were there entertained, and there were numerous guests, and many chiefs. Then King Magnus received the royal consecration from the Archbishop Eystein; and at the consecration there were five other bishops and the legate, besides a number of other clergy. Erling Skakke, and with him twelve other lendermen, administered to the king the oath of the law; and the day of the consecration the king and Erling had the legate, the archbishop, and all the other bishops as guests; and the feast was exceedingly magnificent, and the father and son distributed many great presents. King Magnus was then eight years of age, and had been king for three years.— heimskringla
Magnus crowned and consecrated by Archbishop Eystein at Bergen (Laing).
The Birkebeins rise
But the wars were not done. Magnus had been king some thirteen years when a new faction appeared — the Birkebeins, the 'birch-legs,' so poor at first they bound birch-bark round their legs for want of shoes, rallying behind yet another claimant of the royal blood.[1] They got ships, gathered men along the coast, and grew with frightening speed.
And here, on the rise of the Birkebeins, Snorri's Heimskringla ends. It is a deliberately unresolved close: not a triumph, not a settlement, but the beginning of the next round of the same war — the consecrated king and his father Erling facing a new insurgency that the reader (and Snorri) knew would grow into the long Birkebein wars and a whole new dynasty. The chronicle of the kings of Norway stops not at an ending but mid-bloodletting, the wheel still turning.
The source text · 1
Magnus had been king for thirteen years when the Birkebeins first made their appearance. They got themselves ships in the third summer (A.D. 1176), with which they sailed along the coast gathering goods and men. They were first in Viken; but when summer advanced they proceeded northwards, and so rapidly that no news preceded them until they came to Throndhjem. The Birkebeins' troop consisted principally of hill-men and Elfgrims, and many were from Thelemark; and all were well armed. Their king, Eystein, was a handsome man, and with a little but good countenance; and he was not of great stature, for his men called him Eystein Meyla. King Magnus and Earl Erling were in Bergen when the Birkebeins sailed past it to the north; but they did not hear of them.— heimskringla
The Birkebeins first appear, thirteen years into Magnus's reign (Laing).
Where the chronicle ends
So Heimskringla closes in the middle of a civil war, with a crowned boy-king, his strongman father, and the birch-legged rebels gathering in the fjords.[1] The vast chronicle that opened with Odin leading the gods out of Asia ends three hundred narrative years later in exhaustion and unfinished blood — no final victory, only the latest claimants in an endless line.
It is a fittingly honest end for Snorri's great work. He had traced the kings from gods to this — from the founding glory of Harald Fairhair, through the conversion and the crusade and the road east, down to a kingdom tearing itself apart over its own royal blood. The civil wars are the long hangover of everything the earlier journeys celebrated: the single crown that Fairhair forged became the prize that set Norwegians killing one another for a century. To read this journey last, after the founding and the conquering and the converting, is to see the whole arc of the kings' saga complete — and to understand why Snorri, a man of the wars' own troubled century, told it.
The source text · 1
Magnus had been king for thirteen years when the Birkebeins first made their appearance. They got themselves ships in the third summer (A.D. 1176), with which they sailed along the coast gathering goods and men. They were first in Viken; but when summer advanced they proceeded northwards, and so rapidly that no news preceded them until they came to Throndhjem. The Birkebeins' troop consisted principally of hill-men and Elfgrims, and many were from Thelemark; and all were well armed. Their king, Eystein, was a handsome man, and with a little but good countenance; and he was not of great stature, for his men called him Eystein Meyla. King Magnus and Earl Erling were in Bergen when the Birkebeins sailed past it to the north; but they did not hear of them.— heimskringla
Heimskringla ends amid the rising Birkebein war (Laing).
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