All the Kings Women: Polygyny and Politics in Europe, 900-1250

465 Pages·2020·4.277 MB·English

by  Jan Rüdiger

All the King’s Women
<<UUNN>>
The Northern World
North Europe and the Baltic C.400–1700 ad
Peoples, Economies and Cultures
Editors
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (Oslo)
Piotr Gorecki (University of California at Riverside)
Steve Murdoch (St. Andrews)
Cordelia Heß (Greifswald)
Anne Pedersen (National Museum of Denmark)
volume 88
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/nw
<UN>
All the King’s Women
Polygyny and Politics in Europe, 900–1250
By
Jan Rüdiger
Translated by
Tim Barnwell
leiden | boston
<UN>
This volume was originally published as Der König und seine Frauen. Polygynie und politische Kultur in
Europa (9.–13. Jahrhundert) by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, 2015.
Cover illustration: Detail of ʻDronning Ragnhilds drøm’ by Erik Werenskiold (1855–1938), illustration from
Snorre Sturlasön, Kongesagaer, transl. Gustav Storm, Kristiania 1899.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2020028864
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1569-1462
ISBN 978-90-04-34951-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-43457-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be
addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
<UN>
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations x
Introduction 1
1 Libido and Satyriasis 1
2 Scholarship 6
3 ‘Polygyny’ 9
4 Structure 12
5 ‘Aspects’ of Polygyny 15
6 Objective 17
7 Postscript 2020 20
King Harald Fairhair’s Women: a Word on the Sources 22
1 “…And Then He Took Her to Bed” 22
2 “Concubine or Wife?” 27
3 On Sources 31
4 Scholarship on the Sagas 34
1 The Generative Aspect 42
1 Thorns, Pigs, and Two Dreams 42
2 Royal Blood 47
3 Danish Particularism: Polygyny in the Chronicles 52
4 Practices of the Valdemar Era 61
5 Dissenting Voices: Sven Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus 65
6 The ‘Generative Aspect’ of Polygyny 74
7 Harald, the All-Father 77
8 The ‘Good’ Bastard King 82
9 The Mill Maid’s Tale 87
10 Suitability 91
11 Co-optative Kinship 93
12 Twofold Legitimacy: Sverrir of Norway 99
13 Married, Crowned, Unsuccessful 102
14 Low-Born and Successful 105
15 Polygyny as a Guarantor of Parity 109
16 Polygyny without Women? 111
<UN>
vi Contents
2 The Habitual Aspect 120
1 Models 120
2 Polygyny and Historiography: the Oddaverjar 122
3 A Song of Praise 129
4 “Very Susceptible to Love”: Jón Loptsson’s Women 136
5 A Lovers’ Saga? 141
6 Portrait of a Competitor 146
7 Were There Wives? 152
8 ‘Retrospective Marriage’ 155
9 A Vocable for the Ineffable: Elja 156
10 The Brother-in-Laws’ Confrontation 159
11 What Was at Stake I: Bishop Þorlák 165
12 What Was at Stake II: Jón Loptsson 169
13 Resource Polygyny 174
14 Women and Plunder 175
15 From Canterbury to Camelot 178
3 The Agonistic Aspect 187
1 Snorri Takes a Bath 187
2 Mannjafnað—“Comparison of Men” 188
3 Social Rhetoric: the Contest for Borghild í Dali 192
4 Women in Mannjafnað 195
5 Renegotiating Status Loss I: Saint Olav’s Lover 198
6 The Women’s Agon 202
4 The Expressive Aspect 206
1 Political Relations? 206
2 What Ælfgifu Means 210
3 Polygyny as a Semantic System 213
4 Domestic and Foreign Policy: Harald Hardrada’s Women 214
5 A Successful Takeover: Harald Hardrada and Þóra Þorbergsdóttir
(1047) 219
6 The Near-Failure of a Party Formation: Eindriði Einarsson and Sigríð
Erlingsdóttir (c.1023) 220
7 An ‘Unproductive’ Communication: Valdemar the Great and Helena
Guttormsdatter (c.1200) 225
8 Renegotiating Status Loss II: the Bridal Journey of Óláf Haraldsson
(c.1017) 227
9 A Woman in Reserve: the Icelander’s Booty and the Orkney Woman
(c.980) 231
<UN>
Contents vii
10 A Family on the Rise: Sigurð Haraldsson’s Woman (c.1150) 232
11 A New Party: the Daughters of Saxi í Vík (from c.1095) 235
12 “And He Will Take Your Daughters...”: Magnús the Good and Margrét
Þrándsdóttir (c.1040) 241
13 Danish Encounters 246
14 The Emperor’s Daughter and the Elbe Frontier: Erik Ejegod and
Queen Bothild (c.1100) 251
