Battle of Stiklestad
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| Battle of Stiklestad | |||||||
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| Part of Ladejarl-Fairhair succession wars | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| The King's hird and allies | "The Peasant Army". Rival nobles, wealthy farmers and others | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Olav II of Norway† Dag Ringsson |
Kalv Arneson Tore Hund Hårek fra Tjøtta |
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| Strength | |||||||
| ~3,500 | ~7,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
The Battle of Stiklestad (Old Norse Stiklarstaðir) in 1030 is one of the most famous battles in the history of Norway. In this battle King Olaf II of Norway (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson) was killed. He was later canonized.
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[edit] History
During the 8th century Norway was controlled by several local kings controlling their own regions. At the end of the century, King Harald Fairhair (ON Haraldr Hárfagri) managed, in no little part due to the military superiority gained by his alliance with Sigurd Ladejarl of Nidaros, to subjugate these mini–kingdoms, and created the first unified Norwegian state.
This alliance came apart after Harald's death. The jarls of Lade and various descendants of Harald Fairhair would spend the next century interlocked in feuds over power. As well as power politics, religion also played a part in these conflicts, as two of the descendants of Harald Fairhair, Håkon the Good and Olav Tryggvason attempted to convert the then heathen Norwegians to Christianity. In the year 1000, Svein (ON Sveinn) and Erik (ON Eiríkr) of Lade took control over Norway, being supported by the Danish king Svein. In 1015, Olav Haraldsson, representing the descendants of Harald Fairhair, returned from one of his Viking trips and was immediately elected as King of Norway. In June 1016 he won the battle at Nesjar against the Lades.
Olav Haraldsson's success in becoming King of Norway was helped by the Danes being kept occupied with the ongoing fighting in England. In the year 1028 the Danish King Canute the Great made an alliance with the Lades, and Olav had to go into exile in Garðaríki (Russia). In the year of 1029 the last Lade, Håkon Jarl, drowned, and Olav returned to Norway with his army to regain his throne and the Kingdom of Norway.
[edit] The Battle
According to saga sources, he traveled with his 3,600 man army through Sweden and crossed the mountains into the valley of Verdal (ON Veradalr), 80 km north of the city of Trondheim. Olav and his men arrived at Stiklestad a farm in the lower part of the valley. This was where the Battle of Stiklestad took place, as described by Snorre (Snorri Sturluson) in his famous book Heimskringla 200 years later.
At Stiklestad, Olav met an army led by Hårek from Tjøtta (ON Hárekr ór Þjóttu), Tore Hund (ON Þórir Hundr) from Bjarkøy and Kalf Arnason (ON Kálfr Árnason), a man who previously served Olav. The peasant army consisted of more than 7,000 men according to Snorre. He states that the battle cry of Olaf's men was "Fram! Fram! Kristmenn, Krossmenn, kongsmenn" (Forward, forward, Christ's men, Cross men, king's men), while that of the opposing army was "Fram! Fram! Bonder" (Forward, forward, farmers).
During the battle, Olav received three severe wounds -- in the knee, in the neck and the final mortal blow through the heart -- and died leaning against a large stone. His body was carried away and buried secretly in the sandy banks of the Nidelva river south of the city of Trondheim.
[edit] Aftermath
The year after the battle his grave and coffin were opened and according to Snorre the body was incorrupt and the hair and nails had grown since he was buried. The coffin was then moved to St. Klement's Church in Trondheim. Olav was came to be venerated in the Scandinavian lands as a saint and given the name Olav den Hellige (Saint Olaf). Stiklestad Church was erected on top of the stone against which he died. The stone is supposedly still inside the altar of the church.
100 years later, Nidaros Cathedral was built in Trondheim on the site of his original burial place and Olav's body was moved to this church and enshrined in a silver reliquary behind the high altar. This reliquary took the form of a miniature church, common to medieval reliquaries containing the entire body of a saint, but was unique in that it is said to have had dragon heads at the apex of the gables similar to those still seen on Norwegian stave churches. In the 16th Century, during the Protestant Reformation period, Olav's body was removed from this reliquary, which was melted down for coinage by order of the Dano-Norwegian king, and his remains were reburied somewhere in Nidaros Cathedral — exactly where is still today an unsolved mystery. The Roman Catholic Queen Josephine of Leuchtenberg of Norway and Sweden, the consort of Oscar I, asked for the one known remaining relic of St. Olaf, an ulna or radius in a medieval reliquary in the Danish National Museum, from King Frederick VII of Denmark, which he gave to her and which she in turn gave to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Olav in Oslo in August 1862.
