SCANDINAVIA | 3. THE GEATS AND THE SVEAR
1. The Second Scanian War
In 837 A.D., a Geatish warlord named Styrbjörn, ruler over the southern part of Värend, appeared before the court in Ingelheim to pay homage to King Adalhard of the Franks, who had defeated his brothers and his uncle, becoming the sole king. Styrbjörn’s father had converted to Christianity after being defeated in battle by the Frankish Marquis of Scania, and became a nominal client ruler, but resented the foreign interference and still worshipped the old gods. Styrbjörn himself saw a way to improve his own standing in the precarious stalemate that occurred between the mutually inimical Geatish peoples after the Frankish conquest. King Adalhard I accepted his proposal of assisting in his campaign against the pagan Geats. Styrbjörn was baptized in Ingelheim and adopted the name “Stephanus” in devotion to the first Christian martyr (also due to the vague phonetic approximation – as from this name came the modern version by which he is widely known “Styffein of Värend”).
Thus, due to the ambition of Styffein, the Second Scanian War began in 839 A.D., initially as a gamble to unite the independent nations of Småland [1] into a single realm under the God-Christ. Eight thousand men-at-arms and four hundred knights from Austrasia and Neustria, Saxony and Thuringia, Burgundy and Provence marched north, joined by Slavic mercenaries and by the native Danish and Geatish feudal levies and lordly retinues, comprising about eleven thousand men. This vast army was at first commanded by the King himself, and in the later stages by his nephew Hlothar the Bold.
Map of Smaland during the Viking Age
The first phase of this war lasted until 842 when the defeated and intimidated tribal leaders agreed to a general truce in a diet presided by King Adalhard in Växjö. Styffein was created “Duke of Gothia”, securing the coastal regions (Möre, Handbörd, Aspeland and Sevede) for himself while the hinterland peoples, mainly in Finnveden, Njudung and Tveta accepted clientage, and their warlords baptized in Lake Helgasjön, with the King as their godfather.
During the brief peace between 842 and 845, Duke Styffein fulfilled his promises to the suzerain and invested his own family heirloom in the building of churches, including the Basilica of Väjxö, inaugurated by the Bishop of Lund; granted fiefs to landless Frankish and Saxon nobles in his country; enforced the King’s charters granting rights to the Frisian and Anglish merchants (mainly in a district of Kalmar); and stimulated proselytizing missions through the country of the Geats. By cunning diplomacy, he isolated the largest Geatish nations, favoring the weakest, and smartly brought them into his own vassalage. It is said, after all, that Duke Styffein when he was a young man had received a prophecy foreboding that he would be the progenitor of kings, and knew that the submission to the Franks was but a means to a far more exceptional purpose.
Whatever were his plans, however, they could have been undone in 845 and the following years, because his ambitions became all too clear to his rivals in Småland, and they finally obtained the support of the mighty Svearish chieftains. Even a perceptive man like Duke Styffein might have been surprised by this new alliance, for the race of the Geats and of the Svear had been bitter enemies for countless generations. It seems that the Frankish threat – which might extinguish their own independence and destroy their customs – warranted the dismissing of old hatreds in favor of a coalition.
Duke Styffein tried to muster the assistance of the Svearish and Geatish federations living around the great Lake Vänern, as they rivalled with those living around the Lake Vätern – his enemies – but they were uninterested in participating. It took two campaigns (845 and 846) for pro-Frankish forces to be routed on the battlefield or to defect to the enemy, as many of his new vassals actually frowned upon the foreign interference and saw the presence of the God-Christ in their country an offense to their own gods of the sky, the earth and the seas.
If Duke Styffein’s defeat at first seemed obvious, due to the immense numerical advantage of the contenders, his dominion survived because of the recently built motte and bailey forts in the southern frontier and in the coastal regions. The Svear had no patience for sieges, and preferred to plunder the countryside.
Responding to Duke Styffein’s call to arms came his son-in-law, the Hermann of Bremon [‘Bremen’] (a relative of the Saxon Duke) with about 1.200 infantrymen and 180 horsemen. He relieved the siege attempt of Väjxö, thus rescuing Styffein in late 846, but in his overconfidence advanced deep into enemy territory and was ambushed and made a prisoner with most of his battalion.
Prince Hermann of Bremon's forces are ambushed in Scandinavian woodlands[2]
In that very year, the pagans ritualistically sacrificed him with a few other highborn prisoners in the winter’s festival in Uppsala. Hermann would much later be canonized as a martyr, but not even this circumstance could have appeased his father’s hatred – the Duke of Saxony – towards the pagans. He went personally to the royal court of Hugh of Austrasia - one of King Adalhard’s sons and the most favored pretender to the throne of Frankia - to demand vengeance against the pagans. At the time, with tied hands in a war with his cousin Hlothar the Bold for the control of Neustria, King Hugh reluctancly detached a force of 3.000 levied men to march north.
By now, the Northmen had offered terms for a truce in a meeting in Väjxö with Duke Styffein and Marquis Liutpold of Scania. The Geatish lord, however, had little interest in peace, and purposefully thwarted the negotiations, insulting the enemy and threatening them, which resulted in the continuation of hostilities. His strategy was to create such an enmity between the Svearish coalition and the Franks that only the destruction of the pagans would suffice to bring peace to the country. The gamble at first did not pay off. The forces of King Hugh repeated the same mistake of young Hermann and, after minor victories, were broken (847) by the sudden attack of the heathen guerrilla in the wilderness. The scattered forces were mustered again by Duke Styffein, but they refused to leave the safety of the fortresses in northern Scania.
