History of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (Complete)
9781465628718
118 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
If, in regard to the kings who reigned prior to the Christian era, we have witnessed so much confusion, we shall not witness less in the series which followed that event. No two chroniclers, unless the one be immediately derived from the other, agree in this respect. Strange to say, this discrepancy as to names and dates is observable in regard to comparatively recent kings; to those, for instance, of the eighth and ninth centuries,—Snorro, Saxo, Sweyn, Aggesen, Torfœus, Suhm,—all differ, not only as to the order of succession, but as to the names themselves. Whence this difference? Doubtless from a variety of causes. In the first place, the title of Rex Danorum, or king of the Danes, was applied to the governors of Jutland, no less than to those whose seat was in Zealand and Scania. As either became the more powerful, he claimed a place among the descendants, or, at least, the successors, of Skiold. In the second place, it frequently happened that Jutland, or Zealand, or Scania was subdued by the neighbouring kings of Norway and Sweden, and they were, without hesitation, admitted as kings of Denmark. Add the number of revolutions inseparable from such a lawless state of society,—where king after king was driven into exile, or put to death, or forced to bend, for a while, before the torrent of invasion,—and we can scarcely be surprised at the difference, extreme as it is, between the lists of Scandinavian kings. Where, however, accuracy is not to be attained, or even an approximation to it, conjecture is useless. The personages whose names and presumed dates are to be found in the note below, and who are received by modern historians, certainly ruled over some part of Denmark; but whether they were all that ruled in that country,—whether some of them did not reign in the more northern provinces,—whether they reigned in the order assigned to them,—may well be doubted. It would be easy to construct a new list, as probable, at least, as any of those which we have transcribed in the notes; but where Torfœus, and Suhm, and other recent writers have failed, there would be something like presumption in the attempt. We are bound to declare that little dependence is to be placed on any one that northern erudition has yet formed; nearly as little on Suhm’s as on any that preceded it. For this reason we have inserted the three most common lists, leaving the reader to admit or reject whatever names he pleases. Again, however, we must caution him not to reject any merely on the ground of their having been omitted by more recent writers. Denmark had, sometimes,—indeed, we might say frequently,—three or four sovereigns at the same time; and when their power was nearly balanced, nothing could be more difficult than to say which of them was the legitimate Rex Danorum. Nor can this confusion, at the present day, be surprising, when we find Adam of Bremen complaining of it. “Tanti autem reges, immo tyranni Danorum, utrum simul aliqui regnaverunt, an alter post alterum brevi tempore vixit, incertum est.”
