Kingdom of Norway: King Sverre and the Birkebeiner

Who rules

Name

Sverre Sigurdsson

Title

King of Norway (konungr), leader of the Birkebeiner party; styled Magnus on his coins and seal

Since

Acclaimed king at the Øyrating in Nidaros in June 1177; sole king after Magnus Erlingsson drowned at Fimreite on 15 June 1184; crowned at Bergen on 29 June 1194

Born

About 1150-51 (the saga gives 1151; Store norske leksikon about 1150, probably at Bergen), raised in the Faroes; about 48 to 50 years old on 1 January 1200

Family

Son of Gunnhild; raised as the son of Unås the comb-maker in the household of Unås's brother Roe, bishop of the Faroes, at Kirkjubøur, and ordained priest there. In 1175 his mother told him his father was King Sigurd Munn (killed 1155); historians cannot prove or disprove it. Queen: Margrete Eriksdotter, daughter of King Erik the Saint of Sweden and sister of the late King Knut Eriksson. Sons: Sigurd Lavard (born about 1175) and Haakon (born about 1182-83), both by mothers not securely known; daughter Kristin by the queen. Grandson: Guttorm, Sigurd's infant son. Sister: Cecilia Sigurdsdotter, mother of Håkon Galen and Inge Bårdsson.

Confidence

high

Fixed points: Sverre came to Norway in 1176, took over the beaten Birkebeiner after Re (January 1177), killed Erling Skakke at Kalvskinnet (19 June 1179) and Magnus Erlingsson at Fimreite (15 June 1184). He was crowned at Bergen on 29 June 1194 by bishops including Nicholas Arnesson of Oslo; Archbishop Eirik, backed by Celestine III's letter of 15 June 1194, excommunicated him from Lund. Innocent III declared Sverre's letter of absolution forged and in October 1198 ordered an interdict on the parts of Norway loyal to him.

On 1 January 1200 Sverre is not in his own west: he is wintering at Oslo with his army after the war in the Trøndelag (Store norske leksikon on the peasant battle of the winter 1199-1200). He dies at Bergen on 9 March 1202 (some accounts 8 March).

Overlord

None. Rome claims a say through the excommunication and the interdict; Sverre denies the Church any lordship over the crown.

What the realm holds

• The Trøndelag (the Frostating lands) with Nidaros, retaken after the Strindsjø (18 June 1199)
• Møre: Nordmøre, Romsdal and Sunnmøre
• The Vestland: Firdafylke (Sogn, Sunnfjord, Nordfjord), Hordaland with Bergen, Rogaland with Stavanger
• Agder
• Hålogaland and the Sami tribute (finnskatt) of Hålogaland and Finnmark
• Jämtland and Härjedalen as tributary lands under their own assemblies
• Shetland as a tax land since 1195 (British Isles map); the Faroes, Sverre's boyhood home (Iceland and Faroes sheet)
• A field army wintering at Oslo, and contested ground in Viken (eastern Norway records)

How it was acquired

By conquest in the civil wars of 1177-1184 against Magnus Erlingsson and Erling Skakke; held since against the island-beards (1193-94) and the Bagler (1196 on). Jämtland was forced to submit in 1178.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the Birkebeiner and the hird; the towns of Bergen and Nidaros; his own bishops; his Swedish kin by marriage. Rivals: the Bagler (King Inge Magnusson, Bishop Nicholas Arnesson, Reidar Sendemann and their chiefs); the exiled Archbishop Eirik; Pope Innocent III; the Danish crown and Absalon; the farmers of Viken and the Uplands, who are about to rise.

The realm that morning

Sverre controls the west and north firmly. The Trøndelag has been his again since June 1199, though its farmers backed the Bagler in 1197-98. On the morning of 1 January 1200 the king himself, with Sigurd Lavard and the main army, is wintering at Oslo, in ground the Bagler had held; the Bagler keep the Uplands (Hedmark, Østerdal and beyond) and the countryside of Viken is turning against him. Bergen, burned in August 1198, is rebuilding under the castle.

Wealth

Stockfish from Lofoten and the north shipped through Bergen; the Sami tribute (finnskatt) in furs, skins and down from Hålogaland and Finnmark; the land tax and the levy dues; tolls and fees at Bergen and Nidaros; fines, which Sverre shares in Orkney since 1195; the skatt of Shetland; the confiscated church estates. No figures.

