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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-10 > 0845776315
From: Stewart Baldwin < >
Subject: Re: Who was Sven Forkbeard, king of Denmark ?
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 01:51:55 GMT
John Yohalem < > wrote:
>----------
>> From: Richard Borthwick < >
>> To:
>> Subject: Re: Who was Sven Forkbeard, king of Denmark ?
>> Date: Friday, October 18, 1996 9:25 AM
>>
>> >In <545s5t$ > (P.MONIZ) writes:
>> >>
>> >>Dear friends,
>> >>
>> >>Do you have any information about him ?
>> >>What was his true Danish name ?
>> >>
>> >>Carlos Moreira __o
>> >> -\<,
>> >>Aveiro, Portugal (_)/(_)
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >Carlos
>> >
>> >Sveyn "Forkbear" Haraldsson, I King of Denmark
>> >
>> >Father was Harold "Bluetooth"Gormsson, II King of Denmark acc 944
>> >Mother was Gyrid Oldfsson
>> >
>> >Tony Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ston, MA USA
>> >
>> I don't think Sveyn Forkbeard acc.944. His grandfather k. Orm was death
>by
>> 950 (but may have died much earlier ca.936). His father Harald Bluetooth
>d.
>> before 988 (maybe 986) but was certainly alive and ruling in 970. So
>Sveyn's
>> accession in Denmark was probably around 986. I don't think his mother's
>> name is known for certain. If it was a Gyda (Gytha) daughter of Olaf, she
>> would be designated as Gytha Olafsdatter/Olafsdottir.
>>
>> Richard
>Richard, I think you misunderstood. Tony from Baaaston said Harald (I not
>II, by the way) succeeded in 944. And Sveyn's grandfather was Gorm the Old,
>not Orm, the generally accepted first king of the Danish state as we know
>it, the longest uninterrupted monarchy in Europe. (Margarethe II is
>directly descended from all three of these kings, though not from Sven's
>son Knut the Great.)
>Jean Coeur de Lapin
A few miscellaneous comments:
1. Archaeological studies indicate that Gorm the Old apparently died
in or near the year 958, aged between 40 and 50, or to be more
precise, what is believed to be his body (which was aged 40-50 by
examining the skeleton) was buried in a coffin which was made from a
tree which was was chopped down in the year 958, as dated by the
science of dendrochronology. See the article on Gorm in "Medieval
Scandinavia - an Encyclopedia" (New York and London, 1993) and the
sources cited there.
2. Gorm was not the first king of Denmark. In fact, there were quite
a few kings of Denmark whose succession can be reasonably well
established between the late eighth and late ninth centuries.
Unfortunately, the genealogical relationships of those kings are very
difficult to disentangle, and no later kings can be proven to descend
from them. Gorm is the king with whom the well documented
genealogical continuity begins, but it is unclear whether his reign
marks a new starting point, or just the time when the documentation
starts to become available again.
3. Harald I or II, like many medieval monarchs, never put a number in
front of his name, and such numbers are generally assigned for the
convenience of modern historians, who do not always agree on what
number to assign. I have seen both I and II, as well as some larger
numbers, assigned to this Harald. There was in fact a well documented
ninth century king of Denmark named Harald, and an even earlier one
whose existence is indicated indirectly in one of the Frankish annals.
The Danish pseudohistory of Saxo also included some kings named
Harald, and those who believed that "history" assigned a different
number to the Harald in question (I forget which number). I don't
know that any of the Danish kings named Harald ever used a number
during their own lifetime, so my guess is that there is no "official"
numbering. [Which brings up an interesting question: If none of the
previous kings having that name used a number in their lifetime, and
historians disagree on how many there were, how does a new king of the
name choose a number? Coin flip? Vote of the people? It doesn't
actually have to be the right number, as the kings of Sweden named
Charles will attest to. ;-) ]
Stewart Baldwin
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