Gottfried (Friesland)

Gottfried († June 885 near Herwen , today Gelderland Province , Netherlands ) was a Danish Viking leader and ruler in Friesland .

In 879, when the threat to the reign of Charles III. became massive by the Vikings, Gottfried was one of the leaders in the incursions into Flanders and northern France . In 880 he decisively defeated the Saxons . Gottfried was one of the leaders of the Viking raids in the Rhineland . Emperor Karl III. marched against him, besieged him, but lifted the siege again and recognized his rule in Friesland. When Gottfried was baptized, Emperor Karl confirmed him as ruler at the mouths of the Rhine and Maas and gave him Gisela (Gisla) (860 / 865–907), the daughter of King Lothar II of Lotharingia ( Lotharii Regnum ), who died in 869 , to the wife.

In the following years, however, Gottfried did not do justice to the mandate associated with his territory, the defense of the Vikings, and moreover conspired in 885 with his brother-in-law Hugo , Lothar's ecclesiastically unrecognized son from his second marriage, who wanted to regain his father's kingdom and the Viking leaders promised half of the land in the event of victory. Therefore, in June 885, Gottfried was slain by the Babenberg Heinrich von Franken , who himself fell in the battle against the Normans a year later, during feigned negotiations at Herwen in the Betuwe . His co-conspirator Hugo was picked up a little later, blinded and taken to the Prüm Abbey , where he spent the rest of his life.

Gottfried's wife Gisela had been brought to safety from her husband's violent death. She went to the monastery and became abbess in Nivelles and Fosses and died in 907.

Gottfried's death also meant the end of the rule of the Vikings in Friesland and for several years also the end of the Viking invasions into the Rhineland.

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Gottfried is often confused with Gottfried Haraldsson , son of King Harald Klak of Denmark. However, he was baptized in 826 when he was a child and was mentioned for the last time in a document in 855. An identity of the two is not necessarily excluded, but it is very unlikely.

literature

• Walther Vogel : The Normans and the Franconian Empire up to the founding of Normandy (= Heidelberg Treatises on Middle and Modern History. Volume 14). Winter, Heidelberg 1906.
• Dirk P. Blok: De Wikingen in Friesland. In: Naamkunde 10. 1978.
• Heinrich Leo: Twelve Books of Dutch Stories. Eduard Anton, Halle 1832, pp. 640–641.

Web links

• Jennifer Striewski: Vikings on the Middle Rhine. Rhenish History Portal, February 25, 2013, accessed on February 20, 2014 .