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A History of the Vikings

Chapter 4

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CHAPTER IV

SCANDINAVIA AND DENMARK IN VIKING TIMES

THE rest of the story of these three northern kingdoms, their fortunes during the Viking Period and in the centuries following upon this, can very easily be summarized in the course of a recital of their rulers; for among the viking peoples, perhaps to a larger degree than in any other society of their time, the history of the three nations tends to be a mere record of the policies and achievements of their great men.
       Setting aside, then, as of no immediate concern here a study of the social life and altering conditions of the various classes, it will be sufficient to recount the chief activities of the famous rulers who helped their country to prosperity and whose names are likely to be found in viking history abroad, or, alternatively, to record those periods of decline and depression when no such strong man was there to govern and direct. The territorial expansion of the vikings and the establishment of their colonies abroad will be described in subsequent chapters, so that here there is no need to do more than indicate the course of home affairs in the three countries; yet it will be as well, for the sake of completeness, to continue the outline of their history down to the time of the union of the three nations at the end of the fourteenth century, because thus far at least it will be necessary in later chapters to follow the history of such viking colonies as Iceland and Greenland.

DENMARK

      Harald Gormsson, or Bluetooth, who died in the viking stronghold of Jomsborg by the Oder mouth, was succeeded by his rebel son, Svein I (9 86)- 1014), commonly known as Svein Tjuguskegg that is Forkbeard; the new king of Denmark was a redoubtable warrior, far-famed as the organizer and leader of viking expeditions; but above all he is known as the stern and implacable foe of England, and it was at the head of his armies in England, in the very year of his

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complete triumph over that unhappy country, that he died. He was followed on the throne of Denmark by Harald II, his eldest son, and when Harald died in 1018 the next king was Svein's second son, a prince who in respect of his achievement, in respect of wisdom, statesmanship, and military genius, must take rank as the greatest of all the vikings.
       This was Cnut I (1018- 1035); for a year before his accession to the throne of his fathers he had been king of England, and he died ruler not only of the mighty Anglo-Danish realm, but also as overlord of Norway. He was a monarch held in high repute throughout all Europe; England was his home and he was most of all occupied with English affairs, but in the kingdom of Denmark his power was absolute and even in Scandinavia the authority of this great lord was respected. He fought the united armies of Norway, under Olaf the Saint, and Sweden, under Anund Jacob, and withstood their challenge to his supremacy; in his turn he carried the war into their countries, conquering much of southern Sweden, (1) while in 1028 he deposed King Olaf of Norway, setting up in 1030, after Olaf's and defeat at Stiklestad, young Svein, Cnut's son by an Englishwoman, as regent of the country. True that Cnut's over-lordship of Norway and this regency were insecure and dangerous, but in England and Denmark he ruled until the day of his death supreme and unassailable, a dignified and beloved monarch whose reign is an honourable page in the history of the two realms he governed.
       With the passing of Cnut the glory of the Danish royal house, previously distinguished by Gorm, Harald Gormsson, and Svein, suffered eclipse, for Hardecnut, his son, was an unworthy successor. The English kingdom, ruled for a while by another son, Harald Harefoot, and afterwards by Hardecnut, regained its independence on this prince's death, so that the mighty realm of Cnut was sheared in half, and in the same year that Hardecnut died (1042) and England was returned to her own kings, Magnus of Norway, son of Olaf the Saint, was chosen to fill the empty throne of Denmark, so that Norsemen and Danes might unite to resist the threat of the Slavonic Wends against their lands and commerce.
       Young Magnus, already a powerful king in his own country, had previously warred against Denmark and was, moreover, son

1. This us uncertain; Cnut certainly called himself lord of the land of the Swedes, but it may be that after the fight of Holy River, in which the united fleets of Norway and Sweden seem to have got the better of him, he gave up his claims to Swedish territory.

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of the king whom Cnut had expelled. He had no reason, then, to love the Danes whose fallen kingdom he now added to his own, yet during the five years of his rule (1042-1047) he dealt justly by them. It is true that in 1043 he NORWAY utterly destroyed the rebellious Danish stronghold at Jomsborg, but in the same year he delivered his new dominion from an appalling peril by routing a huge host of the Wends who had invaded Denmark and threatened to crush this almost defenceless state out of existence. Furthermore, he chose as his regent of this country, Cnut's nephew, Svein Estridsson, though this friendly gesture proved to be a mistaken policy for, so soon as the danger of the Wendish attack was removed, Svein conspired against him and raised armies to overthrow the power of Norway. The regent obtained the help of Swedish troops and was aided by Harald Sigurdsson Hardradi of Norway, so that when Magnus died no man questioned his right to become king of Denmark, and as Svein II (1047- 1076) he maintained against Magnus's successor, Harald Hardradi, the struggle with Norway; but the fortunes of war continued against him until a peace was made in 1064, whereupon Svein, abandoning warfare, settled down to rule over Denmark in comparative security. He died a much-honoured monarch, having lived for twelve years at peace with his neighbours, a period wherein he worked ceaselessly to strengthen the crown's authority by remodelling the ecclesiastical organization of his kingdom and ruling it according to the enlightened precepts of his friend Adalbert, the Archbishop of Bremen.
       Svein II Estridsson died in 1076 and for four years afterwards the country continued at peace under the rule of his son Harald III. But when a second son, Cnut II, came to the throne conditions changed, for the brother was at heart a soldier and had long dreamt of the reconquest of the fair country that had been a possession of the Danish crown in the days of the illustrious great-uncle whose name he bore. The contemplated attack on England came to nothing, as indeed other Danish attempts in Svein II's day to rob William the Conqueror of his new realm had failed, and the taxes and tribulations that were the result of Cnut's military ideals, his arrogant and ridiculous conception of his kingly rights, so dissatisfied his own people that the peasants revolted against him and the end of his reign came in 1086 when he was assassinated in the church of Odense. Yet in 1095 his bones were disinterred and reburied in honour under the high-altar of the church, and in 1101 he was canonized as a saint.