Military

The hird and the Birkebeiner veterans; the levy fleet of the west; the stone castle at Bergen; the damaged castle at Nidaros. Record: victorious in every great battle since 1177, most recently the Strindsjø (18 June 1199), where the Bagler fleet was destroyed and its survivors fled to Denmark. Weak point: he cannot hold the inland east against a hostile peasantry.

Threats

• The rising of the farmers of Viken, from Svinesund to Telemark, joined by the townsmen of Tunsberg, which falls on Sverre at Oslo in March 1200
• A Bagler revival from Denmark or the Uplands
• The interdict and papal pressure on his bishops and on foreign kings
• Succession: Sigurd Lavard dies in 1200, leaving Haakon as the only son and an infant grandson
• Sverre's own health: he dies in March 1202

Consort

Queen Margrete Eriksdotter (Margareta in Swedish usage, Margaret in English; born about 1155, so about 44), daughter of King Erik the Saint of Sweden and sister of King Knut Eriksson (died 1195-96). Married to Sverre in 1185 (Store norske leksikon; other accounts give 1189). She has estates of her own in Västergötland and Värmland in Sweden, to which she retires after 1202. The sagas paint her as scheming; after Haakon III's death on 1 January 1204 she is suspected of poisoning him and flees to Sweden.

Alive on 1 January 1200.

Heirs and children

• Sigurd Lavard (Sigurd Sverresson, 'lavard' meaning lord or heir), the eldest son, born in the Faroes about 1175, so about 24 or 25. Mother unknown (P. A. Munch's guess, Astrid Roesdotter, is not accepted). A captain at Sarpsborg in 1193; disgraced when the Bagler destroyed the siege engine he was guarding on the coast of Ranrike in 1196-97, and given no command afterwards. Alive on 1 January 1200 and with his father in Viken: at the peasant battle at Oslo (March 1200) Sverre quoted verse to mock his lack of courage. He dies later in 1200 (date and place not pinned), before his father.
• Haakon Sverresson, the second son, born about 1182-83 (before 1185), so about 17. Mother not established. A leader in his father's army at Oslo in 1197 and in later fighting against the Bagler. Becomes the only surviving son when Sigurd dies; king 1202, dies 1 January 1204.
• Kristin Sverresdotter, daughter of Sverre and Queen Margrete, born after the marriage (year not pinned), a child or young girl. Married in 1209 to the Bagler king Philip Simonsson as the price of peace; dies 1213.
• Guttorm Sigurdsson, Sigurd Lavard's son by an unnamed concubine, born in 1199 by the usual reckoning and only a few months old when his father dies in 1200: probably alive as an infant on 1 January 1200, but the birth is not pinned to the day. King for a few months in 1204.
• A daughter Cecilia appears in some genealogies; Einar Kongsmåg ('the king's in-law'), one of Guttorm's guardians in 1204, is said to be married to her. Neither her birth nor the date of that marriage is pinned.

Kin

• Cecilia Sigurdsdotter, Sverre's sister (half-sister if Sigurd Munn was his father), born about 1150-55, alive after 1185; whether she lives in 1200 is not pinned. Married first Folkvid, lawman in Värmland, then Bård Guttormsson of Rein.
• Håkon Galen ('the Crazy'), son of Cecilia and Folkvid, born in the 1170s: a captain of the hird since the 1190s who fought the island-beards and the Bagler. Jarl in 1204.
• Inge Bårdsson, son of Cecilia and Bård Guttormsson of Rein, born 1185, so about 14: heir to the Rein estates in the Trøndelag. King 1204-1217.
• Skule Bårdsson, Bård Guttormsson's son by Ragnfrid Erlingsdotter, born 1189, so about 10: Inge's half-brother, later the great Duke Skule.
• Birger Brosa, jarl of the Swedes, is married to Brigida Haraldsdotter, sister of Sverre's claimed father: Sverre's kinsman by marriage, whom Sverre sought out in Östergötland at Christmas 1176 and who then refused him help. Their son Philippus Birgersson, Sverre's first cousin on this reckoning, is Sverre's jarl in Norway.
• Sigurd Jarlsson, son of Sverre's half-brother Jarl Eirik Sigurdsson (died 1190), is on the other side: one of the Bagler leaders with Bishop Nicholas and Reidar Sendemann (eastern Norway records).

