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The Easter Revenge Of The Lombards Against The City Of Forlimpopoli

By
thehistorianshut
-

King Grimoald, who usurped power over the Lombards in 662, faced an early crisis when Emperor Constans II of Constantinople (r. 641-668) personally departed from Greece and moved to Italy in 663. While residing in Italy, the emperor had three main objectives—to build power in Sicily, to dominate the Roman popes, and to wage war against the Lombards, who had wrested much of Italy from Constantinople’s control during the last century. While King Grimoald did not care much about Sicily or the pope, he did take seriously the increased pressure that Emperor Constans was putting on the Lombard kingdom’s southern territories.

In particular, the Lombard dukedom of Benevento—ruled by Grimoald’s bastard son, Duke Romuald—was potentially in danger of being overrun by Emperor Constans’ armies. King Grimoald saved Benevento, however, by personally moving south with troops and supplies, driving off the imperial armies and allowing Duke Romuald and the Beneventines to instead go on the offensive. Yet, although most of the fighting at that time was occurring in southern Italy, the Empire of Constantinople still controlled land in northern Italy, too. Notably, the imperial stronghold of Ravenna was a major thorn in the side of the Lombard kingdom. But, curiously, another imperially-aligned city in the same northern area proved even more annoying than Ravenna for the Lombards while Grimoald and Emperor Constans II were at war. The name of this second city was Forlimpopoli.

Located just south of Ravenna, the city of Forlimpopoli curiously became aware of a path that Lombard messengers and couriers were using during the war between King Grimoald and Emperor Constans II. With this intelligence in their possession, Forlimpopoli decided to help the imperial cause by sabotaging and harassing the Lombard supply lines and communications network. King Grimoald took bitter notice of the city’s enthusiastic actions against the Lombards. According to the Lombard historian, Paul the Deacon (c. 720-799), Grimoald quickly filled with rage against this “Forum Populi (Forlimpopoli), a certain city of the Romans, whose citizens had inflicted certain injuries upon him when he was setting out for Beneventum and had often annoyed his couriers going from Beneventum and returning” (Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, 5.27). To King Grimoald, such harassment could not go unanswered. And answer it he would.

Unfortunately for Forlimopopoli, the Lombard king already had an inflated hate of all things related to the Empire of Constantinople. This hatred formed in the king’s youth, when imperial officials reportedly assassinated two of his brothers. Therefore, when King Grimoald was masterminding his revenge, his plans did not include mercy. To have his vengeance, the Lombard king also allegedly did not mind a little sacrilege, for he scheduled his military operation to occur on the Easter holiday. An account of what reportedly happened next was recorded by the aforementioned historian, Paul the Deacon:

“[W]ithout any knowledge of the Romans, he rushed unexpectedly upon that city on the holy day Sabbath of Easter itself in the hour when the baptism was occurring and made so great a carnage of men slain that he killed in the sacred font itself even those deacons who were baptizing little infants. And so he overthrew that city and very few inhabitants remain in it up to the present time” (Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, 5.27).

Such was the fate that the city of Forlimpopoli reportedly experienced after stoking the wrath of King Grimoald. In the same state of mind, the king also personally was said to have eradicated the Constantinople-aligned city of Opitergium or Oderzo. Unlike at Forlimpopoli, Grimoald resettled the second destroyed city with Lombards.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Siege of Jerusalem from BL Royal 20 C IV, f. 263v, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons, Europeana, and The British Library).

 

Sources:

  • History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon, translated by William Dudley Foulke (c. 1904). University of Pennsylvania Press, 1907, 1974, 2003.

The Death Of Lucius Aemilius Paullus At The Battle Of Cannae, Painted By John Trumbull (c. 1756–1843)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the American artist John Trumbull (c. 1756–1843), was inspired by the famous Battle of Cannae, fought in 216 BCE during the opening years of the Second Punic War (c. 218-201 BCE) between the rival ancient superpowers of Rome and Carthage. In the inaugural year of the war, Carthage’s great military leader, Hannibal Barca, crossed the Alps into Italy, after facing harassment from Pyrenean, Gallic, and Alpine peoples, not to mention further punishment from the weather. Despite suffering losses on his mountainous march, Hannibal’s army remained strong enough to repeatedly defeat challenges from the Roman military in 218 and 217 BCE. In 216 BCE, while Hannibal was threatening strategic local water and food supplies at Cannae, the Romans decided to make a bold gamble by dispatching Rome’s two consuls, Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro, with a huge army that was nearly double the size of Hannibal’s own force. Nevertheless, people who gamble big are vulnerable to huge losses.

