Rörik of Dorestad

Rörik (portrait by HW Koekkoek, 1912)

Rörik von Dorestad or Hrørek (* around 820; † after 873) was a Viking prince from Jutland who ruled over various areas in Friesland between 841 and 873 . He was a son of Hemming Halfdansson , who fell to Walcheren in 837 , and a nephew of King Harald Klak, who was expelled from Denmark in 827 .

Life

Rörik and his brother Harald, like most members of their family, were expelled from Denmark by Horik I and his brothers in the course of bloody power struggles and had found acceptance in the Frankish Empire . Harald had already been baptized in Mainz in 826, together with Harald Klak and his entourage . Her father Hemming, who had lived as a hostage at the Franconian court for several years , probably also received the island of Walcheren as a fief from Emperor Ludwig the Pious in 826 , and the brothers made a name for themselves from there through raids in the North Sea area . After Hemming's death in 837, his sons were able to expand their sphere of influence in Friesland in the following years, especially in the course of the Carolingian Fraternal Wars (840-842), when they received additional fiefs in Friesland from Lothar I as a price for their support, including the important trading center Dorestad . Rörik now mainly uses the island of Wieringen as a base for his raids , while Harald operated from Walcheren.

Harald fell around 842 or soon after as a follower of Lothar, and shortly afterwards Rörik, the younger of the two, was accused (probably without justification) of treason and had to flee to Eastern France . At the same time, Harald Klak's son Gottfried left the court of Emperor Lothar in Unfrieden , who had been his godfather and in whose entourage he had served since 826. He allied himself with his cousin Rörik, and together they spread fear and terror in Friesland, Flanders and northern France through numerous raids . After conquering both Dorestad and Utrecht in 850 , Emperor Lothar was forced to transfer rule over almost all of Friesland to Rörik. With that, Rörik also got de jure what he de facto had for a long time.

After the death of King Horik I in 854, Rörik and Gottfried, who had carried out raids on their own in Friesland, the Lower Rhine region and northern France from 850 to 854, tried in vain to regain control of Denmark in a war of succession that broke out again. Gottfried died or fell during this time, because he then disappears from history. In 857, Rörik, encouraged by Lothar I, moved to Denmark again, where he forced Horik II to cede control of Haithabu and the area north of the Eider to him . However, since his absence from Friesland had been used by other Vikings to sack Dorestad, he gave up his profits in Jutland and went back to Friesland.

When a new fleet of Viking ships sailed up the Rhine in 863, it was rumored that Rörik had encouraged them to go to Xanten , beyond his own territory. Thereupon Archbishop Hinkmar von Reims wrote to Bishop Hunger von Utrecht that he should impose a due penance on Rörik if this rumor was confirmed. The Archbishop wrote to Rörik himself that under no circumstances should he accept Count Baldwin of Flanders , who had been Judith the year before, the daughter of the West Frankish king and later Emperor Charles the Bald and widow of kings Æthelwulf († 858) and Æthelbald († 860 ) from Wessex . (Baldwin married Judith at the end of 863.) From these letters it is concluded that Rörik was baptized in the early 860s.

In 867, when many of his own people were with the Great Pagan Army in England, there was a revolt of the Cokingi , the Frisian sailors and boat builders who served on the Frisian ships he used, forerunners of the cog . Rörik soon succeeded in suppressing the uprising.

As a result of the Treaty of Meersen in August 870, the rulership of Rörik was divided between the empires of Charles the Bald and Louis the German , and Rörik became a feudal man. It was last manifested in 873 when he swore the feudal oath to Ludwig the German. He must have been dead no later than 882 when his lands were given to Gottfried von Friesland .

literature

• Simon Coupland: From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings . In: Early Medieval Europe . 7, 1998, pp. 85-114. doi : 10.1111 / 1468-0254.00019 .

Web links

• Website about the Vikings in the Netherlands