AFTER the fall of Magnus Erlingson, King Sverre brought the whole country under his control, and no one dared to refuse him obedience. The same sagacity that he had shown in his struggles to gain the power, he also used in his efforts to maintain and strengthen it. He knew that he could expect nothing from the magnates of the powerful families, who resided on the largest estates throughout the country, and who looked with contempt upon the poor and lowly people that had constituted his following and helped him into power. He had to try to weaken the influence of this higher class and to look to the common people for his main support. The changes which King Sverre introduced in the domestic conditions of the country were in close coherence with the development of the country since the time of Harald the Fairhaired and Olaf the Saint. The kingdom of his predecessor had been upheld by the clergy and the aristocracy, the latter endeavoring to strengthen its power and dignity by united action, while the clergy tried to enforce the hierarchical principles of the time in the Church of Norway. King Sverre, on the other hand, depended upon the masses of the people, with their traditions and customs. For their benefit King Sverre appointed a new class of officers, who were [Pg 179]called lawmen. They were to be learned in the law, and their duty was to see that the law was justly administered at the Things, and to aid the peasants in all legal matters. There had been a similar class of officers before, bearing the same title, but they had been elected at the Things, while from now on they were appointed by the king, especially for the benefit of the poorer classes, who themselves had little knowledge of the law, and often needed protection against the rich and powerful. Another class of officers whose functions were changed in such a manner as to greatly strengthen the king’s power were the prefects (Sysselmen), whom the king appointed throughout the country. These prefects did not have the inherited dignity of the liegemen (lendermen), who were royal vassals and exercised independent authority, but were servants of the king and the representatives of his power. They supplanted the liegemen in their executive and judicial functions, and gradually transferred to the crown a great part of the power of the aristocracy.

Sverre was too shrewd to break entirely or too suddenly with the old influences, and where they had been loyal, he selected men from the high old families for his officers. This was especially the case in the Throndhjem country, where his party was strongest. But he found positions enough with which to reward the faithful men who had followed him through his struggles. Some were made chiefs in the army, and some were appointed prefects; some were given landed estates, and others were helped to rich marriages. Baard Guthormson of Rein was married to the king’s own sister, Cecilia, after her marriage with Folkvid Lawman had been declared void. King Sverre himself married Margreta, a sister of the Swedish king, Knut Erikson. Before this marriage King Sverre had four children, namely, two sons, Sigurd (called Lavard) and Haakon, and two daughters, Cecilia and Ingeborg. With Queen Margreta he had only a daughter, Kristina.

The peace was not of long duration. The remnants of the Heklung party, which had been broken up by the battle in Norefjord, with several leading men, only waited for a favorable opportunity to start a revolt, and the opportunity soon offered itself. A monk, who called himself Jon and claimed to be a son of King Inge the Hunchback, left the cloister on the island near Oslo, and soon gathered about him a numerous band. He first went to Tunsberg, where, in September, 1185, he attacked and killed one of Sverre’s prefects together with thirty men, and then summoned a Thing and was proclaimed king. The Birchlegs called this new party the Kuvlungs or Cowlmen, because their leader had worn a monk’s hood or cowl. The Kuvlungs continued the rebellion for three years with varying success. They made several attacks on Bergen and Nidaros, and at times their strength was quite formidable. Finally their band was destroyed in Bergen, in December, 1188, and their leader was killed. After his death it appears to have been satisfactorily proven that Jon Kuvlung was not the son of King Inge the Hunchback, as he had claimed.