The Battle of Cannae, it can be said, was Hannibal’s masterpiece of troop and terrain management. Virtually nothing was left unchecked in Hannibal’s masterminding of advantages for his outnumbered force. He controlled the region’s water and food supplies; the dusty winds harmlessly hit his army’s back, whereas they irritated the eyes of the Romans; and he forced the battle to occur along a valley and river that made it awkward for the Romans to comfortably deploy their massive army. These were some of the terrain advantages that empowered the Carthaginian army. Yet, Hannibal’s managing and maneuvering of his troops during the battle were what really cemented the fame of Cannae. When the battle commenced, Hannibal’s smaller army pulled off an impressive maneuver known as a double envelopment. Simply put, Hannibal lured the Romans deep into a crescent-shaped formation, and before the Romans realized that they were beginning to be dangerously outflanked by the edges of the Carthaginian crescent, Hannibal sent his cavalry to attack the Romans from behind, completing the encirclement of the Roman army. A massacre ensued, and according to the ancient sources, between 55,000 and 70,000 Romans died on that battlefield, including the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus. The Roman historian, Livy (c. 59 BCE-17 CE), recorded an account of how Paullus was said to have died:

“The whole force was now broken and dispersed. Those who could, recovered their horses, hoping to escape. Lentulus, the military tribune, as he rode by saw the consul Paullus sitting on a stone and bleeding profusely…The two men were still speaking when a crowd of fugitives swept by. The Numidians were close on their heels. Paullus fell under a shower of spears, his killers not even knowing whom they killed” (Livy, History of Rome, 22.49)

It is this scene of the defeated consul, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, sitting helplessly on a rock as the circle of Carthaginians tightens its stranglehold on the Roman army, that the artist, John Trumbull, paints in the artwork above. As the quote conveyed, Paullus would be killed before the day was over, along with the vast majority of the Roman army that had been deployed for battle. The other Roman consul, Gaius Terentius Varro, was able to escape the slaughter and returned safely to Rome with other survivors.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Lua Mater—Goddess Of Blood, Loot And Fire

By
thehistorianshut
-

Lua Mater, or Mother Lua, was a mysterious ancient Italian goddess who provided a paradoxical spiritual service for the ancient Romans. On the one hand, Lua offered the Romans a way to atone for the bloodshed and cruelty of war through ceremonies that were carried out in her honor. Yet, on the other hand, Lua also had a reputation of being a potentially destructive and dangerous war goddess who needed to be kept happy. Thankfully for the Romans, a single ritual could be performed that fulfilled both of these required actions of appeasement and atonement. This ceremony entailed the sacrificial burning of loot that had been plundered from enemies of Rome.

Livy (c. 59 BCE-17 CE), a historian from ancient Rome, recorded two descriptions of how the ancient Romans might have performed their burnt offering rituals for Lua. The first that he described was an impromptu ceremony organized after the Romans defeated an army from Antium around 341 BCE. As told by Livy, “A great quantity of arms was found, not only amongst the enemy’s dead but also in their camp. The consul announced that he was dedicating these to Mother Lua, and proceeded to lay waste to the enemy’s territory as far as the sea coast” (Livy, Roman History, Book 8, section 1). Shifting tens of books ahead, and therefore skipping centuries into the future in Livy’s narrative, another offering to Lua was described that took place around 167 BCE. This time, it was a much more formal ceremony, and other war-associated deities were included in the festivities. Livy wrote, “After the festival had been held and the bronze shields loaded into ships, the rest of the arms of all kinds were piled up into a great heap, and the general, after prayer to Mars, Minerva, Mother Lua, and the other gods to whom it is right and lawful to dedicate the spoils of the enemy, with his own hands put the torch to the pile; then each of the military tribunes as they stood round about tossed in [more] fire” (Livy, Roman History, 45.33). Through ceremonies such as these, the Romans could both placate the goddess and expiate themselves from the spiritual and psychological burdens of bloodshed.

