Harald Bluetooth
Harald Bluetooth | |
---|---|
Gyrid Olafsdottir | |
House | House of Gorm |
Father | Gorm the Old |
Mother | Thyra |
Religion | Chalcedonian Christianity |
Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (
He was the son of King
Name
Harald's name is written as
The first documented appearance of Harald's nickname "Bluetooth" (as blatan; Old Norse *blátǫnn) is in the
Reign
During his reign, Harald oversaw the reconstruction of the Jelling runic stones, and numerous other public works. The most famous is fortifying the fortress of Aros (nowadays
He constructed the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, the 5-metre (16 ft) wide and 760-metre (2,490 ft) long Ravning Bridge at Ravning meadows.[citation needed]
While quiet prevailed throughout the interior, he turned his energies to foreign enterprises. He came to the help of
The
Harald's Rebellion
In the wake of
As a consequence of Harald's army having lost to the Germans at the
The Curmsun Disc, found in Groß-Weckow, Pomerania, (after 1945 Wiejkowo) is inscribed with "ARALD CVRMSVN" (Harald Gormson), calling him, in abbreviated Latin, "king of Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, town of Aldinburg". Based on this, Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn has proposed that Harald is buried at the church there, close to Jomsborg, in what is now Poland.[13][11][14]
From 1835 to 1977, it was wrongly believed that Harald ordered the death of the Haraldskær Woman, a bog body previously thought to be Gunnhild, Mother of Kings until radiocarbon dating proved otherwise.[15]
The Hiddensee treasure, a large trove of gold objects, was found in 1873 on the German island of Hiddensee in the Baltic Sea. It is believed that these objects belonged to Harald's family.[16]
Harald introduced the first nationwide coinage in Denmark.[17]
Conversion to Christianity
King Harald Bluetooth's conversion to Christianity is a contested bit of history, not least because medieval writers such as Widukind of Corvey and Adam of Bremen give conflicting accounts of how it came about.
Widukind of Corvey, writing during the lives of King Harald and
Adam of Bremen, writing 100 years after King Harald's death in "History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen", finished in 1076, describes Harald being forcibly converted by
A cleric named Poppa, perhaps the same one, also appears in Adam of Bremen's history, but in connection with Eric of Sweden, who had supposedly conquered Denmark (the fact that Eric conquered Denmark during the realm of Sweyn Forkbeard is explained by Saxo as a punishment of Sweyn's apostasy).[23][24] The story of this otherwise unknown Poppo or Poppa's miracle and baptism of Harald is also depicted on the gilded altar piece in the Church of Tamdrup in Denmark (see image at top of this article). The altar itself dates to about 1200.[25] Adam of Bremen's claim regarding Otto I and Harald appears to have been inspired by an attempt to manufacture a historical reason for the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen to claim jurisdiction over Denmark (and thus the rest of Scandinavia); in the 1070s, the Danish king was in Rome asking for Denmark to have its own arch-bishop, and Adam's account of Harald's supposed conversion (and baptism of both him and his "little son" Sweyn, with Otto serving as Sweyn's godfather) is followed by the unambiguous claim that "At that time Denmark on this side of the sea, which is called Jutland by the inhabitants, was divided into three dioceses and subjected to the bishopric of Hamburg."[21]
As noted above, Harald's father, Gorm the Old, had died in 958, and had been buried in a mound with many goods, after the pagan practice. The mound itself was from c. 500 BCE, but Harald had it built higher over his father's grave, and added a second mound to the south. Mound-building was a newly revived custom in the 10th century, perceivably as an "appeal to old traditions in the face of Christian customs spreading from Denmark's southern neighbors, the Germans".[26]
After his conversion, around the 960s, Harald had his father's body reburied in the church next to the now empty mound.[27] He had the Jelling stones erected to honour his parents.[28] The biography of Harald Bluetooth is summed up by this runic inscription from the Jelling stones:
King Harald bade these memorials to be made after Gorm, his father, and Thyra, his mother. The Harald who won the whole of Denmark and Norway and turned the Danes to Christianity.
Harald undoubtedly professed Christianity at that time and contributed to its growth, but with limited success in Denmark and Norway.[29]
Marriages and children
Spouses:
- Gunhild
- Mistivir in 970. She raised the Sønder Vissing Runestoneafter her mother.
- Gyrid Olafsdottir
Children:
- Tyra of Denmark, married Styrbjörn the Strong.
- Sweyn Forkbeard. Born about 960. Usually given as the son of Harald and Gunhild, though it is said in some of the older sagas that he was an illegitimate son.
