Lagmann Mac Gofraid - King of Man and The Isles

King of Man and The Isles

According to the Chronicle of Man, Lagmann was the eldest of Gofraid Crobán's three sons—Lagmann, Aralt, and Amlaíb. The ancesty of Lagmann's father is uncertain. The chronicle describes Gofraid in Latin as filius Haraldi nigri de ysland, and it is possible that ysland may refer to Iceland. Within the Annals of Tigernach, he is given the Gaelic patronymic mac mic Arailt, which may mean that he was a son, or nephew, of Ímar mac Arailt, King of Dublin (d. 1054). Ímar was a grandson of the celebrated Amlaíb Cuarán, King of Dublin, King of Northumbria (d. 981), who was a member of the powerful Uí Ímair. In 1091, Gofraid won the Kingship of Dublin, and reigned there for about three years. In 1094 he was forced from Dublin, and died the following year of the plague on the Hebridean island of Islay.

The chronicle is a somewhat untrustworthy source in the years immediately following Gofraid's death. What is known for certain is that, in 1098, Magnús Óláfsson, King of Norway, led a marauding fleet through the Hebrides and ravaged the islands before reaching the Isle of Man. Whether Lagmann began his reign before Magnús's arrival, or after, is not known for certain, and both possibilities have been advanced by modern scholars. The chronicle states that Lagmann ruled the kingdom seven years after his father's death. Given the dubious nature of the chronicle's dates, it is possible that Lagmann assumed the kingship when his father gained the coveted kingship of Dublin, in 1091. The chronicle next records that Aralt rebelled against Lagmann for a long period of time before being captured, whereupon Lagmann had him emasculated and blinded. If the chronicle is to be believed, Lagmann afterwards repented for the cruelty he had inflicted upon Aralt, and resigned the kingdom before setting off for Jerusalem, where he died. Now, if we assume that Lagmann took power in the year of his father's death and then trust the chronicle when it says that he ruled for seven years after his father's death, then that brings us to 1102. The chronicle then states that Lagmann's brother rebelled for a long period and a stretch of the imagination might let us believe it was for four long years. If Lagmann then repented of his sins and wished to go on crusade he would have ben just in time to join the expedition of Sigurd Of Norway who set off to the Holy Land at this time with a large fleet. Considering that the Isles may at this time have been under Norwegian overlordship, this is perhaps not an entirely unlikely set of events to have transpired. Some historians of the Crusades take this passage to be evidence that Lagmann took part in the First Crusade, which could mean he joined the "Saxon Crusade" that arrived at the Siege of Antioch on March 4 1098.