Edla
Edla (10th-century - 11th century), was a Slavic Viking Age woman. She was the mother of King Emund of Sweden and Queen Astrid of Norway. Tradition says Edla was the daughter of a Lechitic Tribal chief who has ruled part of terrain between Oder and Elbe . She was brought to Sweden as a prisoner of war c. 1000 at the same time or a little before, the arrival of Estrid of the Obotrites (''Estrid av obotriterna''). King Olof Skötkonung married Estrid but also had Edla as his mistress. She became the mother of Emund, Astrid, and probably Holmfrid. Snorre Sturlasson says that her children were sent to foster parents away from the royal court because Queen Estrid was not kind to them. This could indicate that Edla died when her children were small. Children * Emund the Old, King of Sweden * Astrid Olofsdotter Astrid Olofsdotter (Norwegian: ''Astrid Olavsdatter''; English: ''Aestrith'') (died 1035) was the queen consort of King Olaf II of Norway. Biography Astrid was born ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Estrid Of The Obotrites
Estrid of the Obotrites (c. 979 – 1035) was Queen of Sweden in the Viking age, a West Slavic princess married to Olof Skötkonung, King of Sweden c. 1000–1022. She was the mother of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and the Kievan Rus' saint and grand princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter. Biography Legend says that Estrid was taken back to Sweden from a war in the West Slavic area of Mecklenburg as a war-prize. She was most likely given by her father, a tribal chief of the Polabian Obotrites, as a peace offering in a marriage to seal the peace, and she is thought to have brought with her a great dowry, as a great Slavic influence is represented in Sweden from her time, mainly among craftsmen. Her husband also had a mistress, Edla, who came from the same area in Europe as herself, and who was possibly taken to Sweden at the same time. The king treated Edla and Estrid the same way and gave his son and his two daughters with Edla the same privileges as the children he had with Estri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Olof Skötkonung
Olof Skötkonung, (Old Norse: ''Óláfr skautkonungr'') sometimes stylized as ''Olaf the Swede'' (c. 980–1022), was King of Sweden, son of Eric the Victorious and, according to Icelandic sources, Sigrid the Haughty. He succeeded his father in c. 995. He stands at the threshold of recorded history, since he is the first Swedish ruler about whom there is substantial knowledge. He is regarded as the first king known to have ruled both the Swedes and the Geats. In Sweden, the reign of king Olov Skötkonung () is considered to be the transition from the Viking age to the Middle Ages, because he was the first Christian king of the Swedes, who were the last to adopt Christianity in Scandinavia. He is associated with a growing influence of the church in what is today southwestern and central Sweden. Norse beliefs persisted in parts of Sweden until the 12th century. Olof was victorious alongside Sweyn Forkbeard when the kings created an alliance to defeat the Norwegian king Olaf Try ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Emund The Old
Emund the Old or Edmund ( Swedish: ''Emund den gamle'', Old Swedish: ''Æmunðær gamlæ'', ''Æmunðær gammal'', ''Æmunðær slemæ'') was King of Sweden from c. 1050 to c. 1060. His short reign was characterised by disputes with the Archbishopric of Bremen over church policies, and a historically debated delimitation of the Swedish-Danish border. Way to the throne Emund was the son of Olof Skötkonung, the first Christian ruler of Sweden. His mother was a co-wife, Edla, daughter of a Slavic chief from the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. He had two uterine sisters called Astrid and Holmfrid. His half-siblings, born by Olof's legitimate Queen Estrid of the Obotrites, were Anund Jacob and Ingegerd. According to the 13th-century historian Snorri Sturluson, Estrid was ill-tempered and treated her stepchildren poorly. King Olof later sent Emund to be raised with his mother's Slavic family. While staying there he failed to hold on to the Christian religion. Olof was succeeded ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Astrid Olofsdotter
Astrid Olofsdotter (Norwegian: ''Astrid Olavsdatter''; English: ''Aestrith'') (died 1035) was the queen consort of King Olaf II of Norway. Biography Astrid was born to King Olof Skötkonung of Sweden and his Obotritian mistress Edla. She was the half sister of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and sister of King Emund the Old of Sweden. It is said that she and her brother Emund were not treated well by their stepmother, Queen Estrid, and that they were sent away to foster parents. Astrid was sent to a man named Egil in Västergötland. In 1016, it had been decided that Norway and Sweden should come to more peaceful relations by a royal marriage alliance. Noblemen of both countries tried to arrange a marriage between King Olaf of Norway and Astrid's legitimate half-sister, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, but Ingegerd was instead married to Yaroslav I the Wise, Grand Prince of Novgorod and Kiev. Instead Astrid was married to King Olaf in Sarpsborg in 1019. Some sources say tha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Slavic Peoples
