The Kingdom of Norway as a unified realm dates to the reign of King Harald I Fairhair in the 9th century. His efforts in unifying the petty kingdoms of Norway resulted in the first known Norwegian central government. The country, however, soon fragmented and was collected into one entity in the first half of the 11th century, and Norway has retained a monarchy since that time. Traditionally, it has been viewed as being ruled by the Fairhair dynasty, though modern scholars question whether the eleventh century kings and their successors were truly descendants of Harald.
Fairhair dynasty, traditional and modern views
According to the traditional view, Norway was the hereditary kingdom of the 'Fairhair' dynasty, agnatic (patrilineal) descendants of the first unifier-king, Harald Fairhair. The successors to the throne after year 872 were all placed by among Harald's male descendants in historical accounts from centuries later. In the 13th century, the kingdom was officially declared hereditary by law, in contrast with the other Scandinavian monarchies which were elective kingdoms in the Middle Ages.
Harald Fairhair was the first king of all Norway, bringing the lands of what had previously been several distinct petty-kingdoms under his control. The foundation of this unified Norwegian kingdom is traditionally dated to 872, when he defeated the last petty kings who resisted him at the Battle of Hafrsfjord, though the consolidation of his power took many years. Fairhair's kingdom spanned the coastal areas north to Trøndelag, but upon his death the kingship was fragmented back into the petty kingdoms, most being held by Harald's sons, descendants or allies, though there were also districts in the hands of other dynasties, such as Ladejarls. Nonetheless, the concept of control by a central power had come into existence. It remains disputed the degree to which Norway should be viewed as an hereditary kingdom under Fairhair's sons and successors, Eric I of Norway and Haakon I of Norway. Some historians emphasize their inability to exercise actual monarchical control over the country and assert that St. Olav (Olaf II), who reigned from 1015, was the first king since Fairhair to control the entire country. Olav is traditionally held to be the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. He was later also revered as Rex Perpetuum Norvegiæ (Latin: eternal king of Norway).History of Norway from the Norwegian government web site Retrieved 21 November 2006 Only under half-brothers Olav II and Harald III would succession begin to be determined by rules of inheritance, rather than the crown simply being taken by force.
The Fairhair dynasty may, however, be an artificial construct. The murder of king Harald Greycloak in 970 brought an end to the rule of the immediate family of his grandfather, Harald Fairhair, and Norway was ruled instead by the Danish king and his proxies for 25 years. Olav I of Norway, who had been raised overseas in obscure circumstances, forcibly conquered the kingdom. His death resulted in another 15-year period of Danish rule before the successful Viking raider, Olav Haraldson in turn conquered the kingdom and was succeeded by his son and then by his half-brother, Harald Hardråde, himself a famous Viking. The later heroic sagas would give each of these three warrior kings distant descents from Harald Fairhair. However, it has been proposed (most vociferously by Claus Krag) that the genealogical lines connecting Harald Fairhair via otherwise obscure individuals to Olav I, Olav II and Harald Hardråde are a political fiction, founded on a later attempt to legitimize their rule and that of Hardråde's descendants, as well as to provide a claim to the region of Viken (the area around the present-day Oslo), a claim challenged by the Danes. Adherents of this proposal consider Harald Hardråde to be the first king of the lineage that would later rule the realm, and that his claim at the time rested solely on being maternal half-brother of Olav II, and not a distant descent from Fairhair. Descent from the same mother was not in Germanic understanding a proper dynastic tie, and thus Harald Hardråde's legitimacy necessitated the fabrication of unbroken male line descents for him and his two predecessors from Fairhair. These fabricated descents are what would appear in the pseudo-historical sagas of Heimskringla.
The Hårdråde and the Sverre dynasties Under Harald Hårdråde, Norway was firmly established as an independent kingdom and all later kings would claim to be descendants of him. With a few notable exceptions all successful claims are well supported and not disputed by modern historians. This succession of kings is sometimes called the "Hårdråde ætten" to distinguish them from the certain issue of Harald Fairhair. If Hårdråde is accepted as a descendant of Fairhair this dynasty would be just a branch of a larger Fairhair dynasty. The kings themselves are not known to have referred to their dynasty with any official name.
Until the 13th century there were no clearly defined succession laws. Instead the succession was based on customs with origins in old Germanic traditions: The situation followed loosely agnatic seniority and agnatic succession with some elements of elective monarchy. All patrilineal male descendants of Harald Hårdråde were entitled to share the kingship. This included sons born outside marriage and many kings had semi-official concubines. To formally become king the candidate had to be hailed at the thing – though he would naturally make sure to have the assembly's support before launching his candidacy. The sources do not record any instance of a candidate being turned down by a thing after demanding to be hailed. As kingship gradually took shape as an institution a few things, particularly Øreting in Trøndelag, received a special status as the places the new king was hailed.