Today, 50 years later, more than 670,000 people have travelled to Stiklestad to watch The Saint Olav Drama at what is now the largest outdoor theatre in Scandinavia.
[edit] Evaluation
While Snorre's description of the battles in the Heimskringla makes for epic reading, a lot of its grandeur most likely must be put down to the writer's taste for the grand.
In Gardarike, Olav was only surrounded by his most loyal followers. Neither can one expect that recruitment was especially ample in Sweden or through the sparsely populated valleys through which Olav travelled. Thus, Olav's army probably was of a rather rag-tag character, an impression accentuated by tales of how local robber groups would join it as Olav made his way down Verdal. The recruitment of robber gangs and other scofflaws was likely no surprise to the polytheistic heathens that opposed Olav's attempts to forcibly convert them by murdering and torturing regional Jarls and Kings to terrorize them into accepting Christianity.
In fact, why Olav chose to travel through the politically hostile Trøndelag, rather than to try to rally his relatives and political allies of Eastern Norway, is to this day an unsolved mystery. Perhaps he was making a last-ditch attempt for Nidaros, hoping to win acceptance for his claim to the throne amongst the peasants of Trøndelag.
On the other hand, the opposition, basically lower nobles and grand farmers under the influence of the Danish king Canute, could not have had much time to assemble a large force. When alerted to Olav's presence, they must have responded swiftly, considering that they met Olav relatively far up in the valley. Therefore, their action points more towards a small, hastily arranged rally of men rather than the elaborate logistics that would have been needed to assemble a 10,000 man strong army.
Those who could have mobilized a large scale army, the local nobles of Trøndelag (of which Einar Tambarskjelvar was a prime example) were notable largely by their absence on either side. Also, a battlefield of a raging battle between nearly 20,000 men should have produced rich archeological findings to that effect; at Stiklestad, however, these are sparse. This however, is common in Norway - the rocky soil is not as well suited to battlefield archaeology as continental and English soil, as it makes georadar readings all but unusable and the location of the battle site highly uncertain. On Stiklestad, however, the soil is deep soil with some clay, and georadar has been used in 2008, showing traces of large buildings, but not much to indicate a battlefield. As is the case with most battles mentioned in the sagas, the sizes of the battling armies are probably impossible to determine.
Olav's role in Norwegian history had only just begun at his death. While nobles and rich farmers had expected their position to improve with the removal of the aggressive Olav, the opposite happened. The rule of Canute's mistress Alfiva and their infant son Svein was exceedingly harsh on the people. Especially the church, a traditional ally of Olav, came under the squeeze.
Thus, it accentuated the late king's martyr status, as it joined and egged on common folk in revolting against the hardships enforced by the succeeding Danish rule. Propaganda proclaiming how heroic Olav's last stand had been made for great nation-building material in the immature Norwegian state where the warrior ethic of the Vikings and their Gods and Goddesses were still highly revered. According to Snorre, even nature lent a hand, as the day of the battle coincided with a nearly full solar eclipse, as reflected in the description of an ill-fated 'blooded red sun', which was interpreted as a certain omen of bad things to come. However, the solar eclipse took place at about 2:00 p.m. on August 31 that year[1], contrary to the traditional date of the battle on July 29.
Olav, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to torturing and murdering those who refused to submit to Christianity, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olav not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard.
While divisive in life, in death Olav — perpetuus rex normanni, the eternal king of Norwegians — wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo. Canute, most distracted by the task of administering England, managed to rule Norway for five years after the battle through his viceroy son Svein. However, when Olav's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Canute had to yield. Thus, a century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.
[edit] Literary Legacy
In 1901 poet Per Sivle wrote a poem "Tord Foleson," about King Olav's standard-bearer at the battle. Foleson was able to plant the banner before he died, and it remained standing throughout the battle, even after the king fell. It was kept erect and replaced by the local populace for centuries, and a memorial stands at the site today. The most famous line of the poem, "Merket det stend, um mannen han stupa" ('The symbol stands, even when the man falls'), is inscribed on the memorial in Stalheim, Norway, and also on the inscription wall in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorial site.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 63°47′48″N 11°34′00″E / 63.79667°N 11.5666667°E