The rebellious spirit had become quite general, and King Sverre had many of these revolts to suppress. After the Kuvlung party had been broken up, a new band, called the Varbelgs (Wolf Skins), was organized by the chief, Simon Kaareson, who had brought from Denmark, as a pretender to the throne, a boy named Vikar, said to be a son of King Magnus Erlingson. This party was badly defeated in a battle near Tunsberg, where Simon Kaareson and the little Vikar were both killed. Another band, under the leadership of Thorleif Breidskegg, who claimed to be a son of King Eystein Haraldson, was next destroyed in Viken (1191). The next party that made war on King Sverre were the Oyskeggs (the Islanders), so called because they received considerable aid from the Orkney Islands, where Earl Harald favored them. Their leaders were Hallkel Jonson, who was married to King Magnus Erlingson’s sister Ragnhild, and Olaf, a brother-in-law of Earl Harald of the Orkneys. They chose Sigurd, a son of King Magnus, as their king. The Oyskeggs developed a considerable strength in Viken, and from there made piratical expeditions to the Danish waters and the Baltic, and therefore boastingly called themselves the Goldlegs (Gullbeiner). One of the men, whom King Sverre sent against them, Sigurd Jarlson (earl’s son), an illegitimate son of Erling Skakke, turned traitor, and became one of the leaders of Sverre’s enemies. In the fall of 1193 the Oyskeggs captured Bergen without much resistance, King Sverre being then in Throndhjem. In the spring King Sverre came south with a fleet, and a bloody battle was fought at Florevaag, near Bergen (April 3, 1194). The Oyskeggs were finally defeated, a great number of them, including Hallkel Jonson, Olaf (Earl Harald’s brother-in-law), and Sigurd Magnusson, the pretender, being slain. King Sverre had thus gained a victory, but at great cost, for many of his best men had fallen, or died from the wounds they had received in the battle. Among the latter was Baard Guthormson of Rein.

While King Sverre was almost constantly engaged in quelling rebellion, he was also carrying on a hard struggle with the hierarchy. Archbishop Eystein had been obliged to make peace with King Sverre; but when Eystein died (1188), Bishop Erik of Stavanger, a man with strong hierarchical tendencies, became his successor. Archbishop Erik named as his own successor to the bishopric of Stavanger one of Sverre’s bitter enemies, Nicholas Arneson, a half-brother of King Inge the Hunchback. King Sverre refused to recognize this selection, because he had not been consulted, and named another in his place. Finally, through the mediation of Queen Margreta, who was a relative of Nicholas Arneson, the matter was compromised, and Sverre consented to Nicholas being installed as bishop in Oslo. The fight between the king and the hierarchy was, however, continued in other matters. Archbishop Erik was constantly trying to extend the prerogatives of his office. He claimed the exclusive right to the control of all church property; he wanted the tribute to the church paid according to actual weight in silver instead of in current coin, whereby he would about double the tax, and, finally, he wanted to surround himself with a court and keep ninety men-at-arms in his service, while the law allowed only thirty men altogether, and only twelve of them armed. During his stay in Nidaros, in 1191-92, King Sverre summoned a Thing to have these matters settled. The law was read, and the case was decided in favor of the king. Archbishop Erik now found the surroundings too uncomfortable, and hurried away from the town, taking with him all the goods he could collect. He proceeded to Denmark, where he was cordially received by Archbishop Absalon. Shortly after his arrival in Denmark he prepared a letter to the pope, in which he complained of King Sverre’s infringements on the rights of the Church. In response to this letter, Pope Celestinus III., on the 15th of June, 1194, declared King Sverre in the ban of the church. Before the papal bull reached Norway, however, King Sverre had compelled the bishops to crown him at Bergen, June 29, 1194. For some time King Sverre treated the papal bull with contempt, and even intimated that it was an invention of the bishops in Denmark; but later he sent ambassadors, under the leadership of Bishop Thore of Hamar, with a message to the Pope, in which he put matters in a different light from that given them by Archbishop Erik. The fate of these ambassadors is enveloped in mystery. They remained in Rome till the end of 1196, and then started for home. During their homeward journey they were suddenly taken sick in Denmark and died, having probably been poisoned. Some time afterward some Danes came to King Sverre with letters bearing the seal of the Pope, and which, they said, had been pawned with them by the ambassadors for a certain amount of money. Sverre redeemed the documents, which purported to revoke the ban against the king, and had them publicly read in the churches. Whether King Sverre knew that these documents were not genuine does not appear.

