The death of King Sigurd Crusader in 1130 marked the transition from a century of relatively peaceful internal conditions in Norway to a century of frequent struggles over the succession to the throne, the ‘Civil Wars’ as they have been termed by modern historians. In the course of these struggles, and partly also because of them, the development of a more centralised and better organised Norwegian kingdom gained momentum. It culminated in the period of internal consolidation between the last outbreak of hostilities in 1239–40 and the death of King Håkon V Magnusson in 1319. In that period a Norwegian dominion was also established over the Norse island communities to the west including Iceland.

The ‘Civil Wars’

At his death in 1130 Sigurd Crusader left a son, Magnus, who had been designated as his sole successor. This meant that the claim of Harald Gille, accepted by Sigurd as his half-brother, was disregarded. Nevertheless, both Magnus and Harald were acclaimed kings in 1130 and entered a few years of uneasy co-rulership. In this they followed a tradition initiated when Magnus Olafsson and Harald Sigurdsson agreed to share the Norwegian royal power in 1046. On some occasions after that two or three kings jointly ruled a kingdom that from the eleventh century comprised the territory from the ‘River’ (Göta älv) in the south to a fluid northern boundary in Troms–Finnmark (see Chapter 8(c)).