Sweyn I of Denmark

Categories: Accuracy disputes | NPOV disputes | Pages needing attention | 960s births | 1014 deaths | Anglo-Saxon monarchs | Danish monarchs | Norwegian monarchs | Viking Age

Svend I "Forkbeard" (Svend Otto Haraldsen; Danish: Svend Tveskæg, originally Tjugeskæg or Tyvskæg, Norwegian: Svein Tjugeskjegg) (c. 960 – February 3, 1014). Svend succeeded his father Harold I "Blåtand" (Bluetooth) as king of Denmark, probably in late 986 or early 987. Svend had coins made with his likeness, being the first Danish king to do so. The inscription read "Zven, Rex ad Dener" which translates as "Svend, king of [the] Danes". The year of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been born before his father accepted Christianity in the early or mid-960s. When the royal family converted Svend is said to have been given the Christian name Otto in honour of the German emperor.

11th century historian Adam of Bremen, whose Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum is strongly anti-Svend, claims that Svend Forkbeard was deposed by king Eric the Victorious of Sweden, who ruled Denmark until his death in 994 or 995. This is highly doubtful; Adam's writings regarding Sweyn and his father are compromised by his (Adam's) desire to emphasize Sweyn's father Harold as a candidate for sainthood, and he claims that Sweyn, who was baptized along with his father, was a heathen.

According to Adam Sweyn was punished by God for supposedly leading the uprising which led to king Harold's death, and had to spend "fourteen years" abroad, an obvious biblical reference. Adam puports that Sweyn was shunned by all those with whom he sought refuge, but was finally allowed to live for a while in Scotland. The Scottish king at the time was apparently known in Europe as a heathen and a murderer, and Adam's intention is obviously to show that Sweyn belonged with heathens and murderers and couldn't rule a Christian country. He only achives succes as a ruler once he accepts Christ as his saviour.

No other western European source supports Adam's allegations, however, and while some sort of conflict between Danes and Swedes may have taken place during Sweyn's reign, the idea of him being deposed is completely without foundation. It also seems improbable that a weak monarch who had only just regained his throne would have undertaken a large expedition like the raid against England in 994. And furthermore, Sweyn Forkbeard is known with a high degree of certainty to have presided over a meeting between two of his earls on the Danish island of Sejerø near Zealand's northeastern tip in 993, at least a year before the death of king Erik and Sweyn's supposed "return" to Denmark. The meeting is believed to have taken place because of an apparent feud between the earl of Bornholm and the earl of Scania, and the king himself came sailing to Sejerø (the probable site of the Battle of Svoldr seven years later) with a large fleet of 60 ships.

King Sweyn was never a heathen, but he did enlist priests and bishops from England rather than from Hamburg, and this must have given Adam of Bremen further cause to dislike him. Sweyn must have known that once the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen had gained influence in Denmark, the German emperor Otto II would not be far behind; his Slavic neigbours to the south-east had all but been annexed by Germany once Otto's father Otto I had their lands divided in to bishoprics and put under the "care" of the Holy Roman emperor.

Sweyn Forkbeard seems to have married king Erik of Sweden's widow after Erik's death, gaining some measure of influence in Sweden through Erik's underaged son Olof. The name of the queen is not known; the ambitious Sigrid the Haughty of legend is purely fictitious.

Following the death of Norway's king Olaf I in the Battle of Svolder, Sweyn established Danish control over a part of Norway, with Eirik Håkonsson Earl as his vassal. Sweyn was probably behind most of the raids against England in 1003-1005, 1006-1007, and 1009-1012, following the St. Brice's Day massacre of England's Danish inhabitants in November 1002. The king acquired massive sums of Danegeld, and in 1013 Sweyn himself led the Danish fleet in a full-scale invasion.

The contemporary Laud Chronicle states that "before the month of August came king Sweyn with his fleet to Sandwich. He went very quickly about East Anglia into the Humber's mouth, and so upward along the Trent till he came to Gainsborough. Eorl Uhtred and all Northumbria quickly bowed to him, as did all the folk of Lindsey, then the folk of the Five Boroughs. (...) He was given hostages from each shire. When he understood that all the people had submitted to him, he bade that his force should be provisioned and horsed; he went south in full force, and entrusted his ships and the hostages to his son Cnut. After he came over Watling Street, they worked the most evil that a force might do. They went to Oxford, and the town-dwellers soon bowed to him, and gave hostages. From there they went to Winchester, and did the same, then eastward to London."

But the Londoners are said to have destroyed the bridges that spanned the river Thames ("London Bridge is falling down"), and Sweyn suffered heavy losses and had to withdraw. The chronicles tell that "king Sweyn went from there to Wallingford, over the Thames to Bath, and stayed there with his troops; ealdorman Aethelmaer came, and the western thegns with him. They all bowed to Sweyn and gave hostages."

London had withstood the assault of the Danish army, but the city was now alone, isolated within a country which had completely surrendered. Sweyn Forkbeard was accepted as King of England following the flight to Normandy of king Ethelred the Unready in late 1013. London had finally surrendered to him, and the Witan declared Sweyn "full king" on Christmas day.

Sweyn based himself in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and began to organize his vast new kingdom, but he died in Gainsborough on February 3rd 1014, having ruled England unopposed for only five weeks. His body was subsequently returned to Denmark. He was succeeded as King of Denmark by his elder son, Harold II; the Danish fleet proclaimed his younger son Canute as King of England, but they and he returned to Denmark, with Ethelred being restored. Later, Canute ruled in Denmark, England, Norway and some parts of northern Germany.

Sweyn Forkbeard's nickname, which was probably used during his lifetime, refers to a long, pitchfork-like moustache, a "tjuge" in Old Norse, not to a full beard. Such a moustache was fashionable at the time, particularly in England.

For litterary sources see professor Niels Lund: "Harald Blåtands Død" [The Death of Harold Bluetooth], Roskilde Museum's publishing house, Denmark 1997.

da:Svend 1. Tveskæg de:Sven Gabelbart fr:Svein Ier de Danemark is:Sveinn tjúguskegg nl:Sven I van Denemarken ja:スヴェン1世 (デンマーク王) no:Svein Tveskjegg pl:Swen Widłobrody pt:Sweyn I da Dinamarca sv:Sven Tveskägg