The kings of the North were not limited, however, in their diplomatic intercourse to the neighboring monarchies; their ambassadors went out to the remotest parts of Europe and even to Africa. Valdemar the Victorious, in his day one of the greatest rulers in Christendom, married as his first wife Dragomir, a Bohemian princess who brought the Dagmar name into Denmark, and took as his second consort Berengaria of Portugal, Queen Bengjerd, whose lofty pride is enshrined in the Danish ballads of the age. Hakon IV married the daughter of his restless rival, Duke Skule; but his daughter Christina was sought in marriage by a prince in far-away Spain. The luckless princess was sent to Castile and was married at Valladolid to a son of Alfonso the Wise.[[76]] Louis IX of France was anxious to enlist the support of the Norwegian king for his crusading ventures and sent the noted English historian Matthew Paris to present the matter to King Hakon.[[77]] The mission, however, was without results. Norwegian diplomacy was concerned even with the courts of the infidel: in 1262 an embassy was sent to the Mohammedan sultan of Tunis “with many falcons and those other things which were there hard to get. And when they got out the Soldan received them well, and they stayed there long that winter.”[[78]]
An important event of the diplomatic type was the coming of Cardinal William of Sabina as papal legate to crown King Hakon. The coronation ceremony was performed in Bergen, July 29, 1247. At the coronation banquet the cardinal made a speech in which, as the Saga of Hakon reports his remarks, he called particular attention to the polished manners of the Northmen. “It was told me that I would here see few men; but even though I saw some, they would be liker to beasts in their behaviour than to men; but now I see here a countless multitude of the folk of this land, and, as it seems to me, with good behaviour.”[[79]] If the King’s Mirror gives a correct statement of what was counted good manners and proper conduct at the court of Hakon IV, the cardinal’s praise is none too strong.
As a part of his discussion of the duties and activities of the king’s henchmen, the author describes the military methods of the age, arms and armour, military engines and devices used in offensive and defensive warfare, and other necessary equipment.[[80]] He also discusses the ethics of the military profession to some extent. This part of the work has been made the subject of a detailed study by Captain Otto Blom of the Danish artillery, who has tried to fix a date for the composition of the King’s Mirror on the basis of these materials.[[81]] It is not likely, however, that the work describes the military art of the North; such an elaborate system of equipment and such a variety of military engines and devices the Norwegians probably never knew at any time in the middle ages. It is the military art of Europe which the author describes, especially the war machinery of the crusades. One should not be surprised to find that he had knowledge of the devices which were employed by the Christian hosts in their warfare against the infidel in the Orient. The crusades attracted the Norwegian warriors and they took a part in them almost from the beginning. The fifth crusade began in 1217, the year of Hakon IV’s accession to the kingship. Several Norwegian chiefs with their followers joined this movement, some marching by land through Germany and Hungary, while others took the sea route. One is tempted to believe that the author was himself a crusader, but it is also possible that he got his information as to the military art of the south and east from warriors who returned from those lands.
From the subject of proper behavior and good breeding the author passes to a discussion of evil conduct and its effect on the welfare of the kingdom. Many causes, he tells us, may combine to bring calamities upon a land, and if the evils continue any length of time, the realm will be ruined.[[82]] There may come dearth upon the fields and the fishing grounds near the shores; plagues may carry away cattle, and the huntsman may find a scarcity of game; but worst of all is the dearth which sometimes comes upon the intellects and the moral nature of men. As a prolific source of calamities of the last sort, the author mentions the institution of joint kingship, the evils of which he discusses at some length. His chapter on this subject is an epitome of Norwegian history in the twelfth century when joint kingship was the rule.
According to the laws of medieval Norway before the thirteenth century, the national kingship was the king’s allodial possession and was inherited by his sons at his death. All his sons were legal heirs, those of illegitimate birth as well as those who were born in wedlock. When there was more than one heir, the kingship was held jointly, all the claimants receiving the royal title and permission to maintain each his own household. Usually a part of the realm was assigned to each; but it was the administration, and not the kingdom itself, which was thus divided. It is readily seen that such a system would offer unusual opportunities for pretenders; and at least three times in one hundred years men whose princely rights were at best of a doubtful character mounted the Norwegian throne. It is an interesting fact that two of these, the strenuous Sverre and the wise Hakon IV, must be counted among the strongest, ablest, and most attractive kings in the history of Norway.
