Hordaland

Who he is

Name

Not pinned: the king's district officer (sysselmann) or officers

Title

The king's district officers and landed men of Hordaland (names not pinned)

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

low

No officer is named for 1200 in the sources checked.

Overlord

King Sverre

What it holds

• Nordhordland, Sunnhordland, Hardanger and Voss
• The royal farm of Fitjar
• The levy ships of the Bergen country
• The Gulating at Gulen (on the Sogn border)

How it was acquired

Royal administration under Sverre's sysselmann system; the district's thing and levy are older.

Allies and rivals

Loyal to Sverre under the king's officers; the district's farmers and the Bagler as the possible danger.

How things stand that morning

Held firmly for Sverre; the Bagler raided and burned Bergen in summer 1198 but held no ground here.

Wealth

Fish, farms, the Bergen market. No figures.

Military

The levy and the Bergen castle.

Threats

• A Bagler descent by sea

Places of note

• Gulating: Law assembly of the west.
• Fitjar: Royal farm.
• Etne: Home of Erling Skakke's kindred.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: No officer is named for 1200 in the sources checked.

On the map: The later county of Hordaland.

Primary sources for Norway (Sverre)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Danish annals of Lund, Ryd and other houses (12th and 13th centuries; Lund continued to 1307, Ryd to 1288). Short dated entries from Lund, the archbishop's seat, and from Ryd in Schleswig. Read online
• Chronicle of the Kings of Mann and the Isles, Anonymous (monks of Rushen abbey, Mann) (about 1257, with continuations to 1316). The only native record of the kingdom of Mann and the Hebrides. Read online
• The Icelandic annals to 1578 (compiled from the late 13th century onward from older notes). Year-by-year notices that fix Icelandic chronology. Read online
• Deeds of the Danes, Saxo Grammaticus (about 1185 to 1208). Saxo was writing at Lund in 1200 under Absalon, who died in March 1201, and his last books are an insider's history of Valdemar I and Knud VI to 1185: the Wendish wars, the taking of Rügen, the submission of Pomerania in 1185, the Danish fleet, Absalon's power and the Danish quarrel with the Empire. Read online
• The saga of King Sverre of Norway, Karl Jónsson and a continuator (begun about 1185 under Sverre's own supervision, completed about 1210 to 1220). The king's own authorised saga. Read online
• The saga of the descendants of Knut (the kings of Denmark) (about 1250 to 1260). An Icelandic kings' saga of Denmark that draws on Saxo and Danish tradition and ends in 1187 with Knud VI and Absalon's Wendish wars. Read online
• The sagas of the Baglers (about 1210 to 1220, in a shorter and a longer version). Begins with Sverre's death in March 1202 and the reigns of Hákon Sverrisson, Guttorm and Inge Bårdsson against the Bagler kings Erling Steinvegg and Philippus, so it has nothing for 1200 itself. Read online
• Saga of the Earls of Orkney, Anonymous (Icelandic) (about 1200 to 1230; surviving text mainly from Flateyjarbok, about 1390). The saga's last chapters are about Earl Harald Maddadsson, who in 1200 held Orkney under King Sverre of Norway and Caithness under William the Lion: his long rule, his quarrel with the Scottish king that cost him Caithness in 1196 to 1197, his recovery of it, and the maiming of Bishop John of Caithness and the king's revenge in 1201 to 1202. Read online

6 more in the sources library for Scandinavia.