|1047 to 1064.|
By the death of Magnus the Good, Harald Hardrade was the undisputed king of Norway. He aspired also to the throne of Denmark, from which he endeavoured to unseat his former ally Sweyn. His desultory operations and his decisive victory over the Dane, in 1062, we have before related. Two years afterwards peace was made, no permanent advantage having been gained by either.
|1066.|
On the death of Edward the Confessor, and the accession of Harald the son of earl Godwin, the Norwegian monarch led an armament against that usurper. The ambition which could prompt him to such an undertaking was not very measured; but it was characteristic of this king, whose early familiarity with danger, and whose wild adventures in the East and North, had rendered him confident of success. If the English were not favourable to earl Godwin’s son, they could scarcely be so to him; and the hope of conquest, when so valiant a competitor as William of Normandy was entering the field, would have appeared futile to any less desperate man. The result is known to every reader of English history: at Stamford-Bridge Harald found a grave.
|1066 to 1069.|
From the fatal shores of England Olaf III., the son of Harald, returned to Norway, and with his brother Magnus II. was elected to the government. The former had the eastern, the latter the northern, provinces of the kingdom. In three years Magnus paid the common debt, and Olaf became monarch of the whole.
|1069 to 1093.|
The reign of Olaf was pacific; and he applied his efforts to the civilisation of his kingdom. He first introduced chimneys and glass windows into houses: he established a commercial emporium at Bergen; and to him we must ascribe the introduction of guilds or mercantile fraternities, after the model of those existing in Germany and England. He must be praised, too, for his humanity to the servile class: he carried in the national Thing a law that in every district throughout Norway a serf should be annually enfranchised. To the church he was a munificent patron. At Nidaros, or Drontheim, he began to build a stone cathedral, destined to receive the hallowed relics of his ancestor. “This city,” says Adam of Bremen, the contemporary of Olaf the Pacific, “is the capital of the Northmen. It is adorned with churches, and frequented by a great concourse of people. Here lies the body of the holy king and martyr Olaf, at whose tomb miracles are daily wrought: here, from the most distant nations, pilgrims flock to his shrine to share in his blessed merits. Hitherto there are no fixed limits to the dioceses in Norway and Sweden. Any bishop, when desired by the king and people, may build a church in any district, and govern those whom he converts to the day of his death.” These regionary bishops, as they are called, moved from place to place, baptising and preaching as they went along; and assuredly this is a more useful, a more apostolic practice than that which has since prevailed.
|1093 to 1095.|
Magnus III., surnamed Barfoet, or the Barefoot, succeeded his father Olaf III. At first, he was acknowledged by the southern provinces: in the northern was opposed to him Hako, nephew of the late king. Though death soon rid him of that rival, an army only could induce those provinces to receive him.