Sverre (Norway)

Bust of King Sverre at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim

Sverre Sigurdsson or Sverrir, Sverri (* around 1151 in Norway , † March 8, 1202 in Bergen , Norway) was Norwegian king from 1177 to 1202 .

Main source

The main source about Sverre is the Sverris saga . The Icelandic abbot Karl Jónsson wrote Grýla (witch), the first part of the Sverris saga , in Norway between 1185 and 1188. It got its name from the fact that it describes the rise of Sverre, which was perceived as almost supernatural. It only covers the first two years of the war and only lasts until shortly after Erling Skakke's death in 1179. After the prologue, Sverre himself decided what should be included in the Grýla . Apparently the saga was completed not long after Sverre's death in 1202 by Karl Jónsson or a confrere. The boundary between these parts is disputed. The later part of the saga is far less marked by propaganda than the first part and is based on witness reports from Sverre's entourage. The authors continued to identify with the Sverres case and did not report impartially. Since sources from the opposing party have also come down to us, Sverre is the king of the Norwegian Middle Ages who has the most accurate picture.

Life

Origin and early years in the Faroe Islands

According to the information provided by Grýla, Sverre was an illegitimate son of King Sigurd Munn with Gunnhild. When he was born, Gunnhild is said to have been married to the comb maker Unas in Bergen, a brother of Bishop Roes in the Faroe Islands . Sverre was sent to Bishop Roe in Kirkjubøur near Tórshavn for upbringing when he was five . Here he enjoyed an excellent upbringing for the time and was ordained a priest. He is said to have been 24 years old when Gunnhild went to the Faroe Islands and told him about his real father. Before that she should have been in Rome . The Pope had instructed her confessor to persuade her to tell her son the truth. This representation of the Grýla is not very believable. It gives no information about the relationship between Gunnhild and Sigurd Munn and contradicts in many details what is known about this period. Sverre could not have been sent to Bishop Roes when he was five years old, as he only became bishop five years later. It could also be that Sverre was five years older when he was sent to Roes. Then he could hardly have been the son of Sigurd Munn, who was only born in 1133. The minimum canonical age for ordination was 30 years. After the saga, Sverre only reached this age five years after he had left the Faroe Islands. It is also difficult to understand that the saga fails to mention that Sverre had sons Sigurd Lavard , Håkon Sverreson and daughters Cecilia and Ingebjörg in the Faroe Islands . There is no ultimate certainty about his origin or his own opinion about it. Sverre lived in the Faroe Islands with an unknown woman, possibly Astrid Roesdotter. In 1185 he married Margrete Eriksdotter , daughter of the Swedish King Erik the Saint .

Leader of the Birkebeiner

Sites of the most important battles in Sverre

In 1176, at the age of 25, Sverre returned to Norway. There and in Sweden he found little support at first. In 1177 he became the leader of the remnants of the Birkebeiners left after the lost battle of Re and the death of Øystein Møylas , around 75 men according to his own account, and was proclaimed king by them after a victory at Nidaros on the Øyrating .

In the early days he used pronounced guerrilla tactics with surprising attacks on cities and bases that were under the control of the enemy. He gave the Birkebeinern military training that enabled them to later encounter larger enemy troops in regular shafts. His main goal was to get money, weapons, equipment and provisions for his army. In contrast to his opponent Erling Skakke, he was lenient with the defeated enemy.

In 1178 Sverre took Nidaros. The saga tells of inhumane hardships and victories over many superior opponents and is influenced by the biographies of the saints. In 1179 in the Battle of Nidaros (Battle of Kalvskinn), he defeated his adversary Erling Skakke by a ruse, in which he apparently withdrew from the city in fear. The army of his opponents, feeling victorious, got drunk and was easy prey for the Birkebeiner. Erling Skakke fell, King Magnus managed to escape by ship with a small part of his army, losing most of the fleet. This was the decisive breakthrough, and from now on Sverre was no longer seen as just the king of an insurgent army. In particular, the chiefs of Trøndelag turned to him. But in the rest of Norway Magnus was still in charge. Magnus was able to bring reinforcements from Denmark , and he still had an economic and military advantage. The war became more bitter, and entire areas were mutually mobilized through the obligation to suffer. Armies of several thousand men took part in the campaigns. The Birkebeiner were more disciplined and followed Sverre's moves, with whose unconventional way of fighting Magnus's troops could not cope. They still fought in closed formations with the king's banner at the top, while Sverre formed loose and agile formations. While Magnus traditionally fought at the head of his army, Sverre directed his troops from rear positions.