Unfortunately, any further details about the goddess, herself, are few and far between. These quotes from Livy, describing the war-themed offerings burned in her honor, are the bulk of what is known about her personalized responsibilities as a goddess. Besides her individualized connection to destruction, war and atonement, Mother Lua is best known for being the consort of the Roman god, Saturn.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Minerva in a Chariot, by Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Smithsonian Institute).

 

Sources:

Penelope Unraveling Her Web, by Joseph Wright of Derby (c. 1734 – 1797)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the English artist Joseph Wright (c. 1734 – 1797), was inspired by a scene from The Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic poem written by Homer (c. 8th century BCE). In the artwork, Joseph Wright features two of the poetic tale’s key characters, Penelope and Telemachus, the wife and child of Odysseus—the man that the Odyssey was named after. Clever and cunning Odysseus had left his homeland of Ithaca to participate in the Trojan War, where his keen intellect played a significant role in the eventual Greek triumph over the Trojans. Unfortunately for Penelope and Telemachus, Odysseus’ stint in the Trojan War lasted for ten years, and his monster-fraught journey home took just as long. To Penelope’s credit, she never ceased in her hope and belief that Odysseus would one day return, even as her agonizing wait reached its twentieth year. Others in Greece, however, were not so sure that Odysseus would ever come home. Therefore, opportunistic gentlemen callers began to crowd into Penelope’s estate, hoping to win her hand in marriage (along with her wealth and land). Penelope, nevertheless, always managed to find a way to fend these men off, including in the way shown above in Joseph Wright’ painting.

As the story goes, Penelope’s father-in-law, Laertes, was growing quite old while the family was still awaiting Odysseus’ return, and people feared that Laertes was nearing death’s door. Penelope used the morbid prospect of his potential death as an opportunity to delay the marriage proposals of the suitors, claiming that she was duty-bound to weave a burial shroud for Laertes, and that she could not begin to humor the idea of a new marriage until she finished her father-in-law’s shroud. The suitors agreed to her demand, but they soon became wrestless and suspicious as Penelope’s weaving dragged on for years. Homer, narrating from the viewpoint of the suitors, described this clever episode, writing, “On her loom in her house she set up a great web and began weaving a large and delicate piece of work…So by day she used to weave at the great web, but every night had torches set beside it and undid the work. For three years she took us in by this trick” (The Odyssey, Book 2, approximately lines 90-110). Such is the scene that is unraveling (pardon the pun) in the painting above.

Unfortunately for Penelope, one of her servants betrayed the secret of the shroud to the suitors, who then forced the outed woman to complete the sabotaged garment. Yet, just as the suitors were beginning to gain an advantage in their struggle to force Penelope to choose a new husband, Odysseus finally returned to Ithaca. Odysseus, understandably, did not take kindly to the vultures he found circling his family and home. In the end, Odysseus massacred all of the suitors who had been pestering Penelope for so long.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Machiavelli

By
thehistorianshut
-

Machiavelli (c. 1469-1527)

“The chief foundations of all states, whether new, old, or mixed, are good laws and good arms.”

  • From The Prince (chapter 12) by Machiavelli, translated and printed by the Henry Regnery Company, 1948.

The Migration Of Thorhadd The Old’s Temple To Iceland

By
thehistorianshut
-

A man known as Thorhadd the Old reportedly was the priest and owner of a temple in the Møre (or Moere) and Trondheim area of Norway, which was a sacred region for the traditional Norse religion. Thorhadd was a contemporary of King Harald Finehair of Norway (ruled approximately 860-940), whose reign coexisted with the so-called Age of Settlement period in Iceland (c. 860-930). Many Norwegians were, at that time, sailing to Iceland to start new lives on the island, and Thorhadd, too, was infected by the frenzy to claim new land. He joined the proverbial bandwagon (or ship), as it were, and began readying himself for a journey overseas to Iceland. Thorhadd, however, did not want to leave his temple and his religious duties behind. He nevertheless worked out a fix for his problem, and, as the legend goes, this solution was to bring his temple with him to Iceland.