The result of these customs was that brothers and half-brothers would inherit the throne to rule jointly, but such arrangements rarely lasted. As a result, succession was generally a matter of conflict, intrigue, and at times minor civil war. From the 1130s, strifes escalated to a more or less continuous civil war until 1240.
However, during the reign of the Hårdråde branch of the dynasty, it was generally agreed that only patrilineal male descendants of King Harald III, were entitled to the kingship.
Many of the claims by later royal pretenders to belong to the Fairhair dynasty are obvious falsehoods (most notably that of Sverre Sigurdsson).
1163, Magnus V of Norway, the son of a daughter of a previous ruler, ascended to the throne. He was supported by the church, but despite initial success, and the first example of a codified law of succession (allowing his own cognatic heirship), he was overthrown by putative male-line members of the old royal dynasty.
In the 13th century, the kingdom was officially declared hereditary by king Haakon Haakonsson, through a succession system that was based on primogeniture. It was also under Haakon Haakonsson, himself the illegitimate son of king Haakon Sverresson, that legitimacy of birth became a factor in the line of succession. Haakon's eldest son, Sigurd, was accordingly bypassed by Haakon's legitimate sons, Haakon and Magnus.
In the tradition of the Germanic monarchy the king had to be elected by a representative assembly of noblemen. Men eligible for election had to be of royal blood; the eldest son of the previous king was not automatically chosen. During the civil war era the unclear succession laws and the practice of power-sharing between several kings simultaneously gave personal conflicts the potential to become full-blown wars. Over the centuries kings consolidated their power and eventually a strict succession law made Norway a principally hereditary kingdom. As a result of the unions with Denmark and Sweden, the heredity principles were several times flouted in the succession to the throne, until they were explicitly abolished in 1450.
Unions with Denmark and Sweden After the extinction of the male lines of the perceived Fairhair dynasty in 1319, the throne of Norway passed through matrilineal descent to Magnus VII, who in the same year became elected as king of Sweden too. In 1343 Magnus had to abdicate as King of Norway in favour of his younger son, Haakon VI of Norway. The oldest son, Eric, was explicitly removed from the future line of succession of Norway. Traditionally Norwegian historians have interpreted this clear break with previous successions as stemming from dissatisfaction among the Norwegian nobility with Norway's junior position in the union. However it may also be the result of Magnus' dynastic policies. He had two sons and two kingdoms and might have wished they should inherit one each, rather than start battling over the inheritance. Magnus was at the same time attempting to secure Eric's future election as King of Sweden.
The Black Death of 1349–1351 was a contributing factor to the decline of the Norwegian monarchy as the noble families and population in general were gravely affected. But the most devastating factor for the nobility and the monarchy in Norway was the steep decline in income from their holdings. Many farms were deserted and rents and taxes suffered. This left the Norwegian monarchy weakened in terms of manpower, noble support, defence ability and economic power.
After the death of Haakon VI of Norway in 1380, his son Olav IV of Norway succeeded to both the thrones of Norway and Denmark and also claimed the Kingdom of Sweden (holding its westernmost provinces already). Only after his death at the age of 17 his mother Margaret managed to oust their rival, king Albert, from Sweden, and thus united the three Scandinavian kingdoms in personal union under one crown, in the Kalmar Union. Olav's death extinguished yet one Norwegian male royal line; he was also the last Norwegian king to be born on Norwegian soil for the next 567 years.
After the death of Olav IV of Norway in 1387, the closest in line to the succession was the Swedish king Albert of Mecklenburg. However, his succession was politically unacceptable to the Norwegians and Danes. Next in line were the descendants of the Sudreim lineage, legitimate descendants of Haakon V of Norway's illegitimate, but recognized daughter Agnes Haakonardottir, Dame of Borgarsyssel. However, the candidate from this lineage renounced his claim to the throne in favour of Eric of Pomerania, Queen Margaret's favoured candidate. The succession right of this lineage resurfaced in 1448 after the death of King Christopher, but the potential candidate, Sigurd Jonsson, again renounced his candidature – see Sudreim claim. Eric's succession was one in a line of successions which did not precisely follow the laws of inheritance, but excluded one or a few undesirable heirs, leading to Norway formally becoming an elective kingdom in 1450.
Starting with Margaret I of Denmark, the throne of Norway was held by a series of non-Norwegian kings (usually perceived as Danish) who variously held the throne to more than one Scandinavian countries, or of all of them.
In 1440, the Norwegian privy council reluctantly deposed king Eric III (1383–1459), after Denmark and Sweden had done the same. The nearest heir to throne was Eric's cousin, Bugislav, but the succession-laws were overlooked because of the necessity to choose the same king as Denmark and Sweden. Christopher of Bavaria was therefore chosen as Norwegian king.