Officers and household

The hird is the core of Sverre's power: hirdmen, the lower-ranking guests (gjester) and the young retainers (kertisveinar), paid and fed by the king and loyal to him personally. Sverre developed the king's district officer (sysselmann) more systematically than any king before him, turned the levy-fleet dues into a regular tax, appointed lawmen (lagmenn) as legal advisers to the things, perhaps the first king to do so, and had a chancellor issue royal letters. Sverre's jarl is his Swedish cousin Philippus Birgersson, son of Jarl Birger Brosa, one of his staunchest supporters, who dies during 1200 (when he was made jarl and what he governs are not pinned; see Philippus jarl).

The names of the chancellor, the stallare and the standard-bearer on 1 January 1200 are not pinned. Sverre's English hird-priest Martin has been bishop of Bergen since 1194.

Great men and kindreds

Most of the old landed families fell with Erling Skakke and Magnus at Kalvskinnet (1179) and Fimreite (1184); Sverre filled their places with Birkebeiner captains he made landed men (lendmenn) and district officers. The greatest of them, his brother-in-law Bård Guttormsson of Rein, died in 1194, leaving young sons. Of the old kindreds, the Arnung line of Giske in Sunnmøre and the Bjarkøy chieftains of Hålogaland survive in some form, but their heads in 1200 are not pinned; Bishop Nicholas's own kin, the Stårheim family of Nordfjord, are on the Bagler side.

Peter Støyper and Einar Kongsmåg, named as the infant Guttorm's guardians in 1204, are among the leading Birkebeiner of the next years; their offices on 1 January 1200 are not pinned.

Royal estates

The king's farms (kongsgårder) along the coast, worked by his stewards (ármenn): Alrekstad and the royal residence on Holmen at Bergen, Avaldsnes on Karmøy, Fitjar on Stord, Utstein in Rogaland, and the king's residence and the farm of Lade (Hlaðir) at Nidaros. To these Sverre has added the estates of the fallen magnates of Magnus's party and the archbishop's estates and revenues, seized after Eirik fled in 1190.

Castles and towns

Two stone castles of Sverre's own building: at Nidaros on Steinberget (the Sverresborg), begun in the winter of 1182-83, which its commander Torstein Kugad gave up to the Bagler in the winter of 1197-98; the Bagler are said to have fouled its only well with a corpse to make it useless, and whether Sverre has put it back in use by 1200 is not pinned (its walls stand until 1263); and at Bergen on the knoll behind the king's residence, built after 1184, which held out when the Bagler burned the town on 11 August 1198. Towns: Bergen, the largest town and the king's usual seat; Nidaros, the archbishop's city and St Olav's shrine; Stavanger, the bishop's town; and the trading places of Borgund, Veøy, Kaupanger and Vågar. In Viken the towns of Oslo, Tunsberg, Borg and Konungahella are fought over with the Bagler (eastern Norway records).

Levy fleet

The levy fleet (leidang): every district along the coast owes ships, men and provisions; Sverre has turned much of it into a regular tax paid in kind. In spring 1197 he called out the leidang and sailed to Viken; in June 1199 he won the Strindsjø with a fleet raised from the west. The size of the 1199-1200 fleet is a saga matter: no reliable figures.

Coinage

Small silver coins in the king's name, pennies, half- and quarter-pennies and one-sided bracteates; a penny reads REX SVERUS MAGNUS, for Sverre uses the name Magnus on his coins and seal. Mints at Bergen and Nidaros; Veøy, Stavanger, Gimsøy and several eastern towns are listed only as possible mint places (University of Oslo coin cabinet). No weights or figures.

Law and assemblies

Four law provinces: the Frostating (the Trøndelag and the north) at Frosta, the Gulating (the west) at Gulen, with Møre lying between the two, and in the east the Eidsivating (the Uplands) and the Borgarting (Viken), both in Bagler country. The Øyrating at Nidaros makes kings. Jämtland keeps its own assembly (Jamtamót) and law.