Driven by his desire to travel, Thorhadd began carefully deconstructing his temple and preserving its pillars with as little damage as possible. He also scooped up some earth from the grounds of the temple, packaging the soil for sea travel. With his sacred lumber, earth and other supplies packed, the old priest was ready for his voyage. These details and more were preserved in the medieval Icelandic Books of Settlements (Landnámabók), which stated “Thorhadd the Old was a temple priest at Moere in Trondheim. He had a great desire to go to Iceland, but before he set off, he dismantled the temple and took the pillars and some earth from under the temple with him” (Landnámabók, Stulubók manuscript, chapter 297). After setting sail with his mobile temple and blessed earth, Thorhadd successfully crossed to the eastern coast of Iceland and disembarked near the Stöðvarfjörður region. There, Thorhadd the Old reportedly reassembled his temple and proclaimed that the nearby fjords were sacred land.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (cropped and modified section of The Reconciliation (from Frithiof’s saga), by August Malmström (c. 1829-1901), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the National Museum in Stockholm Sweden).

 

 

Sources:

  • The Book of Settlements (Sturlubók version) translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1972, 2006.

King Midas Turns An Oak Branch To Gold, Painted By Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the French artist Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), was inspired by the most famous ancient myth about King Midas of Phrygia. In the events preceding this scene, Midas or his people had come across a lost and drunk satyr named Silenus, who was searching for his companions. Met with this satyr in need, King Midas decided to help Silenus find his way back to his people. Midas succeeded in his quest, and found that Silenus’ friends were quite a peculiar bunch—it was the god, Dionysus (or Bacchus), and his festive entourage.

When Midas strolled with the misplaced satyr into the presence of Dionysus, the god was happy to see his friend returned. In gratitude, Dionysus decided to grant Midas a wish, and the chosen gift could even be the bequeathment of a supernatural power. Midas gleefully accepted the offer and asked for an ability that let him turn anything he touched into gold. Dionysus granted his wish, and King Midas walked away from the meeting imbued with the newfound power that he had wished for. Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE), a Roman poet, narrated what happened next:

“Midas departed in high delight with his bane of a present,
and put the gift to the test at once by touching some objects.
Passing an oak with low green boughs, he uncertainly pulled
at a leafy twig; the twig and its foliage turned to gold.
He lifted a stone from the ground; that also became pure gold.
He touched a clod; the power in his fingers converted the soft earth
into a hard nugget. Plucking the ears in a ripe cornfield,
he reaped a harvest of gold. He picked an apple and held it—
a present from the Hesperides’ garden? He rested his hands
on the doors of his lofty palace: the doors appeared to be glowing.”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 11.106-115)

Nicolas Poussin depicts the first of Midas’ golden test runs in the painting. Following Ovid’s account, Midas can be seen holding a branch pulled from the oak tree, albeit he does so curiously in front of an audience of scantily-clad figures. After the scene at the tree, and once Midas returned to his palace, he soon found his new powers to be more of a curse than a gift. Food and drink turned to gold at his touch, and he could not avoid transforming these vital forms of sustenance by using utensils, for even if morsels or liquid entered his mouth unchanged, they would turn to gold as soon as they touched a side of his throat. He ultimately begged Dionysus to take back the gift, and, to the god’s credit, Dionysus did remove Midas’ powers before the king died of malnutrition or thirst.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

