Calv Arnesson

King Magnus the Good and Calv Arnesson in Stiklestad , drawing from the Heimskringla ( Snorre Saga )

Kalv Arnesson (* probably 990s; † around 1051 in Denmark) was a Norwegian chief. He was one of Norway's most powerful men in the 1020s and 1030s. Due to his relatives to Erling Skjalgsson and Tore Hund , among others , he was part of the country's leadership. He played an important role in the final phase of the struggle against Olav the Saint up to his fall in Stiklestad . After that, he was the driving force behind making Olav's son Magnus the Good King of Norway.

His parents were Arne Arnmodsson (or Armodsson) and Tora Torsteinsdatter. He was married to Sigrid Toresdatter, the widow of Olve Grjotgardsson. She belonged to the top layer of the chiefs in Trøndelag and was the sister of Tore Hund.

In the oldest historical works ( Ágrip , Theodoricus Monachus , Legendarische Olavssaga ), the opposition between the Norwegian chiefs and the king is portrayed as a permanent condition because they resisted their loss of power through the centralization of royal power. According to Snorri Sturluson , Kalv was initially one of the king's followers and he had given him the position of power in Trøndelag by assigning him the property and the widow Sigrid of the pagan chief Olve Grjotgardsson on Egge, after he had killed him for his pagan sacrifice practice . The other histories write nothing about it. But this is said to have brought the king the enmity in Trøndelag that ultimately led to his death.

After the battle of Boknfjord in 1027, in which Erling Skjalgsson was killed, most of the previous supporters fell away from him and the power of the king fell apart. Kalv was still at the king's side in this battle. This is confirmed by the only contemporary source that reports on Kalv, the poem Kalvsflokkr , written in 1050 by the Icelandic Bjarne Gullbråskald . After Erling's death and the apostasy of the king's allies, the king had to leave the country and fled to Russia. After Bjarne Gullbråskald, Kalv then went to England to Canute the Great and joined him and the Ladejarl Håkon Eriksson . According to the Heimskringla , it was his wife who demanded vengeance on the king for killing her first husband and her two sons.

When Olav returned from Russia in 1030 to regain his kingship, Kalv became one of his main opponents, as Bjarne reports in his poem. The sagas made him a traitor, unlike his brothers Finn and Torberg , who stayed with the king. In this context, biblical motifs are also used, so when there are clear parallels to the encounter between Jesus and Judas in Gethsemane on the occasion of an encounter between Olav and Kalv . Together with Tore Hund and Hårek von Tjøtta in Stiklestad, Kalv was the leader of the peasant army. After the Heimskringla, he is said to have been one of the three men who gave Olav the blows. Bjarne Gullbråskald, on the other hand, only reports that he fought bravely there, and the skald Sigvat names Tore Hund as the one who killed the king.

After Olav's death, Knut became king of Norway and installed his son Sven Alfivason with his mother Alfiva as the ruling ruler. But it quickly became very unpopular. The two chiefs from Trøndelag Kalv Arnesson and Einar Tambarskjelve , who had hoped in vain for a higher position in the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire , now worked with Bishop Grimkjell of Nidaros to raise Magnus Olavsson to king. He and Einar moved to Russia in 1034 and brought Magnus back from there. According to the skald Bjarne, he is said to have had a great influence on the young king from the beginning until intrigues brought him into disrepute.

Kalv went to Ireland out of the country. After 1050 King Harald Hardråde let him return. But the reconciliation was probably not meant honestly on the part of the king. He sent Kalv a short time later to a fight in Denmark, where he was killed in a way that his brother Finn Arnesson regarded as insidious and treasonous, which led to the break with the king.

Explanations

1. ↑ Bjarne Hallbjørnsson Gullbråskald was an Icelandic skald in the wake of Kalv Arnesson. He was later killed by a former follower of Olav for writing the award poem Kalvsflokkr in Kalv.
2. ↑ Heimskringla , Olav bright saga chap. 225

literature

• Claus Krag: Article “Kalv Arnesson” in: Norsk biografisk leksikon , accessed on November 14, 2010.

See also

• History of Norway