By the united efforts of King Sverre’s enemies among the clergy and the aristocracy a rebellious band was organized in 1196, which was to become more dangerous than all the enemies he had heretofore had to fight. The principal leader of this movement was Bishop Nicholas Arneson, who was prepared to do anything to overthrow King Sverre. A favorable opportunity offered itself. The Byzantine emperor, Alexios Komnenos, had sent a Norwegian named Reidar the Messenger (Sendemand) to Norway to ask King Sverre to send him 1,200 good mercenaries for the service of the emperor. King Sverre replied that he had no troops to spare; but he was persuaded to allow Reidar to enlist such sons of peasants and traders as might wish to enter the service of the emperor. After Reidar had collected a considerable force, he was induced by Bishop Nicholas to enter into a league with him against King Sverre. At a fair in Halland he met Bishop Nicholas and Archbishop Erik, who had with them a large body of Norwegians, mostly from Viken. With them was also a young man named Inge, said to be a son of King Magnus Erlingson. The two armies united and proclaimed Inge king, and then made an invasion in Viken, where they were soon joined by Sigurd Jarlson, the former Oyskegg chief, and many other prominent men. The new rebel army was called Baglers, from the word bagall, a bishop’s crosier, to signify that Bishop Nicholas was considered the real founder and chief leader of the party.

During the last six years of his life King Sverre had a continual war with the Baglers. His first encounter with them was in Saltoe Sound, in Viken. After an indecisive battle there he returned with his ships to Bergen and proceeded to Nidaros, where he spent the winter 1196-97. The Baglers meanwhile summoned the Borgar-Thing, where Inge was proclaimed king. The next year King Sverre gathered a strong force and proceeded to Viken, and defeated the Baglers at Oslo, July 26, 1197. After the battle Bishop Nicholas sent a messenger to King Sverre that he was willing to make peace; but Sverre, who knew how little Bishop Nicholas was to be depended upon, sent word back that he would only treat with him if he would come in person. Bishop Nicholas did not go to meet the king, but instead hastened with the chiefs and the remaining force of the Baglers overland to Nidaros, where the wooden citadel (blockhouse) “Zion” fell into their hands by the treason of its commander, Thorstein Kugad. They destroyed some of the fortifications and burned a number of Sverre’s ships and took possession of the remainder. A part of the Bagler force went aboard the captured ships, and sailed southward under the leadership of Sigurd Jarlson. The others returned to Viken the same way they had come. King Sverre spent the following winter in Bergen, and in the spring (1198) sailed north and met the Baglers in battle at Thorsberg, near the mouth of the Throndhjem Fjord. After a hard fight the Birchlegs were defeated with great loss. The king then hastened back to Bergen, which had in the meantime been occupied by the Bagler chief Sigurd Jarlson. The latter, however, having, by a clever trick of one of the Birchlegs, been led to believe that King Sverre was approaching with a much superior force, left the town before Sverre arrived.

During the summer of 1198, which for a long time afterward was called the Bergen-summer, there was continual skirmishing in and about Bergen. On the night after August 10th the Baglers, led by Bishop Nicholas, rowed up to the landings with two ships full of wood. At the bishop’s command they set fire to the town in three different places, and soon the greater part of it, including six churches, was laid in ashes. The Birchlegs had all they could do to save the wooden citadel (Sverre’s Borg). The inhabitants of Bergen could never afterward forgive Bishop Nicholas and his party for the loss they suffered by this fire; but as heartily as they had heretofore hated the Birchlegs they now hated the Baglers. Sverre found his position untenable after the town had been burned, and proceeded with his men overland to Throndhjem. Meanwhile the Baglers, who had many ships, were masters on the coasts. Many deserted the king and supported the Baglers; but there were also some of their men who went over to Sverre. Among the latter was Thorstein Kugad, who had surrendered his garrison in Nidaros, and who now returned to Sverre and begged his pardon. This was given, and Thorstein became one of Sverre’s useful men.

King Sverre spent the winter 1198-99 in Nidaros. His position was a desperate one. Outside of the Throndhjem country he had very little power, and the Baglers were masters at sea. Then, furthermore, a terrible blow was dealt Sverre, as Pope Innocent III., in October, 1198, issued his bull declaring Sverre to be in the ban of the Church, and laying the whole country under interdict, closing all churches and forbidding the administration of the sacraments wherever the people acknowledged King Sverre. It is easily understood what horror such a papal bull would create at that time. Sverre did not lose courage, however, but called the Throndhjem people together and asked them to help him. They showed their usual loyalty, and with their help he set to work to build a new, strong fleet and to improve the fortifications of the town. In the spring the Baglers appeared in the Throndhjem Fjord with a strong fleet, and, after some skirmishing, the two fleets met in battle at StrindsÖ, June 18, 1199. It was a desperate fight, where no quarter was given. The result was a victory for King Sverre and the Birchlegs, who returned to town with most of the enemy’s ships. The prisoners taken on this occasion were nearly all slain. Bishop Nicholas, who watched the beginning of the battle from a safe distance, fled with his ship when he saw that the Baglers were losing, and Sigurd Jarlson and Reidar the Messenger followed his example.