- Haakon. Born in 961(?).[citation needed]
- St. Brice's Day massacrein November 1002.
Bluetooth technology
The
See also
- Hagrold, a 10th-century Danish Viking in Normandy, mentioned as a Danish king, who became conflated with Harald Bluetooth in a later historical account. Harald/Hagrold was in fact the uncle of Harald Bluetooth, a younger brother of Harald's father Gorm the Old according to Gesta Wulinensis ecclesiae pontificum . Gorm expelled his brother Harald from Denmark after what would have seemed to be a kind of civil war between the two brothers and their followers, who both claimed to be kings of Denmark. These events took place in the second half of the 930s and the first years of the 940s.
Footnotes
- ^ As set forth in Heimskringla, Knytlinga Saga, and other medieval Scandinavian sources.
References
- ^ "Tamdrup Kirke". Den store danske. Archived from the original on 20 September 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2012.
- ^ Fagrskinna ch. 7 (ed. Finnur Jónsson 1902–8, p. 31) af Harallde Gormssyne (dative), ch. 14 (p. 58) við Haralld konong Gorms sun (accusative).
- ^ A. Förstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch (1856), 631f.
- ^ Sven Rosborn. "A unique object from Harald Bluetooth´s time. (2015)". Archived from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
- ^ Mortuo patre, [Haraldus] quinquaginta annos regnavit. Hic Christianus extitit cognomine Blatan sive Clac Harald. ed. Langebek (1772) p. 375 Archived 14 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ ed. Ludewig, Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum, vol. IX, 591–650: Haraldus, hinc cognomento Blachtent, id est, dens lividus, vel niger
- ISBN 87-567-5772-7
- ISBN 0-521-82992-5
- ^ Williamson, Jonathan (15 August 2023). "Harald Bluetooth Gormsson: The Viking king who connected kingdoms". The Viking Herald. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
- ^ JSTOR j.ctt3fgk28. Archivedfrom the original on 25 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
- ^ a b Rosborn, Sven (2015) A unique object from Harald Bluetooth´s time? Malmö: Pilemedia, pp. 4–5 Archived 1 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine www.academia.edu
- ISBN 978-0-521-47299-9, archivedfrom the original on 8 January 2022, retrieved 8 January 2022
- StarTribune. AP. Archived from the originalon 10 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
- ^ "Har svensk arkæolog bevist, at Harald Blåtand blev begravet med kæmpeskat i Polen?". videnskab.dk (in Danish). 19 August 2022. Archived from the original on 25 August 2022. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
- ^ " Haraldskaer Woman: Bodies of the Bogs Archived 21 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine", Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America, 10 December 1997
- ^ Pontus Weman Tell (2016), The Curmsun Disc – Harald Bluetooth´s Golden Seal? Archived 20 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine www.academia.edu
- ISBN 978-87-7602-323-2. Archivedfrom the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ Widukind, Res gestae Saxonicae 3.65, ed. Paul Hirsch and Hans-Eberhard Lohmann, MGH SS rer. Germ. in usum scholarum (Hanover, 1935), pp. 140–141. Translated from Latin by Anders Winroth, 2006.
- ISBN 978-87-12-04745-2.
- ISBN 978-87-12-04745-2.
- ^ a b Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen Archived 14 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 55–57.
- ^ "Heimskringla". Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
- ^ Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen Archived 14 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 77–78.
- ISBN 978-87-12-04745-2.
- ^ Anders Winroth, Viking Sources in Translation, 2009.
- ^ Anders Winroth, Viking Sources in Translation, in text drawing on a caption by Anders Winroth in Barbara Rosenwein, Reading the Middle Ages, (Peterborough, Ontario, 2006). p. 266.
- ^ Rose, Mark. "Gorm the Old Goes Home". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ C. Michael Hogan, "Jelling Stones" Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Megalithic Portal, editor Andy Burnham
- ISBN 0-06-064952-6. Archivedfrom the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
- ^ Kardach, Jim (3 May 2008). "Tech History: How Bluetooth got its name". EE Times. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
- ^ "'So, that's why it's called Bluetooth!' and other surprising tech name origins". PCWorld. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
- ^ Kardach, Jim (5 March 2008). "Tech History: How Bluetooth got its name". eetimes. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
- ^ Forsyth, Mark (2011). The Etymologicon. London N79DP: Icon Books Ltd. p. 139.
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: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ The story behind how Bluetooth® technology got its name, [1] Archived 28 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine .
- This article incorporates text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article "Harold Bluetooth" by Pius Wittmann, a publication now in the public domain.[verification needed]