Gyda of Sweden

Last updated
Gyda of Sweden
Queen consort of Denmark
Tenure1047–1048/49
Died1048/49
Denmark
Spouse Sweyn II of Denmark
House Munsö
Father Anund Jacob of Sweden
Mother Gunnhildr Sveinsdóttir

Gyda Anundsdotter of Sweden, also known as Guda and Gunhild (died c. 1048/1049), was a medieval and Viking Age Swedish princess and Danish queen consort, spouse of King Sweyn II of Denmark.

Contents

Biography

There is little information about Gyda;[ citation needed ] our main source being the German ecclesiastic chronicler Adam of Bremen (c. 1075). According to the much later historian Saxo Grammaticus and the Icelandic annals, she was the daughter of the Swedish king, meaning Anund Jacob (1022 – c. 1050). [1] Her mother would then be Queen Gunhild of Sweden. [2] The near-contemporary Adam, however, does not say that Anund and Gunhild had any children. It is also possible that she was the daughter of Anund and another woman.

She was married to King Sweyn of Denmark, maybe in 1047 or 1048. The date cannot be confirmed, and it is possible that they were married during the time when Sweyn lived in exile at the Swedish court. After a short marriage, she died. According to Adam of Bremen it was a matter of foul play, since she was poisoned by Sweyn's concubine Thora. [3] It is not known if any of the many children of Sweyn were also the children of Gyda. Her assumed father Anund died in c. 1050, and was survived by Gunhild. At about the same time, Gyda's widower Sweyn married a woman also called Gunhild. She was possibly the same person as Gyda's mother or stepmother, though several modern historians maintain that there were two separate Gunhilds, a Swedish and a Danish queen, respectively. [4] A much later Chronicle of Bremen refers to a letter supposedly written by Archbishop Adalbert, which says that Gunhild was the "mother" (mother-in-law) of Sweyn. [5] Anyway, Sweyn and Gunhild were soon forced to separate by the Archbishop of Hamburg on account of their close kinship. [6]

Gyda has often been confused and mixed up with her assumed mother (or stepmother) Gunhild, as their names were similar, and because they were both married to Sweyn. Both of them were known as Gunhild, Guda or Gyda.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sweyn Forkbeard</span> King of Denmark (r. 986–1014), Norway (986–95, 1000–14) and England (1013–14)

Sweyn Forkbeard was King of Denmark from 986 until his death, King of England for five weeks from December 1013 until his death, and King of Norway from 999/1000 until 1013/14. He was the father of King Harald II of Denmark, King Cnut the Great, and Queen Estrid Svendsdatter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnus the Good</span> King of Norway and Denmark

Magnus Olafsson, better known as Magnus the Good, was King of Norway from 1035 and King of Denmark from 1042 until his death in 1047.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olof Skötkonung</span> King of Sweden from c.995 to 1022

Olof Skötkonung, sometimes stylized as Olaf the Swede, was King of Sweden, son of Eric the Victorious and, according to Icelandic sources, Sigrid the Haughty. He succeeded his father in c. 995. He stands at the threshold of recorded history, since he is the first Swedish ruler about whom there is substantial knowledge. He is regarded as the first king known to have ruled both the Swedes and the Geats. In Sweden, the reign of king Olov Skötkonung is considered to be the transition from the Viking age to the Middle Ages, because he was the first Christian king of the Swedes, who were the last to adopt Christianity in Scandinavia. He is associated with a growing influence of the church in what is today southwestern and central Sweden. Norse beliefs persisted in parts of Sweden until the 12th century.

Richeza of Poland, a member of the House of Piast, was twice Queen of Sweden and once Princess of Minsk through her three marriages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sweyn II of Denmark</span> 11th-century Danish king

Sweyn Estridsson Ulfsson was King of Denmark from 1047 until his death in 1076. He was the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, and the grandson of Sweyn Forkbeard through his mother's line. He was married three times, and fathered 20 children or more out of wedlock, including the five future kings Harald Hen, Canute the Saint, Oluf Hunger, Eric Evergood, and Niels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric the Victorious</span> King of Sweden

Eric the Victorious was a Swedish monarch as of around 970. Although there were earlier Swedish kings, he is the first Swedish king in a consecutive regnal succession, who is attested in sources independent of each other, and consequently Sweden's list of rulers usually begins with him. His son Olof Skötkonung, however, is considered the first ruler documented to definitely have been accepted both by the original Swedes around Lake Mälaren and by the Geats around Lake Vättern. Adam of Bremen reports a king named Emund Eriksson before Eric, but it is not known whether he was Eric's father. The Norse sagas' accounts of a Björn Eriksson are considered unreliable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigrid the Haughty</span> Queen consort of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and England

Sigrid the Haughty, also known as Sigrid Storråda (Swedish), is a Scandinavian queen appearing in Norse sagas. Sigrid is named in several late and sometimes contradictory Icelandic sagas composed generations after the events they describe, but there is no reliable historical evidence correlating to her story as they describe her. She is reported by Heimskringla to have been wife of Eric the Victorious of Sweden, sought as wife by Olaf Tryggvasson, then married to Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, but elsewhere author Snorri Sturluson says that Sweyn was married to a different woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anund Jacob</span> King of Sweden

Anund Jacob or James was King of Sweden from 1022 until around 1050. He is believed to have been born on July 25, in either 1008 or 1010 as Jakob, the son of King Olof Skötkonung and Queen Estrid. Being the second Christian king of the Swedish realm, his long and partly turbulent reign saw the increasing dissemination of Christianity as well as repeated attempts to influence the balance of power in Scandinavia. Throughout his reign, he tried to subvert the rising Danish hegemony in Scandinavia by supporting the Norwegian monarchy. He also supported the reign of Yaroslav the Wise in Kievan Rus, his brother-in-law. He is referred to in positive terms in German and Norse historical sources. His reign was one of the longest in Sweden during the Viking Age and Middle Ages.