The Legend Of Aeschines’ Humble Rejection Of Applause

By
thehistorianshut
-

Aeschines (c. 390-314 BCE) was a prominent Athenian politician, orator, and teacher of rhetoric in the tumultuous 4th century BCE. He lived during the meteoric rise of Macedonian dominance in the Greek world, which was set on track by King Philip II of Macedon (r. 359-336 BCE) and was brought to further fruition by the famed Alexander the Great (r. 336-322 BCE). As a politician and statesman, Aeschines advocated for Athenian peace and coexistence with the Macedonians. Yet, in the battle to shape debate and policy, Aeschines was defeated by his arch-rival orator, the great Demosthenes (c. 384-322 BCE), who became the spokesman for Athenian resistance to Macedonian influence. Active Greek military defiance of the Macedonians was gutted, however, when King Philip II and Alexander won the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, which cinched the Macedonian hegemony over Greece. Despite failing to stop the ascendance of Philip and Alexander in Greek politics, Demosthenes remained an incredibly popular figure in Athens, and his bitter feud with Aeschines continued in daily Athenian life. Demosthenes charged Aeschines with treason, and Aeschines similarly litigated a case about Demosthenes illegally receiving a golden crown. Both Demosthenes and Aeschines failed to get the results they wanted in their cases, but Aescheines was the least popular of the two, and he decided to go into exile around 330 BCE. Aeschines retired to Rhodes, where he gave up his political ambitions and devoted himself to teaching rhetoric.

Aeschines had witnessed the power of Demosthenes’ oratory firsthand—it had driven him out of Athens, after all—and so, for teaching purposes, Aeschines was said to have tamped down his own pride in order to use his rival’s speeches for the purpose of educating his students about the art of speech and persuasion. As a talented orator himself, Aeschines could reproduce Demosthenes’ speeches to great effect, often eliciting the applause of his audiences. Yet, according to legend, these bursts of applause for performances of speeches that he did not personally write started to irk Aeschines. During one such instance when he was being cheered over lines he had not personally penned, Aeschines politely and wittily chided the applauding crowd and humbly reminded them that the original performance of the speech by its actual author was much better than his own rendition. This tale survived for centuries to find its way to the mind of the Roman writer, Pliny the Younger (c. 61/61-113), who recalled in a letter, “the tale of Aeschines at Rhodes, who countered the general applause he won for reading one of Demosthenes’ speeches with the words: ‘Suppose you had heard the beast himself?’ And yet, if we are to believe Demosthenes, Aeschines had a very good voice; all the same, he admitted that the speech had been much better when its author delivered it himself” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 2.3). Such tales are food for thought in an age filled with speechwriters and teleprompters.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Cropped section of a study for Anthony’s Oration over the body of Caesar,  by Edwin Austin Abbey (c. 1852–1911), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Yale University Art Gallery).

 

Sources:

A Roman Feast, By Roberto Bompiani (c. 1821 – 1908)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the Italian artist Roberto Bompiani (c. 1821 – 1908), strives to depict what it might have looked like to witness a luxurious feast thrown by a wealthy host at the height of ancient Roman prosperity. Bompiani relied on artifacts, archaeology and descriptions from Roman, Etruscan and Greek sources to create his convincing scene. One such vivid, lively and humorous description of an ancient Roman feast came from the preserved letters of Pliny the Younger (c. 61/61-113)—a prolific penpal with various Roman lawyers, statesmen, military men and intellectuals. In a message sent to a certain Septicius Clarus (who was a no-show at a banquet he had promised to attend), Pliny the Younger lavishly described everything that Septicius had missed out on at the feat. Pliny wrote:

“Who are you, to accept my invitation to dinner and never come? Here’s your sentence and you shall pay my costs in full, no small sum either. It was all laid out, one lettuce each, three snails, two eggs, barley-cake, and wine with honey chilled with snow (you will reckon this too please, and as an expensive item, seeing that it disappears in the dish), besides olives, beetroots, gherkins, onions, and any number of similar delicacies. You would have heard a comic play, a reader or singer, or all three if I felt generous” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 1.15).

