Horik I.

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Horik I. (also Erik I., Horich or Horik the Elder ) († 854 ), son of Göttrik , ruled from 813 until his violent death in 854, initially as one of several, from 826/827 presumably as the sole Danish ruler (" König “) over parts of today's Denmark and Skåne . His rule was characterized by the struggle with Harald Klak for supremacy in southern Jutland and with the Carolingian rulers for suzerainty in the north, namely over the Frisians , northern Albingians and Abodrites .

After Göttrik's assassination in 810, Hemming succeeded him as king over the areas bordering the Franconian Empire and concluded a peace treaty with Charlemagne in 811 , in which the Eider was established as the southern border of the Danish sphere of influence. He drove Horik I and his four brothers out of the country, but died in 812, which triggered a war of succession. At the end of this, the original opponents had fallen and Harald Klak and his brothers as well as the sons of Göttrik, led by Horik I, faced each other as contenders for the sole title of ruler. Harald Klak, who was allied with the Franks, had to flee from Göttrik's sons as early as 813, who had returned from exile in Sweden with a large army. He escaped to the Abodrites first. A first attempt to regain power with Frankish support at the head of an Abodritic-Saxon army failed in 815 due to Horik's military superiority.

The Franconian support for Harald Klak led from 819 to a temporary division of rule with Horik I, but Horik I forced the unpopular rival for power into Franconian exile again in 826/827. In 826, the Reichsannalen reported a change in policy by the Franks. Then Horik I and his brothers swore at the Reichstag in Ingelheim pax et foedus , i.e. peace and an alliance of friendship. The term foedus indicates that Horik recognized the Franks as a political and military power, while from now on the emperor had to grant him protection. After 830 Horik I rose to become the sole ruler of Denmark. His brothers seem to have passed away by this time. In 838 he made a claim against Ludwig the Pious to supremacy over the Frisians and Abodrites and demanded that their settlement areas be given to him as a fief.

With the attack on Hamburg in the year 845, attributed to Horik I. , this is said to have pursued not only economic interests but also the political goal of weakening the Franconian influence on northern Albingia. After the attack on Hamburg, the Franks sent a delegation under the leadership of the Saxon Count Kobbo with the request to make an atonement as compensation and even threatened war in 847 if Horik did not prevent the constant raids on Franconian territory. Because according to the Frankish imagination, all Scandinavians were members of a tribe over which Horik ruled as rex . On the basis of this understanding of rule, the Franks assumed that Horik I could order and prevent attacks and raids on Franconian territory. On the occasion of earlier attacks, Horik had already tried in vain at the Diet in Worms in 836 to convince the Carolingians not to be responsible for the Viking raids on the Frisian coast. The events were repeated in 838. Now Horik even had it explained that he had executed the leaders responsible for the raid. Kobbo later reported that he was an eye-witness at Horik's court of a meeting between Horik I and the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok (" Ragenarius "). Ragnar reported proudly of his successful attack on Paris and bragged about the destruction of the St. Germain-des-Prés monastery . Since Horik I. did not believe the stories of Ragnar Lodbrok, he presented a beam from the monastery church and the lock of a gate from the city wall of Paris as proof. This Kobbo report is seen as evidence that Horik I was not responsible for the attack on Paris.

Around 850 Horik I allowed the Christian missionary Ansgar to build a church in Hedeby .

From 850 Horik I was forced to share rule with two nephews after bitter fighting. Another nephew, Gudurm, returned in 854 from the exile pronounced by Horik I, in which he had lived as a pirate. In the course of the following military clashes with Gudurm, Horik I and all members of his family except for his successor Horik II were killed.

literature

  • Volker Helten: Between cooperation and confrontation. Denmark and the Franconian Empire in the 9th century. Kölner Wissenschaftsverlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-942720-10-6 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Annales regni Francorum 813; Chronicon Moissiacense 813.
  2. ↑ Sandra Polzer: The Franks and the North. On the difficulty of interpreting early medieval sources on the history of Denmark. Vienna 2008, p. 135.
  3. ↑ Annales Bertiniani 838.
  4. ^ Vita Anskarii cap. 16; Annales Fuldenses 845; Annales Bertiniani 845 (without naming the city; only a Slavic civitas is mentioned there ). Horik I is named there neither as the leader nor as the initiator of the attack on Hamburg. On this Volker Helten: Between cooperation and confrontation. Denmark and the Franconian Empire in the 9th century. Kölner Wissenschaftsverlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-942720-10-6 , pp. 208-217.
  5. ↑ Andreas Mohr: The knowledge about the others: To the representation of foreign peoples in the Frankish sources of the Carolingian period (= studies and texts on the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Vol. 7). Waxmann, Münster 2005, ISBN 978-3-8309-1522-5 , p. 251.
  6. ↑ Annales Bertiniani 836
  7. ↑ Annales Bertiniani 838.
  8. ^ Annales Bertiniani 850
  9. ↑ Annales Fuldenses 854
personal data
SURNAME Horik I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Horich, Erik I.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish Viking King, (813–854)
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century
DATE OF DEATH 854