Halsten Stenkilsson | |
---|---|
King of Sweden | |
Reign | c. 1067–c. 1070 |
Predecessor | Eric and Eric |
Successor | Håkan the Red (as King of Gothenland) Anund Gårdske (as King of Svealand) |
King of Sweden with Inge the Elder | |
Reign | c. 1079–after 1081 |
Predecessor | Håkan the Red |
Successor | Inge the Elder (as King of Gothenland) Blot-Sweyn (as King of Svealand) |
Born | c. 1050 |
Died | unknown, after 1081 |
Issue | Philip of Sweden Inge the Younger |
House | Stenkil |
Father | Stenkil |
Mother | Ingamoder Emundsdotter |
Halsten Stenkilsson (English exonym: Alstan; [1] [2] Old Icelandic: Hallstein [3] ) was King of Sweden from c. 1067 - 1070. The son of King Stenkil and a Swedish princess, he became king some time after his father's death (1066), and he may have ruled together with his brother Inge the Elder. [4] [5] [6] The date of his death is not known. [5]
Little is known of his time as king. [5] In a scholia in the work of Adam of Bremen, he is reported to have been elected king after the violent death of two pretenders, [5] but took over a highly volatile situation. While he was clearly a Christian like his father and brother, his influence may have been limited, since Adam relates that Christianity was so disturbed that the bishops appointed by the Archdiocese of Bremen did not even dare to travel to Sweden. [1] He was deposed after a short while, in the late 1060s or early 1070s, and replaced by a princeling from Gardariki, Anund. [5] [6]
That he later on ruled together with his brother Inge has some support from a papal letter from 1081, by Pope Gregory VII, which refers to two kings with the initials A and I, and where they are called kings of Västergötland [5] (rege wisigothorum [7] ). However, the king "A" could also be Håkan the Red. [8] His co-rulership with his brother Inge is also mentioned in the Hervarar saga . [4] In the regnal list of the Westrogothic law , he is said to have been courteous and cheerful, and whenever a case was submitted to him, he judged fairly, [5] [6] and this was why Sweden mourned his death. [5] He was the father of the co-rulers Philip and Inge the Younger. [4] [5] [6]
The Hervarar saga , which is one of the few sources about the kings of this time, has the following to tell:
Hallsteinn hét sonr Steinkels konungs, bróðir Inga konungs, er konungr var með Inga konungi, bróður sínum. Synir Hallsteins váru þeir Philippus ok Ingi, er konungdóm tóku í Svíþjóð eptir Inga konung gamla. [3] | King Steinkel had, besides Ingi, another son Hallstein who reigned along with his brother. Hallstein's sons were Philip and Ingi, and they succeeded to the Kingdom of Sweden after King Ingi the elder. [4] |
Freyr, sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, prosperity, fair weather, and good harvest. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden and seen as an ancestor of the Swedish royal house. According to Adam of Bremen, Freyr was associated with peace and pleasure, and was represented with a phallic statue in the Temple at Uppsala. According to Snorri Sturluson, Freyr was "the most renowned of the æsir", and was venerated for good harvest and peace.
Ragnar Lodbrok, according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Swedish and Danish king.
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.
Sigurd Ring according to legend was a king of the Swedes, being mentioned in many old Scandinavian sagas. According to these sources he was granted rulership over Sweden as a vassal king under his uncle Harald Wartooth. Later he would take up arms against his uncle Harald in a bid to overthrow him and take the crown of Denmark, a conflict which Sigurd eventually won after the legendary Battle of the Brávellir, where it is said that Odin himself intervened and killed Harald. In the Sagas, Sigurd is also known for being the father of the Norse Viking hero and legendary king of Denmark and Sweden, Ragnar Lodbrok. According to Bósa saga ok Herrauds, there was once a saga on Sigurd Ring, but this saga is now lost.
Björn at Haugi, Björn på Håga, Björn II or Bern was, according to Hervarar saga, a Swedish king and the son of Erik Björnsson, and Björn ruled together in diarchy with his brother Anund Uppsale. Björn at Haugi is sometimes identified with the historically attested Björn, a local Swedish ruler mentioned in the 9th-century Vita Ansgarii by Rimbert.
Anund Uppsale or Anoundus, 'Anund of Uppsala',, a son of Erik Björnsson of the House of Munsö, ruled Sweden together with his brother Björn at Haugi, according to Hervarar saga. He is called Uppsale because he stayed at Old Upsala, the era's religious centre. He and Björn are sometimes identified with similarly-named kings mentioned in Rimbert's Vita Ansgari and by Adam of Bremen.
Björn according to the Hervarar saga and Harald Fairhair's saga was the father of Olof (II) Björnsson and Eric the Victorious, also a grandfather of Styrbjörn the Strong. According to the two sagas, he was the son of an Erik who fought Harald Fairhair and who succeeded the brothers Björn at Hauge and Anund Uppsale:
Erik Ringsson was a Swedish king and the son of Ring, according to the German ecclesiastic chronicler Adam of Bremen. He is said to have ruled together with his father and his brother Emund in about 936, and later presumably reigned in his own name.
The House of Munsö, also called the House of Björn Ironside, the House of Uppsala or simply the Old dynasty, is the earliest reliably attested royal dynasty of Sweden, ruling during the Viking Age. None of the names suggested for the dynasty are universally accepted and most are problematic; the name "House of Munsö" derives from a questionable and speculative theory that they would have ruled from the island of Munsö and the name "House of Björn Ironside" derives from the supposed founder of the dynasty, Björn Ironside, who is often seen as a legendary, rather than historical, figure.
Anund Jacob or James was King of Sweden from 1022 until around 1050. He is believed to have been born on 25 July, 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.
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 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'.
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.
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.
Blot-Sweyn was a Swedish king c. 1080, of disputed historicity, who was said to have replaced his Christian brother-in-law Inge as King of Sweden, when Inge had refused to administer the blóts at the Temple at Uppsala. There is no mention of Sweyn in the regnal list of the Westrogothic law, which suggests that his rule did not reach Västergötland. According to Swedish historian Adolf Schück he was probably the same person as Håkan the Red and was called the Blót Swain as an epithet rather than a personal name.
Philip or Filip was King of Sweden from c. 1105–1110 until 1118.
Inge the Younger was King of Sweden in c. 1110–c. 1125 and probably the youngest son of king Halsten. According to unreliable traditions, Inge would have ruled together with his brother Philip Halstensson after the death of their uncle, Inge the Elder. In English literature both have also been called Ingold.
Hallstein's sons were Philip and Ingi, and they succeeded to the Kingdom of Sweden after King Ingi the elder.
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.