Skule Bårdsson

Skule Bårdson. Drawing based on the remains of the tombstone in Trondheim Cathedral.

Skule Bårdsson , norrøn Skúli Bárðarson , (* around 1189 , calculated from the statement in the Håkon saga that he died at the age of 51, probably in Rein's monastery in Rissa ; † May 24, 1240 in the Elgeseter monastery near Nidaros ) was a Norwegian rival king. He was buried in the floor of the Christ Church in Nidaros under the wall grave of his half-brother.

origin

He was descended from Earl Toste Godwinsson , the brother of the English King Harald Godwinson and the Judith of Flanders and his son, Skuli Tostesson "Kongsfostre" married to Gudrun Nefsteinsdatter a daughter of Nefstein and the Ingerid Sigurdsdatter who was a daughter of Sigurd Syr König von Rings was.

His parents were the Norwegian magnate and feudal man Bård Guttormsson zu Rein († 1194) from his third marriage to Ragnfrid Erlingsdatter, a daughter of the feudal man Erling on Kvie.

Skule Bårdsson was married to Ragnhild (last mentioned in 1247), possibly daughter of the feudal man Nikolas Pålsson Kuvung zu Giske († 1217). He had the daughters Margarete Skulesdatter († 1270) and Ingerid, who was married to Jarl Knut Håkonsson, and was the father-in-law of Håkon Håkonsson (1204-1263) and Knut Håkonsson († 1261).

Skule is one of the most controversial and widely valued personalities in Norwegian medieval history.

The climb

After the Böglunga sögur, Skule grew up on Kvie in Vang , probably from the death of his father in 1194 until the winter of 1204/1205. Then he came to King Inge Bårdsson in Nidaros . There he was in the king's entourage. It is mentioned in connection with the fighting against the Baglers in Nidaros in 1206 and in Bergen in 1207. In 1213 he was the leader of the royal army during the peasant uprising in Trøndelag . When King Inge fell ill at that time, he advocated that Inge's illegitimate son Guttorm Ingesson was the next in line to his father. Therein lay the still firmly entrenched view that the marital status of the offspring is not important in succession. The Birkebeiners saw it that way too, albeit as an argument in favor of Håkon Håkonsson's candidacy, since Inge Bårdsson was only of royal blood through his mother, but Håkon was through his father. Skule received the winter 1216/1217 at the deathbed of King Inge's Jarlstitel . Inge died on April 23, 1217.

Øyrating 1217

The gathering on the Øyrating is only known from the Hákonar saga. It took place in the early summer of 1217. It was set by the leaders of the royal entourage with a notice period of one month. Since Håkon was elected king on July 8th, it must have met in June. Participants were Håkon Håkonsson, the king to be elected, Jarl Skule Bårdsson, the feudal man Gregorius Jonsson, the head stable master and lagman Dagfinnbonde, On and Merkesmann, the birch-leg chief and stepfather Håkons Vegard von Veradal, Roar Kongsfrende , the clergy from Nididaros and others , the royal bodyguard, the big farmers from all over Trøndelag and the leaders of the urban population. The homage as sole king is not explicitly mentioned, but it was confirmed in the same year in Bergen, at the Haugating, Borgarting and local Ting meetings in the east of Viken. The feudal men and royal followers swore the oath of allegiance to the king and the jarl.

The height of his power

From 1217 until his death he ruled over a third of Norway and the tributary areas, partly contiguous, partly scattered over many estates in the country. His territory was not geographically determined, so that Skule acted as the Reichs-Jarl. In a letter from the English king he was therefore dubbed “dux totius Norway”. Until the winter of 1220/1221, the king and the Jarl wintered in the same place, and he was regent for the king, who was still under age. In 1218 he also led the settlement negotiations between Baglers and Birkebeiners, and fought against insurgents in the east until the middle of the 1220s. In foreign policy, too, he was the leading figure, especially with regard to Iceland, England and the Pope. At that time Snorri Sturluson was also in Norway. He was a partisan of Skules and also became his henchman. Skule also operated private trade with England. The question of the succession was finally decided in 1223 at a diet in Bergen in favor of Håkon, who had now come of age. There a new distribution of power between the Jarl and the King was decided, which was guaranteed by the Archbishop and the Bishops. Skule was now given the northern third of the empire including Sunnmøre as a spatially delimited area . Power was now divided in the tributary countries as well.

The conflict

In 1225 the king married Skule's daughter Margrete Skuledatter. Tensions arose between the king and the jarl in various fields in the mid-1220s, and the marriage did not have the moderating effect hoped. In the Hákonar saga, the reason for this is seen in intrigues on the part of third unnamed people, while everything was fine when the two were together. Narve Bjørgø sees it as a trick of the author in a difficult situation: the saga was written at the time of Håkon Lagabætirs , who was the son of King Hâkon with Margarete Skulesdatter and grandson of Skule Bårdson. The conflicts between the two increased and had to be settled again and again by the bishops. There was even almost an armed conflict. At the Diet of Bergen in 1233, the archbishop and the other bishops reached another settlement. But the Hákonar saga adds that afterwards there was no longer a complete relationship of trust between the two. In 1235, for the sake of peace, the king transferred a third of the districts in Opland and Viken to Skule from the following winter, and the settlement was renewed the following year. In the spring of 1237, Skule was given the title of duke on the Øyrating, the first in Norway. Power over a third of the country seems to have remained unchanged until his death.