Roberto Bompiani’s artwork paints a similar scene as Pliny the Younger’s descriptive letter. In both, the host of the feast spared no expense to please and impress his guests. Roberto Bompiani, however, seemed to leave out Pliny’s suggestion of actors, orators or musicians. Nevertheless, a lyre can be seen lying on the floor for anyone brave enough to strike a tune. That aside, the crowd looks content with the food, drink and conversation.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

The Rival Norwegian Bishop Sigurds At The Turn Of The 11th Century

By
thehistorianshut
-

During the last decade of the 10th century and the first decades of the 11th century, Norwegians must have been familiar with the name, Bishop Sigurd (or Sigurth). A bishop with that name was known to have traveled with King Olaf I Tryggvason of Norway (r. 995-1000). Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179-1241), an Icelandic scholar and saga writer, vividly narrated what it might have looked like to see this first of the Bishop Sigurds sailing with Olaf Tryggvason’s fleet. Snorri wrote, “Bishop Sigurth put on all his vestments and went forward to the prow of the king’s ship, and had tapers lit and incense borne. He set up a crucifix on the stern of the ship, read the gospel and many other prayers, and sprinkled holy water all over the ship” (Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, chapter 80). Such blessings and rituals, unfortunately, did not save Olaf Tryggvason from being killed at sea in the Battle of Svold (or Svolder) in the year 1000. No monarch immediately succeeded to the throne of Norway after King Olaf’s death, and during this regal vacancy there was a lapse in the power and prominence of the fledgling Norwegian church. Yet, a new claimant would soon take the Norwegian throne and he would align himself closely with the church.

Around 1015, a Norwegian nobleman named Olaf Haraldsson ended a career as a Viking and mercenary to return home to Norway, where he launched a bid for the throne. Through a mixture of persuading, bribing, exiling, killing and otherwise forcing into submission the regional chieftains and jarls of the Norwegian countryside, Olaf Haraldsson was able to have the realm largely under his control by 1016. As King Olaf II (r. 1015-1028), he made it his mission to continue spreading Christianity into holdout regions of the country that were still practicing the traditional Norse religion. It was not a purely spiritual crusade, however, for militantly spreading Christianity helped King Olaf to bolster his own authority as king and to eliminate powerful regional figures who happened to still follow the traditional gods. Nevertheless, Olaf’s alignment with the church was greatly appreciated by the faithful, and for his efforts King Olaf II was eventually renamed Saint Olaf.

As Saint Olaf’s national agenda often involved the church, it is no wonder that a bishop was brought into his inner circle at court. Once again, a (or perhaps the) Bishop Sigurd made a reappearance in the Norwegian royal entourage. Whether this was the earlier Bishop Sigurd or a new Bishop Sigurd, explicit explanations are scarce. Whatever the case, this Sigurd died during King Olaf II’s reign and was succeeded by a Bishop Grimkel. Interestingly, one more Bishop Sigurd would be appointed over Norway during the lifetime of King Olaf II. Yet, this last Sigurd was not set up by King Olaf.

Unfortunately for the saint-king, his throne in Norway was ultimately usurped by powerful Canute (or Knút) the Great, who had been the ruler of England since 1016, and king of Denmark since 1019. Olaf’s dethronement came in 1028, after Canute ramped up enough diplomatic and military pressure on the Norwegian king to force him to flee from his country. As the new ruler of Norway, Canute had the task of appointing new people to oversee the realm’s government and religion. Following the trend, King Canute chose another man named Sigurd (or Sigurth) to be Norway’s next bishop. These events were described by Snorri Sturluson, who wrote: “Knút the Powerful had subdued all of Norway and had set Earl Hákon to rule it. As bishop for his court he had given him a priest called Sigurth. He was of Danish origin and had long been with King Knút. The bishop was a man of vehement temper and unusual eloquence. He gave King Knút all the support he could, and was most hostile toward King Oláf” (Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Saint Olaf’s Saga, chapter 217). When Olaf returned to Norway in 1030 for an attempt to reclaim the throne, this Danish Bishop Sigurd joined the anti-Olaf warriors who gathered to repel the invasion and he rallied the troops before the decisive Battle of Sticklestad (c. 1030), in which King Olaf II was killed. Nevertheless, the slain king’s reputation began to soar after the battle and Olaf formally was proclaimed a saint. This put the Danish Bishop Sigurd in an awkward situation, and he was eventually replaced by Grimkel, who had been one of Saint Olaf’s former bishops.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Cropped Illustration by Gerhard Munthe (1849–1929), for an 1899 edition of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

 

Sources:

  • Heimskringla, by Snorri Sturluson and translated by Lee Hollander. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964, 2018.
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