The Baglers who escaped from the battle of StrindsÖ proceeded to Denmark. Sverre, with his fleet, pursued them a part of the way, but gave up the chase and proceeded to Oslo, where he intended to go into winter-quarters. In January, 1200, the Baglers came up from Denmark with a number of small ships under the leadership of Reidar the Messenger and Inge Bagler-King. Some of them landed near Oslo and killed Sverre’s kinsman, Earl Philip. Not feeling strong enough, however, to attack King Sverre’s forces they withdrew during the night and sailed to Bergen. Afterward they made a sudden but unsuccessful attack on Nidaros, which was defended by an army of 1,800 peasants.

During the winter King Sverre attempted to make a levy of troops in Viken, intending to send home some of his Throndhjem people; but the inhabitants, who had never been greatly attached to King Sverre, murmured at this, and the result was a great uprising of the peasants in Viken and the Uplands. On the day secretly appointed, March 1st, Sverre’s prefects at Tunsberg and several other places were killed, and a few days later a force many times as large as Sverre’s marched against him from three different directions. On this occasion Sverre displayed a masterly leadership, and his men fought like heroes. During the day there were eight desperate encounters, and, in spite of the seemingly overwhelming force of the rebels, Sverre won the day. He afterward punished the peasants by exacting large fines in money and provisions.

Sverre had a few indecisive battles with the Baglers the same year, and spent the following winter in Bergen. In the spring of 1201 he called a new levy from the north, and, during the summer, sailed to Viken. Reidar the Messenger, with several chiefs and two hundred and forty men, had fortified himself on the Slotsberg (Castle Mountain) at Tunsberg, and defied any attack. King Sverre organized a regular siege, determined not to abandon it until he had conquered this dangerous enemy. Finally, when the Baglers were nearly starved to death, Reidar and his little band surrendered to Sverre, who not only spared their lives, but gave them the best of treatment. He advised them not to eat much in the beginning; but several of them disregarded this advice and died. This remarkable siege had lasted for twenty weeks, or from the first week in September, 1201, to the fourth week in January, 1202.

At last King Sverre’s physical strength succumbed to the hardships and cares which night and day he had had to endure. During his stay in Tunsberg he had been ailing, but, at first, his illness did not seem to be serious. When he left Tunsberg, however, he was obliged to keep his bed. He had his bed placed on the raised deck in the stern of his ship, and here also stood the bed of the Bagler chief, Reidar. During the journey the king found much pleasure in talking with the intelligent old chief, who could tell him of his crusades and other journeys in distant countries. They arrived in Bergen toward the end of February, and the king was carried to the royal residence, where his bed was placed in the large hall. When he understood that death was near, he called the priests and his trusted friends to him. He first let them read and seal a letter which he had prepared, to his son Haakon in Throndhjem, about the management of the affairs of the government after his death. Then he solemnly declared that he had only one son living, namely Haakon (his other son, Sigurd Lavard, having died the year before), so that if any one else should claim after his death to be his son he would be an impostor. Then he desired to be lifted into his high-seat, and seated there he received the last ointment. Afterward he said: “I have had more strife, disturbance, and adversity than quiet and peaceful days during my reign, and, so far as I can judge, many have been my maligners only from enmity toward me. God forgive them all, and judge between them and me in my whole cause.” Soon after, on Saturday, March 9, 1202, King Sverre expired. His body was buried in the Christ Church, and on his tombstone was engraved the following epitaph: “Here lies one who was the ornament of kings, the support, picture and paragon of faith, honor and bravery, his country’s defence, the vindication of justice, the delight of all his men.” After his death even those who had been his enemies said that such a man as Sverre had not lived in Norway in their time.