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With the ignominious dismissal of the force whereby St. Cnut was hoping to attack England, the viking days of Denmark, in the ordinary historical sense of a Viking Period, come to an inglorious end. But this outline story must be carried a stage or so further, though the shortest possible summary will suffice.
       St. Cnut was succeeded on the throne by his brother Oluf, whose grim nickname Hunger tells of the famine that wasted Denmark in his day; but in 1095, when Eric I, fourth son of Svein II, came to the throne, the country returned to its ancient prosperity; so, too, during the greater part of the long reign of Eric's successor Niels (1104- 1134), a fifth son of Svein, Denmark enjoyed peace and plenty, although in these days there was fighting against the Wends. It was at the end of Niels's reign that serious troubles once more befell the state, for Magnus Nielsson murdered Cnut Lavard, a son of Eric I, and a civil war broke out that ended in 1134 at the Battle of Fodevig where Magnus was slain. Niels himself died shortly afterwards and the crown passed in the year of the battle to Cnut Lavard's brother, Eric II. Three years later the new king was murdered at the thing in Roskilde, and his nephew, Eric III, reigned in his stead; but the unhappy country was still torn by domestic quarrels and when Eric died in 1146 an utterly disastrous period known as the Wars of the Princes opens. The three leaders who now struggled for the mastery were Cnut III, grandson of Niels, Svein III, son of Eric II, and Valdemar, the son of Cnut Lavard, who triumphed in the end over his two adversaries; in 1157 Valdemar the Great at last found himself the sole and undisputed ruler of Denmark. His reign was long and glorious and when he died in 1182 he had become the hero of his people, a brilliant figure still famous to this day as the deliverer of his country from the fury of the Wends.
       After Valdemar the Great the only Danish king who need be mentioned is Valdemar Atterdag (1340- 1375), who was the great-grandson of Christopher I (1252- 1259), the grandson of Valdemar the Great. And the reason that Valdemar Atterdag comes into this story is that his daughter, Margaret, married in 1363 King Haakon VI of Norway, for the result of this marriage was that some thirty years later this very remarkable Danish woman found herself in the position to effect by her astonishing genius for statesmanship the union of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark under a single king, her great-nephew, chosen by herself.

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NORWAY

      Harald Fairhair had had many wives and many children; but late in life, when he found himself a powerful king ruling over a united Norway, he made one profitable and important alliance such as befitted his high station, a marriage with the Danish princess, Ragnhild, daughter of Eric of Jutland, and he put away from him the numerous undistinguished Norwegian ladies who hitherto had been his consorts. The son of this marriage with Ragnhild was Eric Bloodaxe whom Harald regarded as the only legitimate heir to Norway and whom he married to Gunnhild, King Harald Gormsson's sister, thus strengthening the already existing bond between the royal houses of Norway and Denmark. But Eric knew that his sole hope of becoming supreme king in his father's place lay in his ability to destroy by fair means or foul those of his half-brothers who were likely to contest the inheritance, and therefore both before and after his father's death he and his mettlesome wife set themselves to kill off their rivals. When in due course Eric came to the throne, he soon found that he was regarded on all sides with hatred and suspicion, and as he was far too hot-headed a man to cope intelligently with the reaction against a centralized monarchy that now swept over the land, after a short and troubled reign he was forced to abandon the throne and fly from Norway. He was succeeded by one of his half-brothers, young Haakon, the son of a serf-woman and a child of Harald's old age, who had been fostered in England at the court of Æthelstan. This was in the '40s of the tenth century.
       Haakon the Good was a wise and generous prince, and though he estranged the folk of the Tröndelag by an ill-advised attempt to introduce Christianity, yet his position was from the outset so secure that the other surviving sons of Harald made no challenge against his supremacy. But it was otherwise with the sons of the exiled Eric Bloodaxe, for after their father's death in England (954) they deemed themselves the rightful heirs to the Norwegian throne and would not leave the country at peace under the usurper Haakon. Urged on by their determined Danish mother, they enlisted the support of Harald Gormsson in Denmark and with the forces he gave them they invaded Norway; there was much fighting and at first Haakon triumphed, but in the end the sons of Gunnhild and Eric slew him. This took place about 960.
       Harald Ericsson Greycloak, eldest surviving son of Eric,

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