How the Vikings founded European dynasties and who Rurik really was

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

These experienced sailors and tough warriors kept the whole of Europe at bay for nearly four centuries. Their ships docked on the shores of North America and Africa, the Byzantine emperors willingly took them into service, and Arab scholars described them in their writings. It was the Vikings who gave the name to the famous route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" and the region of Normandy. Vikings, they are Normans - "people of the north", left their traces not only on the maps. They also founded several ruling dynasties that have played an important role in European history.

Descendants of God: Ynglings

Several large literary monuments tell about this dynasty of Scandinavian kings (that is, the supreme rulers, kings): their history is dedicated to the "Saga of the Ynglings", written by the legendary Icelandic skald Snorri Sturluson, they also appear in the Old English epic "Beowulf" are the heroes of The Icelanders Saga. History is closely intertwined with myth, and along with the first historical rulers of Sweden and Norway, completely mythological characters appear. So, the god of fertility Freyr was considered the founder of the dynasty (the word Ynglingi means the descendants of Yngwie - that was another name of this deity), and some of its representatives were endowed with supernatural powers: it was believed, for example, that Dag the Wise understood the bird language.

The history of the Ynglings is inextricably linked with Uppsala, the ancient capital, cultural and political center of Scandinavia. Even in the 9th century, when the royal residence had long since moved to another place, the supreme ruler was still called the “king of Uppsala”. According to legend, cited by several medieval chroniclers, there once stood a "golden temple" dedicated to the main Scandinavian gods - Odin, Thor and Freyr, the founder of the dynasty; the main pagan festivals were also held here, sometimes accompanied by human sacrifices.

If the appearance of the Ynglings on the historical scene can only be dated approximately (it is appropriate to speak of the turn of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD), then its last representative, Harald the Fair-haired, the first king of Norway, died around 933. He became the founder of the royal dynasty of Horfager, which ruled the country until the XIV century. Harald became famous not only for the unification of Norway, but also for numerous offspring: he had seven wives and almost two dozen sons, and at least four of them became kings or kings - like, say, Eirik the Bloody Ax, who managed to be not only the Norwegian king, but also King of Northumbria.

Gatherers of the Lands: Knutlings

Little is known about the origin of the Knutlings (otherwise Knutlings or the House of Gorm) (according to one version, this family goes back to the legendary Danish king Ragnar Lodbrok - by the way, a representative of the Ingling dynasty, which was described above). The dynasty was named after its first reliably known representative - Knud I Hardeknud (whose nickname means the Cruel). Knud and his son Gorm (later named Old), through the successive unification of the lands, achieved the unification of Denmark into a single whole, and under his grandson Harald Sinezub the country officially adopted Christianity. By the way, Harald himself was canonized by the Catholic Church for his services.

Harald's son - Sven Forkbeard - ruled not only Denmark and Norway, but also became king of England, capturing a significant part of the country. The son of Sven, Cnut the Great, also united all three countries under his rule, and, despite a rather tough rule, remained in history as a wise and skillful king. It was he who laid the foundations for the territorial structure of England, dividing the country into four regions (following the example of his native Denmark), and streamlined English legislation. Contemporaries could only reproach him for bigamy - in order to confirm his rights to the English throne, he (already being married) married the widow of Ethelred II, deposed by his father. The sons of Knud were unable to preserve their father's inheritance: the empire assembled in parts, which united most of Northern Europe, disintegrated. Since they did not leave offspring, the Knütling dynasty stopped at this.

From province to state: Norman dynasty

At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries, France suffered more than once from predatory raids by the Vikings, reaching as far as Paris. In the end, King Charles the Rustic found an unusual solution to the problem: he gave one of the leaders of the invading invaders of the land at the mouth of the Seine, on the condition that he would accept Christianity and swear allegiance to him. Hrolf (or, in the French manner, Rolf) Pedestrian (according to legend, due to his great height and weight, not a single horse could withstand him, hence the nickname) agreed, was baptized under the name Rollon, and at the same time married the king's daughter Gisela, becoming the first Duke of Normandy and the founder of the famous Norman dynasty. As you might guess, the province got its name from the Viking Normans who settled in these lands.

The Norman dukes had to pursue an active policy: the neighbors were not at all happy about the emergence of a new duchy, and the French kings did not abandon the thought of taking these lands back under the rule of the crown. The most famous representative of the dynasty, without a doubt, is William the Conqueror (however, at the beginning of his "career" he bore a much less sonorous nickname - Bastard, that is, the Bastard). It just so happened that Duke Robert the Magnificent, better known as Robert the Devil, had one and only son, born of a concubine.

At first, Wilhelm had to put things in order in his own duchy: not everyone wanted to recognize his rights. And in 1066, after Edward the Confessor dies childless, he becomes a pretender to the English throne. The fate of the crown is decided on October 14, 1066 at the Battle of Hastings: Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, is killed in battle. Two months later, William is crowned at Westminster Abbey. During his reign, the famous Doomsday Book will be compiled - a two-volume census of land holdings in England, a valuable source of information about the life of the country in the 11th century.

After the death of William's grandson, Stephen of Blois, the Plantagenet dynasty will take the English throne.

Visitors from the north: Rurikovichi

The history of the vocation of the Varangians to reign in Novgorod, described in the Tale of Bygone Years, for several centuries has caused (and is causing) fierce disputes among historians, divided into two camps - anti-Normanists and adherents of the so-called "Norman theory". Sometimes the reliability of the events described in the chronicle is questioned, but usually the subject of the proceedings is primarily the nationality of Rurik and his comrades - Truvor and Sineus. Someone considers Rurik the Danish king Rorik, someone considers him to be from one of the West Slavic tribes. Be that as it may, even a DNA test of representatives of the Rurik dynasty, carried out in the 2000s, could not give an unambiguous answer to the question of the origin of the genus.

Rurik became the first prince of ancient Russia recorded in the annals, and his numerous descendants (over time, the clan divided into several branches) ruled at different times in Novgorod, Kiev, Tmutarakan, Chernigov, Suzdal, Polotsk, Galich, Yaroslavl, Moscow. Only a list of princely and noble families originating from Rurik would take a whole page. This dynasty, founded in the 9th century and existed until the 17th century, played a huge role in the history of Russia. Its last representatives on the throne were the son of Ivan the Terrible Fyodor Ioannovich and Vasily Shuisky.

Author: Yuri Arbuzov