Siward ( or more recently ; ) or Sigurd (, ;The English name Siward or Sigeweard was cognate to the single Old Norse name written variously as Sigvarðr and Sigurðr; see Holman, Northern Conquest, p. 103; Munch (ed.), Chronica regum Manniae et Insularum, vol. i, p. 140; Stevenson, Simeon of Durham, p. 119. He was known in Latin as Siwardus. died 1055) was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts.Barlow (ed.), Life of King Edward, p. 35 (= Vita Ædwardi, i. 3); Aird, "Siward"; see also reference in on the Vita Waldevi below He emerged as a regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered most of England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath, rising to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest, he was in control of southern Northumbria, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.
Siward entrenched his position in northern England by marrying Ælfflæd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He supported Cnut's successors Harthacnut and Edward with vital military aid and counsel, and probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s. There is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s, Siward turned against the Scottish king Mac Bethad mac Findlaích ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the adventure in Scotland earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually become Earl of Northumbria in 1072. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward.
Sources Source material on Siward's life and career is scarce. No contemporary or near-contemporary biography has survived, and narratives from around the time of his life such as the Encomium Emmae and the Vita Ædwardi Regis scarcely mention him; historians depend on a few entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and comparable Irish sources. Later Anglo-Norman histories may or may not be reliable, but useful ones include the Chronicle of John of Worcester (compiled between 1124 and 1140),Gransden, Historical Writing, p. 144 William of Malmesbury (writing between c. 1125 and 1142),Thomson, "Malmesbury, William of" Henry of Huntingdon (writing between c. 1133 and 1154),Gransden, Historical Writing, p. 194 and Orderic Vitalis (writing between c. 1114 and 1141).Gransden, Historical Writing, p. 152 Other sourcesFor source discussion in this period, see Lawson, Cnut, pp. 39–80 and Gransden, Historical Writing, passim; for particular relevant analysis, see sources used by Duncan, Kingship, pp. 33–43 and Woolf, Pictland to Alba, pp. 248–71 include the material attributed to Symeon of Durham (compiled and written as extant between the late 11th century and the first half of the 12th century).The texts in question are the Historia Regum, the Libellus de exordio, De primo Saxonum adventu and De obsessione Dunelmi; the Libellus de exordio is likely to have been "authored" by Symeon; see Rollason, Symeon of Durham, pp. xlii–l, lxxvii–xci, et passim, for a recent discussion Legendary material, such as that in hagiography or later medieval sources such as John of Fordun or Andrew of Wyntoun, is not generally regarded as useful beyond its limited potential for cleanly preserving earlier source material.Duncan, Kingship, passim; Broun, Scottish Independence, passim
Background
Siward's career in northern England spanned the reigns of four monarchs; from Cnut, Harold Harefoot, and Harthacnut, into the early years of Edward the Confessor. Most important was the reign of Cnut, in which so many new political figures rose to power that some historians compare it to the Norman Conquest five decades later.E.g. Fleming, Kings and Lords, pp. 21–52 These "new men" were military figures, usually with weak hereditary links to the West Saxon royal house that Cnut had deposed. As Cnut ruled several Scandinavian kingdoms in addition to England, power at the highest level was delegated to such strongmen.Lawson, Cnut, pp. 81–102; Sawyer, ""Cnut's Scandinavian empire", pp. 10–22 In England, it fell to a handful of newly promoted "ealdormen" or "earls", who each ruled a shire or group of shires on behalf of the king.See, for a list and discussion of Cnut's earls, Keynes, "Cnut's earls", pp. 43–88; the term was, by Cnut's reign, interchangeable with the Scandinavian word earl, which supplanted the former by the end of the 11th-century (Crouch, Image of the Aristocracy, pp. 46–50) Siward was, in the words of historian Robin Fleming, "the third man in Cnut's new triumvirate of earls",Fleming, Kings and Lords, p. 49 the other two being Godwine, Earl of Wessex and Leofwine, Earl of Mercia.
