Hereditary Kingdom of Norway - Fairhair Dynasty, Traditional and Modern Views

Fairhair Dynasty, Traditional and Modern Views

According to traditional view, Norway was the hereditary kingdom of this dynasty, agnatic descendants of the first unifier-king. The throne was inherited by all of Harald's male descendants. In the 13th century, the kingdom was officially declared hereditary by law, contrary to the other Scandinavian monarchies which were elective kingdoms in the Middle Ages.

Harald Fairhair was the first king of Norway, as opposed to "in Norway". The traditional date of the first formation of a unified Norwegian kingdom is set to 872 when he defeated the last petty kings who resisted him at the Battle of Hafrsfjord, however the consolidation of his power took many years. The boundaries of Fairhair's kingdom were not identical to those of present day Norway and upon his death the kingship was shared among his sons. Harald Fairhair unified Norway, at least the coastal areas north to Trøndelag. After his death, the fragmentation back into petty kingdoms happened almost instantly. However, most of them were now in hands of Harald's putative sons, descendants or allies. Although there were districts in hands of other dynasties (such as Ladejarls), the concept of a central power on an hereditary basis had come into existence. It remains uncertain whether Norway can be defined as an hereditary kingdom even after succession of Eric I of Norway and Haakon I of Norway, sons of Fairhair himself. Some historians put emphasis on the actual monarchical control over the country and assert that St. Olav, who reigned from 1015, was the first king to have control over the entire country. Olav is traditionally held to be the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. He was later also revered as Rex Perpetuum Norvegiæ (Latin: the eternal king of Norway). Only when the "half-brothers" Olav II and Harald III ascend to power, is there any weight given to the claim that the successor was predestined by some rules of inheritance and not simply through force.

The Fairhair dynasty can, however, be seen as an artificial construct. It has been proposed (most vociferously by Claus Krag) that the genealogical lines between Harald Fairhair and the generation of Olav the Saint and Harald Hardråde is a construct in a later attempt to legitimize the then monarchs, and also provide a claim to the region of Viken (the area around the present-day Oslo), a claim challenged by the Danish. Adherents of this proposal consider Harald Hardråde to be the actual dynastic founder. This claim has won wide, but not universal, acceptance among historians. It is a disputed question whether Harald Hardråde himself actually claimed inheritance from Harald Fairhair, or whether this claim was constructed later by his descendants.

From our sources, it seems reasonable to assume that Olav II and Harald Hardråde were half-brothers, with a common mother but two different fathers. Descent from the same mother was not in Germanic understanding a proper dynastic tie, and Harald Hardråde's supporters did not base his rights and claims on that. Instead, Harald Hardråde's father was supposedly a descendent, in unbroken male line, from a younger (and somewhat obscure) son of Harald Fairhair. The same has been claimed regarding Olav II's line. To researchers, one or perhaps both of these somewhat obscure male-line descents may be legendary.

The idea of three separate genealogical male-line descents of Harald Fairhair to Olav I of Norway, Olav II of Norway and Harald Hardråde, is based on saga material compiled a few centuries later, out of the material preserved or created by supporters of these monarchs. Research has generally shown a tendency to create a more prestigious past to the country, and to strengthen the claims and legitimacy of its rulers.

There could have been other lines of descent from King Harald I than the three embellished by Heimskringla. On the other hand, there is no evidence that even these three are factual.