After Magnus suffered another defeat in Ilevoll near Nidaros in 1180, he withdrew to Denmark. His spiritual support, Bishop Øystein Erlendsson , also went to England outside the country. In the winter of 1181/1182 Magnus came back from Denmark strengthened and took Sverres Nidaros in his absence and stole his entire fleet. In the summer of 1183 Sverre came with small ships and won the fleet back in a surprise attack in Bergen. Magnus had to flee to Denmark again. The decision was made in 1184. Magnus came to Viken in the spring and the entire Vestlandet followed him. Sverre was with his army in Sogn on a punitive expedition because the inhabitants had attacked his governors. On June 15th he was lying with 14 ships at the fjord entrance to Sogndalsfjord, a branch of the Sognefjord, when Magnus came in with 26 ships. It came to the battle of Fimreite , in which King Magnus was killed.

Sverre was a skilled propagandist. When he gave the funeral oration on his opponent Magnus Erlingsson in Bergen, he explained why he had been able to overcome Erling Skakke and his son Magnus with little means:

God sent a small and humble man from the distant islands to overthrow their arrogance, and that man was me. We did not do that of ourselves. It was God who knew how little it took to overthrow their arrogance.

The theme throughout is God's intervention in history through Sverre. This proved his divine choice to the royal throne, and his biography is propaganda along the European lines. He used the Olavs ideology against King Magnus. In the Grýla , Sverre's dreams are recorded in which St. Olav invites him to restore his old law, which had been in place before the church laws of King Magnus. Sverre's "Big Dreams" play a special propagandistic role in Grýla . Sverre already had them in the Faroe Islands and they prophesied a great future for him. When he left the Faroe Islands, he dreamed that St. Olav would go with him to fight Erling and Magnus and entrust him with his shield and his spear and his coat of arms. The dreams were the only legitimation he could initially rely on. Thus he fought the alliance between the Church and Magnus with their own weapons.

Sverre's growing strength is also due to support from Sweden. His connection to Sweden guaranteed him refuge in the Swedish-Norwegian border area. The Swedish King Knut Eriksson saw in him a natural ally against the rival family of the Sverker , which was supported by the Danish King Waldemar I , who in turn was allied with King Magnus and Erling Skakke. Sverre strengthened this connection to King Canute through his marriage to Knut's sister Margrete in 1185.

More fights

There was no peace in his victory over King Magnus. Its supporters tried again and again against him. The first to appear was Jon Kuvlung , who claimed to be a son of King Inge Krogrygg . Sverre defeated him and the Kuvlunge in 1188 near Bergen. As a result, his opponents were put on the defensive as peace troublemakers in the population and Sverre's claim to the king's income was no longer disputed. In 1189, however, there were new unrest. This time the resistance rallied around Sigurd Brenna, another son of King Inge. The farmers in the Oslofjord beat and drove the troops away.

And again there was a local uprising, this time led by a Simon Káresson, which the farmers of the Oslofjord also fought back. In the summer of 1191 a fighting force under Torleif Breiskjegg rehearsed the uprising. The farmers of the Oslofjord fought the group down and Torleif was killed. In 1193 came the “ Øyskjeggene ” from the Scottish islands , supported by Orknøyjarl Harald Maddaðsson. These too were defeated.

The Bishop of Oslo was next to the Archbishop Eirik Ivarsson Sverres the sharpest opponent. He founded the Bagler Party (= bishop's staff ) in 1196 , which led to the Bagler Wars. In these wars, large numbers of the Norwegian aristocracy fell. This led to moving up from the next lower level, partly by marrying into the old sexes. This war gradually led to the change from the independent aristocracy to the royal service nobility. As a result, Sverre tied the nobility more tightly. He steadily and persistently built up his royal power. Under him, the centralization that was also in progress continued to advance. He introduced most of the innovations in the military and strategic fields. He also appointed royal appointed judges for the first time in court thing, which later led to professional royal judgeship.

