his son Magnus was ousted by Harald Gille, or Gilchrist, who professed to be a natural son of Magnus Barfod.
Harald Gille was slain in 1136 by another pretender, and anarchy ruled during the reign of his sons Eystein, Inge and Sigurd Mund. At last Inge’s party attacked and killed first Sigurd (1155) and then Eystein (1157). Inge fell in a fight against Sigurd’s son Haakon Herdebred in 1161, but a powerful baron, Erling, succeeded Disputed successions. in getting his son Magnus made king, on the plea that the boy’s maternal grandfather was King Sigurd Jorsalfar. Descent through females was not valid in succession to the throne, and to render his son’s position more secure, Erling obtained the support of the Church. In 1164 the archbishop of Trondhjem crowned Magnus, demanding that the crown should be held as a fief of the Norwegian Church. Owing to such concessions the Church was gaining a paramount position, when a new pretender appeared. Sverre (O.N. Sverrir) claimed to be the son of Sigurd Mund, and was adopted as leader by a party known as the Birkebeiner or Birchlegs. He possessed military genius of a rare order, and in spite of help from Denmark, the support of the Church and of the majority of barons, Magnus was defeated time after time, till he met his death at the battle of Nordnes in 1184. The aristocracy could offer little further opposition. In joining hands with the Church against Sverre, the local chiefs had got out of touch with the small landowners, with whose support Sverre was able to build up a powerful monarchy. Sverre’s most dangerous opponent was the Church, which offered the most strenuous resistance to his efforts to cut down its prerogatives. The archbishop found support in Denmark, whence he laid his whole see under an interdict, but Sverre’s counter-claim of his own divine right as king had much more influence in Norway.
Sverre died in 1202, his last years harassed by the rise of the Baglers, or “crozier-men,” with a new claimant at their head. His son Haakon III. died two years later, perhaps of poison, but the Birkebeiner party in 1217 succeeded in placing Haakon’s son and namesake on the throne (see Haakon IV.). In 1240 the last of the rival claimants fell, Magnus. and the country began to regain prosperity. The acquisition of Iceland was at length realized. Haakon’s death occurred after the battle of Largs in the Orkneys in 1263. The war with Scotland was soon terminated by his son Magnus, who surrendered the Hebrides and the Isle of Man at the treaty of Perth in 1268. Magnus saw the worthlessness of a doubtful suzerainty over islands which had lost their value to Norway since the decay of Viking enterprise. He gained his title of Law-Mender from the revision of the laws, which had remained very much as in heathen days, and which were still different for the four different districts. By 1274 Magnus had secured the acceptance of a revised compilation of the older law-books. The new code repealed all the old wergild laws, and provided that the major part of the fine for manslaughter should be paid to the victim’s heir, the remainder to the king. Henceforward the council comes more and more to be composed of the king’s court officials, instead of a gathering of the lendermænd or barons of the district in which the king happened to be. During Magnus’s reign we hear of a larger council, occasionally called palliment (parliament), which is summoned at the king’s wish. The old landed aristocracy had lost its power so completely that even after Magnus’s death in 1280 it was unable to reinstate itself during the minority of his son Erik.
Erik was succeeded in 1299 by his brother Haakon V., who in 1308 felt himself strong enough to abolish the dignity of the lendermænd. This paralysis of the aristocracy is no doubt partly to be ascribed to the civil wars, but in part also to the gradual impoverishment of the country, which told especially upon this class. Russia Paralysis of the aristocracy. had long eclipsed Norway as the centre of the fur trade, and other industries must have suffered, not only from the civil wars, but also from the supremacy of the Hanseatic towns, which dominated the North, and could dictate their own terms. In earlier times the aristocratic families had owed their wealth to three main sources: commerce, Viking expeditions and slave labour. Trade had been a favourite means of enrichment among the aristocracy up to the middle of the 13th century, but now it was almost monopolized by Germans, and Viking enterprise was a thing of the past. The third source of wealth had also failed, for it is clear from the laws of Magnus that the class of thralls had practically disappeared. This must have greatly contributed to shatter the power of the class which had once been the chief factor in the government of Norway.
