Sigurd Lavard

Who he is

Name

Sigurd Sverresson, called Sigurd Lavard

Title

King's son (kongsson), styled lavard (lord, heir); a Birkebeiner chief

Since

Named as the king's heir (lávarðr) by 1181

Born

About 1175, in the Faroes; about 24 or 25

Family

Eldest son of King Sverre by a mother not securely known (P. A. Munch's Astrid Roesdotter is unproven). Unmarried; a son, Guttorm, by a concubine, born 1199 and a baby on 1 January 1200 (birth not pinned to the day).

Confidence

medium

First seen in the fight for Nidaros in November 1181, when he was named lávarðr. A unit commander (sveitarhöfðingi) of the Birkebeiner at Sarpsborg in 1193. At the first clash with the Bagler on the coast of Ranrike he was set to guard his father's siege engine; the Bagler struck by night, his men fled and the engine was destroyed, and Sverre never gave him a command again. A rune-stick letter he wrote for the king was found in the debris of the Bergen fire of 1198.

With his father at Oslo that winter: at the peasant battle of March 1200 Sverre mocked his lack of courage in verse. He dies in 1200, before his father; date and place not pinned.

Overlord

King Sverre

What it holds

• No district or fief recorded
• A place in the king's household and hird

How it was acquired

By birth.

Allies and rivals

His half-brother Haakon, the more trusted son, is his rival for the succession in all but name.

How things stand that morning

With his father at Oslo; holds no land of his own that the sources record.

Wealth

Maintained from the king's household. No figures.

Military

None of his own; no command since about 1197.

Threats

• His father's contempt
• Death in 1200 (cause not recorded)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 6 March 1200Present at the peasant battle at Oslo, where the king mocks his courage.Depends on: Sigurd staying with the army in Viken. Stopped by: Being sent away from the army.
2. 1200, after March (not pinned)Sigurd Lavard dies, leaving his infant son Guttorm.Depends on: The natural course; no cause is recorded. Stopped by: Nothing known.

Where the sources disagree

• The English Wikipedia gives his death as 1200 or 1201; Store norske leksikon gives 1200 and has him alive at the Oslo battle of March 1200. 1200, after March, is used here.

Evidence: Known almost only from Sverris saga, which is unkind to him.

On the map: No land to draw; marker at the king's seat.

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.