Emund the Old or Edmund was King of Sweden from c. 1050 to c. 1060. His short reign was characterised by disputes with the Archbishopric of Bremen over church policies, and a historically debated delimitation of the Swedish-Danish border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stenkil</span> King of Sweden

Stenkil was a King of Sweden who ruled c. 1060 until 1066. He succeeded Emund the Old and became the first king from the House of Stenkil. He is praised as a devout Christian, but with an accommodating stance towards the old Pagan religion. His brief reign saw an armed conflict with Norway.

Anund from Russia was the king of Sweden around 1070 according to Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. According to this source, Anund came from Kievan Rus', presumably from Aldeigjuborg. Gårdske means that he came from Gardariki which was one of the Scandinavian names for Kievan Rus'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Håkan the Red</span> King of Sweden

Håkan the Red was a king of Sweden, reigning for about half a decade in the second half of the 11th century. There is little information on him, and it is mostly contradictory. Nothing is known about his reign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inge the Elder</span> King of Sweden

Inge the Elder was a king of Sweden. In English literature he has also been called Ingold. While scant sources do not allow a full picture of his term of kingship, he is known to have led a turbulent but at length successful reign of more than two decades. He stands out as a devout Christian who founded the first abbey in Sweden and acted harshly against pagan practices. The kingdom was still an unstable realm based on alliances of noblemen, and Inge's main power base was in Västergötland and Östergötland; one of the earliest chronicles that mention his reign knows him as rex gautorum, king of the Geats.

Świętosława was a Polish princess, the daughter of Mieszko I of Poland and sister of Bolesław I of Poland, who married two Scandinavian kings. According to German chroniclers, this princess, whose name is not given, was married first to Eric the Victorious of Sweden and then to Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, giving the former a son, Olof, and the latter two sons, Harald and Cnut. Because a documented sister of Cnut seems to have borne the Polish name Świętosława, it has been speculated that this may also have been the name of their mother, the Polish princess of the chroniclers.

Gunhilda of Wenden was a Polish princess, daughter of Mieszko I of Poland according to Chronicles of Thietmar of Merserburg, Adam von Bremen and Acta Cnutonis regis princess and Danish Viking Age queen consort, the supposed spouse of 10th-century King Sweyn I of Denmark. The sources about the wife or wives of Sweyn are contradictory, and historians have debated the whether she is the Polish Świętosława given another name in Norse sources.

Estrid Svendsdatter of Denmark, was a Danish princess and titular queen, a Russian princess and, possibly, duchess of Normandy by marriage. She was the daughter of Sweyn Forkbeard and perhaps Gunhild of Wenden and half-sister of Cnut the Great. By Ulf Jarl, she was the mother of the later King Sweyn II Estridson and Beorn Estrithson. The dynasty that ruled Denmark in 1047–1412 was named after her. Though never a ruler or wife of a king, she was known in Denmark as queen during her son's reign.

Gunnhildr Sveinsdóttir or Gunnhildr Haraldsdóttir, Guda or Gyda was, according to the traditional view, a queen consort of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and of king Sveinn II of Denmark. However, the sources are so vague that several modern historians maintain that there were actually two queens of that name, of Sweden and Denmark respectively. She is sometimes called Gude or Gyridje, but this is probably because of confusion with her daughter, Gyda, who is also known under her mother's name Gunnhildr.

Astrid Njalsdotterof Skjalgaätten, was a Norwegian noblewoman who married Ragnvald the Old and became the ancestress of the Swedish Stenkil dynasty. She is sometimes assumed to have been a Swedish queen, though the evidence is inconclusive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisiv of Kiev</span> Norwegian queen consort (1025 – c. 1067)

Elisiv of Kiev was a Princess of Kiev and Queen Consort of King Harald III of Norway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyra of Denmark</span> 10th-century Danish princess

Tyra of Denmark was a 10th-century Danish princess. She was the spouse of both King Olav I of Norway and of Styrbjörn Starke, prince of Sweden.

References

  1. Sven Axelson (1955), Sverige i utländsk annalistik 900-1400. Stockholm: Appelbergs, p. 34, 55-6.
  2. Adam av Bremen (1984), Historien om Hamburgstiftet och dess biskopar. Stockholm: Proprius, p. 189 (Book III, Scholion 66).
  3. Adam av Bremen (1984), p. 192 (Book III, Scholion 72).
  4. Hans Gillingstam, "Gunhild", Svenskt biografiskt lexikon
  5. P.A. Munch (1855), Det norske Folks historie, Vol. II. Christiania: Tonsbergs, p. 189.
  6. Adam av Bremen (1984), p. 137 (Book III, Chapter 12).

Literature

Gyda of Sweden
Born: 11th century Died: 1049
Preceded by Queen consort of Denmark
1047/8–1049
Succeeded by