Haakon’s daughter Ingeborg had married Duke Erik of Sweden, and on Haakon’s death in 1319 their three-year-old son Magnus succeeded to the Norwegian and Swedish thrones, the two countries entering into a union which was not definitely broken till 1371. It was during this reign that Norway was ravaged by the Black Death. In 1343 Magnus handed over the greater part of Norway to his son Haakon VI., who married Margrete, daughter of King Valdemar III. of Denmark. Their young son Olaf V., already king of Denmark, succeeded to his father’s throne on Haakon’s death in 1380, but died in 1387, leaving the royal line extinct, and the nearest successor to the throne the hostile King Albrecht of Sweden, of the Mecklenburg family. The difficulty was met by filling the throne by election—an Union of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish thrones. innovation in Norway, though it was the custom in Sweden and Denmark. The choice fell on King Haakon’s widow Margrete, but a couple of years later, chiefly in order to gain German support in a coming struggle with the Mecklenburgers, the Norwegians elected as king the young Erik of Pomerania, great-nephew of the queen, who henceforth acted as regent. Erik had claims on the Swedish and Danish thrones, and in 1397, at Kalmar, he was solemnly crowned king over the three countries, which entered into a union “never to be dissolved.”
| Reigns of the Kings of Norway. | |||
| Harald (I.) Haarfager | 972–930 | (d. 933) | |
| Erik Blodöxe | 930–934 | ||
| Haakon (I.) den Gode | 935–961 | ||
| Harald (II.) Graafeld | 961–970 | ||
| (Earl Haakon of Lade 970–995) | |||
| Olaf (I.) Tryggvessön | 995–1000 | ||
| (Earls Erik and Haakon 1000–1016) | |||
| Saint Olaf (II.) | 1016–1029 | (k. 1030) | |
| Svein, son of Knut the Great | 1030–1035 | ||
| Magnus (I.) den Gode | 1035–1047 | ||
| Harald (III.) Haardraade | 1046–1066 | ||
| Olaf (III.) Kyrre | 1066–1093 | ||
| Magnus (II.) | 1066–1069 | ||
| Magnus (III.) Barfod | | 1093–1103 | |
| Eystein (I.) | 1103–1122 | ||
| Sigurd (I.) Jorsalfar | 1103–1130 | ||
| Olaf (IV.) | 1103–1116 | ||
| Magnus (IV.) | 1130–1135 | ||
| Harald Gille | 1130–1136 | ||
| Sigurd (II.) Mund | 1136–1155 | ||
| Eystein (II.) | 1136–1157 | ||
| Inge | 1136–1161 | ||
| Haakon (II.) Herdebred | 1161–1162 | ||
| Magnus (V.) | 1162–1184 | ||
| Sverre | 1184–1202 | ||
| Haakon (III.) | 1202–1204 | ||
| Haakon (IV.) den gamle | 1217–1263 | ||
| Magnus (VI.) | 1263–1280 | ||
| Erik | 1280–1299 | ||
| Haakon (V.) | 1299–1319 | ||
| Magnus (VII.) | 1319–1343 | ||
| Haakon (VI.) | 1343–1380 | ||
| Olaf (V.) | 1381–1387 | ||
| Margrete | 1387–1389 | ||
| Erik of Pomerania | 1389– | ||
Authorities.—P. A. Munch, Det norske Folks Historie indtst 1397 (1852–1863); J. E. Sars, Udsigt over den norske Historie, Deel i.-ii. (1873–1877); R. Keyser, Norges Stats- og Retsforfatning (1867), and Den norske kirke under Katholicismen (1856); A. Taranger, Den Angelsaksiske kirkes Indflydelse paa den norske (1891); A. C. Bang, Staat und Kirche in Norwegen bis zum Schlusse des 13ten Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1875); A. M. Hansen, Landnam i Norge (1904); A. Bugge, Studier over de norske Byers selvstyre og handel för Hanseaternes tid (1899); F. Bruns, Die Lübecker Bergenfahrer und ihre Chronistik (Berlin, 1900); articles by G. Storm, Y. Nielsen, E. Hertzberg and