Northern England in the 11th-century was a region quite distinct from the rest of the country. The former kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Humber and Mersey estuaries, northward to the Firth of Forth, where, passing the western Kingdom of Strathclyde, it met the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland).Lewis, "Introduction", p. 6; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, pp. 232–40 Northumbria had been united with the West Saxon English kingdom only in the 950s, by King Eadred, and subsequent control was exerted through the agency of at least two ealdormen, one to the north and one to the south of the River Tees.Rollason, Northumbria, pp. 65–66; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, pp. 190, 211 The former is associated with the stronghold of Bamburgh, while the latter is associated with the great Roman city of York.Fletcher, Bloodfeud, passim; Kapelle, Norman Conquest, passim It was a politically fragmented region. The western part, from Lancashire to Cumberland, formed an older British stronghold and experienced links with and settlement of Gaels, while in the rest of Northumbria; British (predominantly in Yorkshire and further North)Anderson, AO (1922). Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500–1286. I. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. p. 441.Downham, Clare (2007). Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-1903765890.Dumville, D. N. (2001). "St Cathróe of Metz and the hagiography of exoticism". In John Carey, Máire Herbert and Pádraig Ó Riain (ed.). Studies in Irish Hagiography. Dublin. p. 177. ISBN 978-1851824861. English and Anglo-Scandinavian(generally restricted to the eastern coasts) regional magnates—thegns, holds and high-reeves—exercised a considerable degree of independence from the ealdormen.Bolton, Empire of Cnut, pp. 109–18 One such example was the magnate Thurbrand, a hold in Yorkshire, probably based in Holderness, whose family were frequently at odds with the ruling earls at Bamburgh.Bolton, Empire of Cnut, pp. 114–17 Fletcher, Bloodfeud, passim
Ancestry "The Stories of the ancients tell us that Ursus (a certain nobleman whom the Lord, contrary to what normally happens in human procreation, allowed to be created from a white bear as a father and a noblewoman as a mother), begot Spratlingus; Spratlingus begot Ulfius; and Ulfius begot Beorn, who was nicknamed Beresune, that is, "Bear's Son". This Beorn was Danish by race, a distinguished earl and famous soldier. As a sign, however, that due to part of his ancestry he was of a different species, nature had given him the ears of his father's line, namely those of a bear. In all other features he was of his mother's appearance. And after many manly deeds and military adventures, he begot a son, a tried imitator of his father's strength and military skill. His name was Siward, nicknamed Diere, that is, the Stout (grossus)". — A description of Siward's ancestry and his father Beorn, taken from the Vita Waldevi, a saint's life dedicated to Siward's son Waltheof. Historians generally claim Siward to be of Scandinavian origin, a conclusion supported by the Vita Ædwardi Regis, which states that Siward was "[called] Digri in the Danish tongue" (Danica lingua Digara).Barlow (ed.), Life of King Edward, pp. 34–35 Legendary material incorporated in the Vita et passio Waldevi comitis (or simply Vita Waldevi), the hagiographic biography of Siward's son Waltheof, states that Siward was the son of a Scandinavian earl named Bjorn and provides a genealogy claiming that he was the descendant of a polar bear,Michel, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, vol. ii, p. 104 ; Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon, pp. 162–63 a commonplace piece of Germanic folklore.For a collection of such accounts see Panzer, Beowulf, vol. i, pp. 16–29; Axel Olrik noted the correspondence between Siward's genealogy and two others: Saxo Grammaticus's genealogy of King Sweyn Estridsson of Denmark; and the genealogy of Sweyn's brother Earl Bjorn recorded by John of Worcester (, "Siward Digri", pp. 218–19, 234; Darlington, McGurk & Bray (eds.), Chronicle of John of Worcester, vol. ii, pp. 548–49; Christiansen, Saxo Grammaticus, vol. i, pp. 29–30). Saxo related that Thorgil Sprakling (i.e. Spatlingus), the father of Earl Ulf (i.e. Ulfius) father of Bjorn and Sweyn, was similarly born from a bear (Christiansen, Saxo Grammaticus, vol. i, p. 190). Saxo may have borrowed from Siward's story and genealogy when he wrote his account of Sprakling (, "Siward Digri", p. 234, noting in n. 1 that the name of Siward's son, Osbjorn ("bear spirit") strengthens the idea that Siward's father was actually called Bjorn); alternatively, the earlier version in John of Worcester may have been the source for both (Christiansen, Saxo Grammaticus, vol. i, p. 190, who nevertheless believes Saxo may have had access to the Vita Waldevi or the sources behind it).
Historian Timothy Bolton has recently argued that the similarities between these genealogies is evidence of a shared family tradition between the descendants of Siward and Thorgil Sprakling. Bolton hypothesized that Siward's alleged father Bjorn was probably a historical figure, a brother of Thorgil Sprakling. Siward would then have been first cousin to Earl Ulf, the earl of Denmark who married Cnut's sister Estrith and founded the dynasty of Danish monarchs that eventually succeeded Cnut's.Bolton, "Ancestors of the Danish Royal Family?", pp. 42–71 Bolton argued that the Sprakling family had only recently risen to prominence in Scandinavia, and so Siward's career in England was another indication of that family's success in Scandinavian politics.Bolton, "Ancestors of the Danish Royal Family?", p. 71
The Vita Waldevi provides further legendary detail of Siward's journey from Scandinavia to England. According to the Vita, Siward passed through Orkney, killing a dragon there before moving on to Northumbria. There he encountered another dragon, before meeting an Odin-like old man on a hill,See Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon, pp. 128, 131, for discussion of the raven banner and the old man on the hill as Oðinn; Siward's dragon-slaying can be compared to the dragon-slaying of his namesake Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer who handed him a raven banner and instructed him to proceed to London to receive the patronage of the king of England.Michel, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, vol. ii, p. 104 ; Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon, pp. 125–33, 162–66
Career under Cnut, Harold and Harthacnut