Church and rome

Sverre is excommunicated (1194) and the parts of Norway loyal to him are under interdict (ordered October 1198). Archbishop Eirik Ivarsson of Nidaros, blind, lives in exile with Archbishop Absalon at Lund; Bishop Nicholas Arnesson of Oslo leads the Bagler. Sverre's bishops, Martin of Bergen above all, serve him under papal displeasure. His answer is the Speech against the Bishops (En tale mot biskopene), usually dated 1199 and written for him by an anonymous priest of his circle, which argues from canon law that his excommunication is void and that the king is the Church's lord in his kingdom.

Rome wants his submission or his fall. These are Church map matters except as they touch the crown.

Foreign relations

Denmark: hostile. The Bagler were founded on Danish ground in Scania in 1196 with the exiled bishops, and Canute VI and Absalon shelter them. Sweden: Sverre's queen is the sister of the late King Knut Eriksson, Sverre's ally; since 1196 the Swedish king is Sverker II of the rival house, raised in Denmark and married into the Danish Hvide kindred, while Knut's sons, Margrete's nephews, live at his court; no war, but no friend.

Jarl Birger Brosa is a kinsman by marriage. Orkney: Earl Harald Maddadsson submitted at Bergen in 1195 after the island-beard rising (1193-94); Sverre took Shetland as a tax land and half the Orkney fines. The Faroes: under the crown. England: friendly trade; Sverre praised the English merchants at Bergen against the German wine-sellers in 1186. Iceland: no lordship, but Icelandic chieftains and clerics come to his court, and Abbot Karl Jónsson of Þingeyrar wrote the first part of his saga at his dictation.

Wars and feuds in force

• The Bagler war, since 1196: open war. The Bagler hold the Uplands and parts of Viken; Sverre holds Oslo with his army. No truce is known. Confidence high.
• The quarrel with the Church: Sverre excommunicated, the interdict in force, the archbishop in exile. Confidence high.
• Cold hostility with Denmark, which shelters the Bagler and the exiled prelates. No open war between the kingdoms is known. Confidence medium.

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. January 1200The interdict on the Sverre lands stays in force; Innocent III presses the archbishop of Nidaros's case and treats Sverre's bishops as banned.Depends on: No submission by Sverre. Stopped by: Sverre submitting to Rome, or a settlement brokered through Denmark.
2. 6 March 1200The farmers of Viken, raised from Svinesund to Telemark and joined by the townsmen of Tunsberg, attack Sverre at Oslo and are beaten (the 'peasant battle'). The saga makes them more numerous than the king's army, but their attack is badly coordinated.Depends on: Sverre still wintering at Oslo, and the rising going ahead without a Bagler army in support. Stopped by: Sverre leaving Oslo before Lent, a settlement with the farmers, or a Bagler force joining them in strength.
3. 1200, after March (not pinned)Sigurd Lavard dies, leaving an infant son, Guttorm; Haakon becomes Sverre's only surviving son.Depends on: The natural course; the cause of his death is not recorded. Stopped by: Nothing known; a GM may treat it as a natural death unless play changes his circumstances.
4. 1200 (date not pinned)Jarl Philippus Birgersson, Sverre's Swedish cousin and jarl, dies; no new jarl is named in Sverre's lifetime.Depends on: The natural course; no cause recorded. Stopped by: Nothing known.
5. 1200 (month not pinned)Innocent III warns Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury against accepting gifts from Sverre.Depends on: Sverre sending envoys and gifts to England. Stopped by: Sverre not courting the English church.
6. 1200 to 1201Sverre clears the Bagler from Viken; the Bagler keep the Uplands.Depends on: Victory at Oslo in March and the Bagler failing to rally the farmers again. Stopped by: A defeat at Oslo, or a Danish-backed Bagler fleet.
7. Spring 1201 to 25 January 1202 (after 1200)Sverre's last campaign from Bergen: he besieges Reidar Sendemann on the rock at Tunsberg from September 1201 until the garrison surrenders about New Year 1202.Depends on: Sverre alive and the west quiet. Stopped by: Sverre's illness or death, or a Bagler relief fleet.
8. 9 March 1202 (after 1200)Sverre dies at Bergen, naming Haakon his only surviving son and heir.Depends on: Natural death after the Tunsberg campaign. Stopped by: Death in battle first.

