Harald I. (England)
Harald I ( English: Harold I Harefoot ; * around 1016 in Denmark ; † March 17, 1040 in Oxford / England ) was the English king from 1035 to 1040. He was nicknamed “Harefoot” because of his speed and skill in hunting.
Life
He is the son of Canute the Great and his first wife Ælfgifu of Northampton .
Before his death on November 12, 1035, Canute the Great decreed that his Anglo-Scandinavian Empire would be divided among his sons:
Although Queen Emma and Earl Godwin supported Hardeknut, who was militarily bound in Denmark, Harald I Harefoot, with the support of Leofric of Mercia and his mother Ælfgifu, was elected king by the Witan in Oxford at the end of 1035 . This led to the division of England, which is also documented numismatically: Hardeknut got the southern part, Harald the northern part.
Eduard the Confessor and his brother Alfred Ætheling , sons of Harald's stepmother Emma from her first marriage to King Æthelred II , attempted to come to power in England in 1036 or 1037. Emma lived in Winchester with Hardeknut's bodyguard, but Harald I Harefoot sent an army to steal her treasures; penniless Emma flees to Count Baldwin V the Pious in Bruges in Flanders . Alfred was captured, blinded and died by Godwin , his entourage slaughtered or mutilated. Godwin denied his guilt and was acquitted, while Edward the Confessor returned to Normandy . In 1037 Harald had found enough followers and was crowned king over all of England.
Hardeknut had followed his expelled mother to Flanders in 1039 and raised an army there to come to the English throne when his half-brother Harald I Harefoot died in Oxford in March 1040 and was buried next to his father Knut in Westminster. On June 14, 1040, Hardeknut landed with 62 warships at Sandwich and ascended the undisputed English throne (1040-1042). He had Harald's body exhumed and thrown into a sewer or swamp. Shortly afterwards the body was pulled out of the Thames by a fisherman and respectfully buried first in Westminster and later in the Danish cemetery of St Clement Danes in London. Ælfgifu, his mother, is no longer mentioned in the sources.
He was married, also to a woman named Ælfgifu, and had a son, Ælfwine.
swell
- anonymous, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- Symeon of Durham , Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum
- Adam of Bremen , Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum , Hamburg Church History
literature
- David C. Douglas: William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy - King of England. Callwey Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0513-X
- Kurt Kluxen : History of England. From the beginning to the present (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 374). 4th edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-520-37404-8 .
Web links
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Project Gutenberg (English)
- Symeon von Durham , Translator: J. Stevenson: The Historical Works of Simeon of Durham . In: Church Historians of England, volume III, part II . Seeley's. 1855. Retrieved October 3, 2009.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- ↑ a b Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum
- ↑ Hamburg Church History Book 2, chap. 72
- ^ PH Sawyer: Harald Harefoot . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 4, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-8904-2 , Sp. 1929.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Knut |
King of England 1035-1040 |
Hardiknut |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Harald I. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Harold Harefoot |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | english king |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1016 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Denmark |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 17, 1040 |
| Place of death | Oxford , England |