Magnús Erlingsson

Magnus Erlingsson is the boy who became the first crowned king of Norway — and the figure on whom Heimskringla closes, mid-civil-war. Made king as a child by his ruthless, capable father Erling Skakke, his claim ran only through his mother, a daughter of Sigurd the Crusader — thin by the old reckoning, where kingship passed through the male line. To make it stick, Erling struck a bargain with the Church: in 1163 or 1164 the boy Magnus was crowned and anointed by Archbishop Eystein, the first consecrated king in Norwegian history, set beyond ordinary rivalry by holy oil. But the wars were not over; the Birkebeins rose against him, and Snorri's chronicle ends with that new rebellion gathering. Magnus is less a character than a hinge of history — the child-king through whom kingship in Norway passed from the Thing-hailed viking model to the crowned, Church-anointed Christian one.