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic language, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, mainly inhabiting Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans to the west; and Siberia to the east. A large Slavic minority is also scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia, while a substantial Slavic diaspora is found throughout the Americas, as a result of immigration. Present-day Slavs are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubians, Poles, Slovaks and Sorbs) and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians (ethnic group), Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes). The vast majority of Slavs are traditionally Christians. However, modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably dive ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germanic Iron Age. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. The Scandinavians of the Viking Age are often referred to as ''Vikings'' as well as ''Norsemen'', although few of them were Vikings in sense of being engaged in piracy. Voyaging by sea from their homelands in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the Norse people settled in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast and along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in eastern Europe, where they were also known as Varangians. They also briefly settled in Newfoundland, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. The Norse-Gaels ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lechites
Lechites (, german: Lechiten), also known as the Lechitic tribes (, german: Lechitische Stämme), is a name given to certain West Slavic tribes who inhabited modern-day Poland and eastern Germany, and were speakers of the Lechitic languages. Distinct from the Czech–Slovak subgroup, they are the closest ancestors of ethnic Poles and the Pomeranians, Lusatians and Polabians. History According to Polish legend, Mieszko I inherited the ducal throne from his father who probably ruled over two-thirds of the territory inhabited by eastern Lechite tribes. He united the Lechites east of the Oder ( Polans, Masovians, Pomeranians, Vistulans, Silesians) into a single country of Poland. His son, Bolesław I the Brave, founded the bishoprics at Wrocław, Kołobrzeg, and Kraków, and an archbishopric at Gniezno. Bolesław carried out successful wars against Bohemia, Moravia, Kievan Rus' and Lusatia, and forced the western Pomeranians to pay Poland a tribute. Shortly before his death ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Tribal Chief
A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in cities. Anthropologist Elman Service distinguishes two stages of tribal societies: simple societies organized by limited instances of social rank and prestige, and more stratified societies led by chieftains or tribal kings ( chiefdoms). Stratified tribal societies led by tribal kings are thought to have flourished from the Neolithic stage into the Iron Age, albeit in competition with urban civilisations and empires beginning in the Bronze Age. In the case of tribal societies of indigenous peoples existing within larger colonial and post-colonial states, tribal chiefs may represent their tribe or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in population; it covers an area of , making it the sixth largest German state in area; and it is 16th in population density. Schwerin is the state capital and Rostock is the largest city. Other major cities include Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar, and Güstrow. It was named after the 2 regions of Mecklenburg and Vorpommern (which means West Pomerania). The state was established in 1945 after World War II through the merger of the historic regions of Mecklenburg and the Prussian Western Pomerania by the Soviet military administration in Allied-occupied Germany. It became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms and its territory divided into the districts of R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Snorre Sturlasson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ''Prose Edda'', which is a major source for what is today known as Norse mythology, and ''Heimskringla'', a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in ''Ynglinga saga'' and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of ''Egil's saga''. He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway. Biography Early life Snorri Sturluson was born in (commonly transliterated as Hvamm or Hvammr) as a member of the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar clan of the Icelandic Commonwealth, in AD 1179. His parents were ''Sturla Þórðarson the Elder'' of ''Hvammur'' and his second wife, ''Guðný Böðvarsdóttir''. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Olav II Of Norway Olaf II Haraldsson ( – 29 July 1030), later known as Saint Olaf (and traditionally as St. Olave), was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Son of Harald Grenske, a petty king in Vestfold, Norway, he was posthumously given the title ''Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae'' ( en, Eternal/Perpetual King of Norway) and canonised at Nidaros (Trondheim) by Bishop Grimkell, one year a |