The end

On November 6th, 1239 Skule dared to openly revolt. He was honored as King of Norway on the Øyrating. This led to two major battles in winter and in spring 1240. The first took place at Låke, a farm in Nannestad . Skule won. The next battle took place just after Easter near Oslo and resulted in an ultimate defeat for Skule. It was the final battle of the Civil War. He fled to the Elgeseter monastery in Nidaros. When the Birkebeiner, under their leader Åsulf Erikssom von Rein, set the monastery on fire, he and his followers ran into the open, where they were cut down despite the archbishop's request for mercy.

After Skule's death, Snorri's fate was sealed. Snorri had left Norway again in 1239, contrary to the king's prohibition. Gissur Þorvaldsson killed Snorri on behalf of the king on September 23, 1241 in Reykholt .

Appreciation in historiography

The Hákonar saga describes Skule Bårdsson in many ways, which is surprising in his development from king man to rebel.

In the later portrayals it becomes noticeable that in two important men the positive characterization of one led to a negative assessment of the other.

The historian PA Munch, for example, painted a consistently negative image of Skule in a play. Munch showed solidarity with the king as the greatest and most important figure on Norway's throne in the Middle Ages. From this point of view, Skule's work was reduced to a continuous intrigue with a dramatic ending as a consequence of his intrigues. Ibsen's play Kongsemnerne (1863) was also based on this assessment . But he put his own psychologizing elements in Skule's description: There he is an indecisive doubter in the dilemma of being closest to the king without being able to become king himself. This image has impressed generations of Norwegians.

In 1922 the Norwegian poet Hans E. Kinck wrote the book “Storhetstid”, which attracted a lot of attention. In it, King Håkon was portrayed as an affected fool, while Skule was the superior, capable and intelligent politician. The historian Halfdan Koht took up this in 1923 in a lecture to the scientific academy in Kristiania (print version 1924). There Skule became the greatest political talent of the Norwegian Middle Ages, whose life's work turned against him in the end and destroyed him. On the other hand, Håkon lacked all qualities to be a great statesman. Although he did not substantiate this view very scientifically, his interpretation was well received by historians.

In the 1960s, both were finally recognized as historical actors without one being devalued in favor of the other. It was also worked out that he was outmaneuvered by ambitious government circles in the 1230s and that he could not develop effective counter-strategies. A real politician's ability to do the right thing in the right place at the right time was not his forte. In the latest research, Skule is recognized as an outstanding military strategist in the analysis of his campaign from 1239 to 1240. He had a professional team, ran well-organized military espionage and military logistics, was flexible in his tactics and in general was at the height of his time in Europe in terms of military strategy, even if you take his defeat into account in the end.

literature

• KPL Arstad: “'… underlig forjaget og planløs…'? Strategy and land registers in Norway in the forest of the 1200-tallet ". In: KPL Arstad (ed.): Krigføring i middelalderen. Strategi, ideologi and organisasjon approx. 1100–1400. Forsvarsmuseets småskrift No. 35. 2003. (… strangely removed and haphazard…? Strategy and general characteristics in Norway in the first part of the 13th century. In: Warfare in the Middle Ages. Strategy, ideology and organization ca 1100–1400 . Small letters of the defense museum .)
• Narve Bjørgo: Skule Bårdsson. In: Norsk biografisk leksikon. ( snl.no ).
• KV Hammer: Skule Baardssön . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 25 : Sekt – Slöjskifling . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1917, Sp. 1238-1239 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Knut Helle: Konge & gode menn. 1972.
• Halfdan Koht: Skule jarl. In: Historisk Tidskrift. Row 5, Volume 5, 1924 (Norwegian).
• PA Munch: Hertug Skule: Tragoedie I Fem Akter 1864.
• OA Øverland, Edvard Bull: Skule Baardssøn . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 21 : Schinopsis spectrum . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1926, p. 680 (Danish, runeberg.org ).

Individual evidence

The article is essentially based on Norsk biografisk leksikon. Other information is shown separately.

1. ^ Charles Cawley: Medieval Lands, A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families. fmg.ac
2. ↑ Snorri Sturluson: King Harald's Saga. Part II, 102.
3. ↑ He was the husband of the mother Håkons Inga von Varteig . Håkon was her illegitimate son with Håkon Sverresson . She later married Vegard.
4. ↑ The nickname "Kongsfrende" means "king relative". He got his name because he was considered the son of one of King Sverre's half-sisters from the mother's side.
5. ↑ Knut Helle: Konge & gode menn. 1972, p. 132 f.
6. ↑ Regesta Norvegica Volume 1, No. 701.
7. ↑ Extreme z. B. at Hammer (Nordisk familjebok). Øverland and Bull (Salmonsen) also relied expressly on Koht.
8. ↑ Arstad: Krigføring i middelbaar alderen. ... 2003.

predecessor	Office	successor
Philipp Simonsson	Anti-king of Norway 1239–1240	Magnus lagabætir