Eystein II Haraldsson

Eystein was the son of Harald Gille of the King of Norway (1130-36). The Gaelic name of his mother is mentioned in ancient Norwegian sagas as Bjaðök . Harald was born and raised in Ireland or Scotland, and Eystein was also born there. When in 1127 Harald went to Norway to fight for the throne, Eystein did not follow him. However, before leaving for Norway, Harald found out that he had a son.

Eystein was first mentioned in sagas in 1142 , when several Norwegian feudal lords traveled west and brought him back to Norway from Scotland. His mother followed him to Norway. Here he was recognized as king, and shared power with his younger brothers. The division of the kingdom, it seems, was not territorial, all brothers had the same power in all parts of the country. The period of their reign was marked by the creation of an independent Norwegian archbishopric in Nidaros ( Trondheim ) in 1152 .

The Earth Circle sagas and the Orkneyinga saga tell that at the same time in the beginning 1150s, King Eystein went to war in Scotland and England . He captured Harald Maddadson , Earl of Orkney in Caithness, and forced him to redeem himself for a considerable sum. Then he plundered the coast of Scotland and England, attacked Aberdeen , Hartlepool and Whitby during a raid reminiscent of previous Viking campaigns.

According to the sagas, the relationship between the brothers was peaceful, as long as the mentors of the younger brothers were alive. But as the brothers grew older, the contradictions between them also grew. In 1155, a meeting of the brothers in Bergen led in a skirmish between the squads of kings Inge and Sigurd, in which Sigurd was killed. King Eystein was late for a meeting and only drove up to the city when Sigurd was already dead. A difficult agreement was concluded between Inge and Einstein. The reasons for the skirmish in Bergen remain controversial. According to the sagas, Eystein and Sigurd intended to deprive Inge of the crown and divide the kingdom among themselves. Some modern historians doubt this version, seeing this as an excuse for Inge's aggressive actions. In any case, the peace between Inge and Einstein did not last long after the events of 1155. In 1157, both sides gathered forces for war. Inge's forces exceeded those of Eystein, and when they met on the east coast near Moster, Eistein's army was defeated. Eystein was forced to flee towards Wicken (Oslo Bay area). Devoted by his own people, he was captured, somewhere in the area of ​​modern Bohuslain, and killed. The question of whether King Inge gave the order for his murder remains controversial. Eystein's body was buried in the Foss Church in one hundred Tung. According to the Circle of the Earth, the local population of this area began to revere Eystein saints.

After the death of Eystein, his supporters united around the young Hakon II Broad shouldered , the son of Sigurd Munn, Eustain's nephew. They continued the war against King Inge, which marked the so-called era of civil wars that broke out and subsided until 1240 . The sagas depict in a negative light both Eystein and his brother Sigurd, as a rule, preferring to portray Inge as the fairest ruler of the three brothers. Earth Circle describes Eystein in this way:

King Eystein was outwardly morose and gloomy, of medium height and capable, but his greed and narrow-mindedness deprived him of respect and popularity among his subjects. [one]

Eystein was married to Ragn Nicholasdotter , a Norwegian feudal lord. His illegitimate son, Einstein Mail, was proclaimed king by birkebeiners in 1176 , but was defeated and killed a year later.

The main sources under Einstein's rule are the royal sagas Circle of the Earth , Beautiful skin , Rotten skin and Review of the sagas about the Norwegian king (Ágrip). At least part of the records of the first three of them is based on the ancient saga Spinal Ridge ( Hryggjarstykki ), which was recorded between 1150 and 1170 and thus was recorded almost at the same time. This saga itself has not survived.

• Matthew James Driscoll (ed.); (1995). Agrip Af Noregskonungasogum . Viking Society for Northern Research. ISBN 0-903521-27-X
• Kari Ellen Gade & Theodore Murdock Andersson (eds.); (2000) Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030-1157) . Cornell University Press . ISBN 0-8014-3694-X
• Alison Finlay; editor and translator (2004). Fagrskinna, a Catalog of the Kings of Norway . Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13172-8
• Snorri Sturluson; translator Lee M. Hollander (repr. 1991). Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway . University of Texas Press . ISBN 0-292-73061-6