Places of note

• The king's castle and hall at Bergen: Sverre's stone castle on the knoll behind the royal residence on Holmen; held through the Bagler siege of 1198; Sverre dies in its hall in 1202.
• Sverresborg at Nidaros: Sverre's stone castle on Steinberget above Nidaros, begun 1182-83; given up to the Bagler in the winter of 1197-98 and its well fouled.
• Øyrating, Nidaros: The assembly at the mouth of the Nid where kings are acclaimed; Sverre was made king here in June 1177.
• Frostating: The law assembly of the Trøndelag and the north.
• Gulating: The law assembly of the west at Gulen.
• Alrekstad: Royal farm outside Bergen.
• Avaldsnes: Royal farm on Karmøy, commanding the Karmsund sea road.
• Fitjar: Royal farm on Stord.
• Utstein: Royal farm in Rogaland (a monastery only later in the 13th century).
• Lade (Hlaðir): The old jarls' seat by Nidaros, a royal farm.
• Strindsjø battle: Sverre destroys the Bagler fleet here, 18 June 1199.

Where the sources disagree

• campaign notes (Part 6 J and Part 8, section 7) date the Speech against the Bishops to 1199 and present it as the king's own answer. Store norske leksikon (En tale mot biskopene) says it was written by an anonymous priest in Sverre's circle, on the king's behalf, between 1196 and 1202, probably not long after the excommunication of 1194. The GM's 1199 is the conventional date and is kept; the campaign may want to know the tract may already be circulating before 1199 and is not in Sverre's own hand.
• campaign notes (Part 6 J) say the pope ordered the parts of Norway that support Sverre put under interdict in 1198: agreed (October 1198, Innocent III, who also declared Sverre's papal letter of absolution forged).
• The queen's marriage: Store norske leksikon gives 1185, the English Wikipedia 1189. 1185 is used here.
• campaign notes call Martin of Bergen 'bishop since 1194': agreed; Store norske leksikon says he was Sverre's English hird-priest, elected at the Bergen meeting of 1194.

Evidence: Sverris saga is detailed, close to the events and partly dictated by the king himself, so it is partisan; Store norske leksikon and the standard histories rest on it. The king's family, the battles and the church quarrel are well attested; the names of his officers and district men in 1200 are mostly not.

On the map: The kingdom is drawn as the ground Sverre's officers could tax and levy that winter. Inner fells and valleys in the north were Sami land under tribute only (drawn as sami provinces). The line with the Bagler Uplands follows the mountain watersheds, which is roughly where lordship changed, not a fixed border. Viken is drawn on the eastern Norway records.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• The saga of the Sturlungs: the compilation of contemporary Icelandic sagas, Sturla Þórðarson and other authors, compiled by Þórðr Narfason (the component sagas between about 1200 and 1280; compiled about 1300). The only contemporary narrative of Iceland. Read online
• The sagas of the Icelandic bishops: Páll of Skálholt, Guðmundr of Hólar and Þorlákr (Páls saga about 1211 to 1216; Þorláks saga about 1200 to 1210; the oldest Guðmundar saga in the 13th century). Páls saga is the life of Bishop Páll Jónsson of Skálholt (1195 to 1211), of the Oddaverjar, and tells how he had the churches and priests of his diocese counted, about 220 churches and 290 priests, how he furthered the cult of his uncle Þorlákr, whose relics were raised in 1198 and whose feast the Althing adopted in 1199, and how he dealt with the chieftains. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• The Danish diplomatarium: charters and letters concerning Denmark, with Danish translation (documents of 789 to 1448; the online edition is continuing). Twenty-seven documents are dated to 1200: Innocent III's letters of February and March 1200 to Philip Augustus and Queen Ingeborg and his order for the interdict on France, Otto IV's letter to the pope expecting King Knud VI to move into Saxony, the reports of the legate Octavian and the French bishops on the lifting of the interdict in September, the pope's letters to Knud VI asking him to send advocates for his sister, Knud VI's ordinance on manslaughter for Skåne of 28 December 1200, and private gifts to Roskilde and Næstved. Read online

2 more in the sources library for Scandinavia.