Eysteinn Erlendsson

Archbishop Eystein of Nidaros is the churchman who, at the close of Heimskringla, helps remake what a Norwegian king even is. In the chaos of the civil wars, when the strongman Erling Skakke needs to legitimise his boy-son Magnus on a thin maternal claim, it is Eystein with whom he strikes the pivotal bargain: in return for the augmentation of the Church's rights and revenues, the archbishop will crown and consecrate the child — the first coronation and anointing in Norwegian history. With that holy oil, kingship in Norway passes from the old model (the king hailed up from the assembled people) to a new one (the king set above rivalry by the Church's blessing). Eystein is the saga's image of the Church entering the making of kings — the prelate whose deal with a strongman binds crown and altar together for centuries, and turns the Thing-hailed viking king into the consecrated Christian one.