Though there had been instances of joint rule before the twelfth century, the history of that unfortunate form of administration properly begins with the death of Magnus Bareleg on an Irish battlefield in 1103. Three illegitimate sons, the oldest being only fourteen years of age, succeeded to the royal title. One of these was the famous Sigurd Jerusalemfarer, who took part in the later stages of the first crusade. About twenty years after King Magnus’ death, a young Irishman, Harold Gilchrist by name, appeared at the Norwegian court and claimed royal rights as a son of the fallen king. King Sigurd forced him to prove his birthright by an appeal to the ordeal, but the Irishman walked unhurt over the hot plowshares. Harold became king in 1130 as joint ruler with Sigurd’s son Magnus, later called “the Blind.”[[83]] Three of his sons succeeded to the kingship in 1136. During the next century several pretenders appeared and civil war became almost the normal state of the country. Between 1103 and 1217 fifteen princes were honored with the royal title; eleven of these were minors. The period closed with the defeat and death of King Hakon’s father-in-law, the pretender Skule, in 1240.
It was the history of these hundred years and more of joint kingship, of pretenders, of minorities, and of civil war, which the author of the King’s Mirror had in mind when he wrote his gloomy chapter on the calamities that may befall a state. Perhaps he was thinking more especially of the unnatural conflict between King Hakon and Duke Skule,[[84]] which was fought out in 1240, and the memory of which was still fresh at the time when the King’s Mirror was being written.
Of the king and his duties as ruler and judge the Speculum Regale has much to say; but as these matters offer no problems that call for discussion, it will not be necessary to examine them in detail. Wholly different is the case of the king’s relation to the church, of the position of the church in the state, of the divine origin of kingship, of the fulness of the royal authority. On these questions the author’s opinions and arguments are of great importance: in the history of the theory of kingship by the grace of God and divine right and of absolute monarchy, the Speculum Regale is an important landmark.
In the discussion of the origin and powers of the royal office, the King’s Mirror again shows unmistakably the influence of events in the preceding century of Norwegian history. So long as the church of Norway was under the supervision of foreign archbishops, first the metropolitan of distant Hamburg and later the archbishop of the Danish (now Swedish) see of Lund, there was little likelihood of any serious clash between the rival powers of church and state. But when, in 1152, an archiepiscopal see was established at Nidaros (Trondhjem) trouble broke out at once. The wave of enthusiasm for a powerful and independent church, which had developed such vigor in the days of Gregory VII, was still rising high. Able men were appointed to the new metropolitan office and the Norwegian church very soon put forth the usual demands of the time: separate ecclesiastical courts and immunity from anything that looked like taxation or forced contribution to the state. At first these claims had no reality in fact, as the kings would not allow them; but in 1163[[85]] an opportunity came for the church to make its demands effective. In that year a victorious faction asked for the coronation of a new king whose claims to the throne came through his mother only. The pretender was a mere child and the actual power was in the hands of his capable and ambitious father, Erling Skakke. The imperious archbishop Eystein agreed to consecrate the boy king if he would consent to become the vassal of Saint Olaf, or, in other words, of the archbishop of Nidaros. Erling acquiesced and young Magnus was duly crowned. It was further stipulated that in future cases of disputed succession the final decision should rest with the bishops.[[86]] The state was formally made subject to the church. It must be noted, however, that it was not the head of Catholic Christendom who made these claims, but the chief prelate of the national Norwegian church. The theory was doubtless this, that if the pope is superior to the emperor, the archbishop is superior to the king.
The new arrangement did not long remain unchallenged. In 1177 the opposition to the ecclesiastical faction found a leader in Sverre, called Sigurdsson, an adventurer from the Faroe Islands, who pretended to be a grandson of Harold Gilchrist, though the probabilities are that his father was one Unas, a native of the Faroes.[[87]] Sverre’s followers were known as Birchshanks, because they had been reduced to such straits that they had to bind birch bark around their legs. The faction in control of the government was called the Croziermen and was composed of the higher clergy with an important following among the aristocracy. Sverre’s fight was, therefore, not against King Magnus alone but against the Guelph party of Norway. For half a century there was intermittent civil warfare between the supporters of an independent and vigorous kingship on the one side and the partisans of clerical control on the other. King Sverre’s great service to Norway was that he broke the chain of ecclesiastical domination. The conflict was long and bitter and the great king died while it was still on; but when it ended the cause of the Croziermen was lost. The church attained to great power in the Norwegian state, but it never gained complete domination.