Conflict with the church

Archbishop Øystein Erlendsson returned from exile in England in 1184 . Although Sverre attributed his successes to God, the Virgin Mary and St. Olav, the Church was critical of him. For them King Magnus Erlingsson was the king by the grace of God, Sverre only the antagonist. He therefore derived his right to the throne directly from God. In 1188 Øystein Erlendsson died and Eirik Ivarsson was his successor.

Sverre wanted to be crowned in the autumn of 1189. But there was a serious conflict on this issue, because the Church stood by King Magnus, whom he had defeated. The archbishop refused the church coronation without the consent of the Pope. After a long dispute, Archbishop Eirik had to leave the country in 1190 and found refuge with the Danish Archbishop Absalon von Lund . His entire property was confiscated from the king. So Eirik turned to the Pope. Suddenly Norway no longer had an archbishop. The Norwegian people were upset about this.

Pope Celestine III confirmed in a bull of June 15, 1194 the most important privileges of the Archdiocese of Nidaros and in particular the protective provisions reinforced with the threat of ban, which Pope Anastasius IV had already issued for Nidaros in his founding bull . This meant that King Sverre from now on the excommunication had fallen. When Eirik received the papal letter, he had it read out publicly in the cathedral church in Lund and pronounced the ban on King Sverre at every Sunday service. Sverre forced Bishop Nicholas of Oslo to churchly crown him king on June 29, 1194. The bishops who were present at the coronation were also banned by the Pope in November. Sverre responded by publicly claiming that the Pope's ban was a forgery, and later that he had a letter from the Pope that had released him from the ban.

In 1198 the Pope confirmed the ban and imposed an interdict on the country , which apparently was not implemented. Many clergymen supported Sverre. In his treatise En tale mot biskopene (A speech against the bishops), written around 1200, Sverre derived kingship from God - just like the church when she crowned Magnus. But he went beyond that: God had also given the king authority over the church. There are other sources about this conflict that explain the point of view of his opponents, ecclesiastical documents, Saxo Grammaticus and English historians who were obviously well informed about the internal church conditions in Norway.

Although the bishops had left the country, Sverre had many spiritual helpers. He received the ecclesiastical sacraments and was even ecclesiastically buried. On his deathbed he recommended his son Håkon to look for a comparison with the church.

See also: History of Norway in the Christian Middle Ages

King Sverre and the Faroe Islands

In 1186 he gave a speech in Bergen, where he granted the Faroe Islands (the home of his childhood) special freedom. For example, he was not represented there by a representative, but allowed the Faroese to self-govern. Furthermore, he abolished slavery in the Faroe Islands, but this was revised again at the latest by the sheep letter (1298).

dynasty

The noble family "Sverre-ætt" is derived from King Sverre and produced several kings.

Sigurd Munn

Sverre

Folkvid Lagmann

Cecilia

Bård Guttormsson

Sigurd Lavard

Håkon Sverreson

Kristin Nikolasdatter

Håkon Galen

Inge

Guttorm

Kanga (Frille)

Håkon d. Blind people

Margarete Skulesdatter

Knut Håkonsson

Ingrid Skulesdatter

Guttorm

Sigurd

Gregorius Anderson

Cecilia

Harald I. Olavsson from Suderøyene and Man

Olav

Håkon unge

Rikitsa Birgersdatter

Kristin

Filip v. Castile

Manus lagabætir

Ingeborg Eriksdatter

Sverre

Margret of Scotland

Erik Magnusson

Isabella Bruce

Gro Sigursdotter (Frille)

Håkon V.

Euphemia of Rügen

Margret

Ingebjørg

Waldemar Magnusson

Agnes

Haftor Jonsson

Ingeborg

Erik Magnusson

Erik

Magnus

Eufemia

Bold: kings; Italics: Jarle
After PA Munch: Det Norske Folks Historie Bd. 4. Christiania 1859.

literature

• Knut Helle: Article “Sverre Sigurdsson” in: Norsk biografisk leksikon , accessed on October 26, 2010.
• Knut Helle: Under kirke og kongemakt 1130–1350. Aschehougs Norges history. Oslo 1995.
• Harald Ehrhardt: Sver (r) ir Sigurdarsson . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , Sp. 345.

Web links

• patursson.com - Homepage of the farm in Kirkjubøur ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Magnus V.	King of Norway 1177–1202	Haakon III.