15 The Cheese and the Anchor: Harald Hardrada’s Booty (1047) 256
5 The Performative Aspect 263
1 “Castles and Maidens” 263
2 Abishag at the Court of Hákon Hákonarson 264
3 Northern European Hierogamy? 270
4 Hákon Hlaðajarl 272
5 Death in the Pigsty 279
6 Jarl Hákon and His Patron Goddess 283
7 Perpetual Hierogamy 290
6 The Comparative View: Western Europe 295
1 In the Heartland of Medieval Studies 295
2 Scholarship 296
3 Sources 299
4 Figurations of Polygyny: Arthurian Literature 303
5 Strategies of Representation: Under the Spell of
Monogamism 306
6 The Invisible Women 311
7 In Comparison: the Generative Aspect 317
8 In Comparison: the Habitual Aspect 319
9 In Comparison: the Agonistic Aspect 323
10 In Comparison: the Expressive Aspect 328
11 In Comparison: the Performative Aspect 331
12 Polygyny as Political Principle: Normandy 333
13 The Spoils of the Conqueror: Rollo and Poppa 338
14 Mother of the Nation: Gunnor 344
15 The Henchman’s Daughter: Herleve 348
7 The Comparative View: Southern Europe 353
1 “Unbearable Heat” 353
2 Concubinage at the Highest Level: James I and Aurembiaix of Urgell
(1228) 354
<UN>
viii Contents
3 Ornamental Mediterraneanness: Christian Princes and Moorish
Maids 363
4 Iberian Renunciation—Llibre dels Feits and Primera Crónica General
(c.1250) 366
5 Ornamental Europeanness: Polygyny in Andalusia 371
6 Paritarian Polygyny—Autocratic Abstinence 375
Polygyny and Europe—By Way of a Conclusion 383
Appendix 394
Bibliography 395
Index 448
<UN>
Acknowledgements
This book is the English translation of Der König und seine Frauen. Polygynie
und politische Kultur in Europa (9.–13. Jahrhundert), the outcome of the three-
year research project “Aristokratische Polygynie im Hochmittelalter im eu-
ropäischen Vergleich” financed by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The Founda-
tion granted research trips to Norway, Iceland, and Normandy, and generously
supported the printing of the original edition. I would like to thank Professor
Michael Borgolte, Chair of Medieval History at the Humboldt University of
Berlin from 1991 to 2016, for making it possible to carry out my postdoctoral
habilitation as a research associate at the Institute for the Comparative History
of Europe in the Middle Ages, for many stimulating discussions, and for relent-
less support.
I am thankful to my Berlin colleagues for much advice and encouragement,
to the Hilfsassistenten at my Basel Chair, Lynn Zimmermann and Lukas Pfeif-
fer, for their work on the index, to Marcella Mulder at Leiden who patiently
nursed this book into existence, and to Tim Barnwell for his arduous transla-
tion work. For their advice and help during my years of research, I thank Mar-
tin Aurell (Poitiers), Else Mundal and Sverre Bagge (Bergen), and especially
Barbara Crawford (St Andrews), who initiated the publication of the book in
the ‘Northern World’ series. For their hospitality and enriching conversations,
my thanks go to Parish Priest Geir Waage and the Snorrastofa in Reykholt, Suf-
fragan Bishop Sigurður Sigurðarson † at Skálholt, the Deutsches Historisches
Institut in Paris and its director Werner Paravicini, and Pierre Baudouin and
the Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines in Caen. The Nordisk Center
for Middelalderstudier granted me and my family two wonderful gæsteforsker­
ophold at the University of Southern Denmark at Odense; my thanks go to all
the people in Bøgene and Knoldene, especially to Kurt Villads Jensen (now
Stockholm), Lars Bisgaard, Lars Boje Mortensen, and Karen Fogh Rasmussen.
My special thanks go to Birgit and Peter Sawyer, who on the strength of a timid
email from an unknown post-doctoral researcher invited me to Trondheim
and over the following years gave me advice, help, räksmörgås, encourage-
ment, and endlessly engaging conversations. Bibi also wrote the positive re-
view of this manuscript for the Northern World editors. This book is dedicated
to their memory.
My wife Sabine has always been with me, and our children Jakob and Kath-
rine have grown up with this book. Tak for turen!
<UN>