This embarrassing blunder cost the reputation of King Hugh, and Saxon and Danish vassals threatened to defect to his rival’s faction. Realizing that a victory in the far north was the only way of salvaging his own cause inside the convoluted affairs of Frankia, he concluded a hasty truce with his cousin Hlothar, and immediately navigated from Frisia to Scandinavia with 6.000 troops.
Disembarking in Kalmar, they quickly advanced against the myriad of Geatish tribes, as their forces had been separated from the more numerous Svearish raiding parties. The heathens had captured but a few castles in Värend (Duke Styffein’s fief) and it was easy to isolate them and pursue the Geats in open field. They were quickly repelled from the whole of Värend and King Hugh organized a strategic pincer attack to subjugate Finnveden: (1) the forces of Marquis Liutpold came from the southwest and (2) his own Royal army from the east. In a single month, the whole province had been conquered, and their leaders baptized in the Lake Bolmen. Afterwards, King Hugh awaited the arrival of the Saxon reinforcements from the continent.
A grand army of pagan Geats and Svear reunited in a village near the Solgen Lake (848). King Hugh refused their offers of truce, and met them in battle in September, 848 A.D., in the Day of St. Hyeronimus, and the pagans were defeated. Duke Styffein’s diplomatic cunning convinced the Geats – who suffered greater losses –that bowing to a distant king was better than recognizing the hegemony of their former (and still despised) enemies, the Svear, and the coalition broke apart. Some Geatish nobles agreed to convert to Christianity, on the condition that they preserve their own holdings. The Svears, cursing their hitherto allies, retreated back north, but were pursued and cornered on the shores of Lake Sonnen. The exhausted men offered little resistance, and after the initial bloodbath, it became a large-scale enslavement. Some two thousand Svearish warriors were deported to Austrasia and some of them recruited into King Hugh’s army.
The Geatish princedoms were now at least nominally Christian, and their suzerainty was partitioned between Duke Styffein and Marquis Liutpold. The southern Svearish lords were forced to acknowledge Frankish supremacy over the parts of Scandinavia belonging to King Hugh.
2. The Geatish Hegemony
After the Second Scanian War, another phase of the conquest began, but instead of a single, large war to annex a whole country, it would consist of decades of localized campaigns, skirmishes and raids, conducted mainly by the Geats, but also by the Danes of the March of Scania. Even as the Kings of Frankia lost their interest in Scandinavia, the Geatish domination became an unpleasant fact, and they at least nominally represented the weakening Frankish kingdom. Duke Styffein was an opportunistic ruler, and was perfectly content in waving the Frankish standards in battle, and paying homage to the successive rulers of Frankia – indeed, his own long rule in Geatland outlived that of various Frankish monarchs – because he knew he was the de facto Prince of Scania. In the future, his successors would proclaim their independence and claim the whole of Scania to their fledgling kingdom, but this concerns a future chapter.
Through the late 9th and first half of the 10th Century, the Geats, replicating the example of the Frisians and the Danes before the conquest, endeavored to expand in the Baltic coast, mainly in Pomerania and Prussia.
The West Slavic peoples living east of the Elbe River by now had a direct contact with Latin Christianity, and the circumstances of the Saxon War transformed their relationship with Frankia. Until the reign of King Karolo I of the Franks, the Obodrite confederation was allied to the Franks against the Saxons. After the Saxons baptized and their territory converted into a duchy, the Christian Saxon Dukes took to themselves the task of subduing those peoples through the 10th Century, whom they called “Wends”. For this reason, the arrival of the Geats, whose penetration in the country was less violent and more trade-oriented, provided a useful prospect of alliance. Even if the Saxons and Geats were both part of the same realm, and vassals to the same monarch, a situation that prohibited war between them, this hardly prevented the generations of skirmishes and small-scale conflict east of the Elbe River, waged between autonomous longboat crews and lesser Saxon lords.
By the end of the 10th Century, however, it became clear that the Saxons had the upper hand: they dedicated their whole resources and manpower to the enlargement of their fiefs in the Slavic frontier. The Wagrians were the first to fall, in the 930s, and Liubice became a Saxon stronghold. Afterwards, the Polabians would gradually be pushed to the east. The Geatish alliance became less useful as their dukes became embroiled in the wars of conquest in Scandinavia itself. The fate of the Pomeranians was sealed when Duke Lukas the God-Lover, an ardent enemy of paganism, changed their national policy to wage a war of conquest against the weakened Slavic peoples in that country. The bitter resistance of the pagans became legendary, but as the 11th Century began, the patterns of the unofficial partition of Polabia could already be seen: between the Saxons, until the border of the River Oder, and the Geats, who took for themselves various coastal settlements, including the island of Rügen.
In the uncharted country of the Prussians, a raiding crew led by the pagan Gústafr Gústafrson established a stronghold named after his father – or himself, perhaps – Gústengarðr, inside the Vistula Lagoon (950s), and from there launched seasonal raids through the Rivers Elbing and Pregel. The settlement of Gústengarðr, despite founded by pagans, would quickly welcome Christianity, and for a long time it was a neutral haven for both pagans and baptized people, until the middle 11th Century, when paganism was finally outlawed.
Map of Medieval Prussian peoples
In the eastern Baltic coast, the Geatish raids were much less successful. Despite various generations of attempting to build a network of fortified markets in the country inhabited by the Eestians [‘Estonians’], Lettigalians and Samogitians, the indigenous peoples, who worshipped strange gods, unknown to even the Slavs and the Scandinavians, and were covetous of their miserable freedom, waged a determined resistance, and despite their internal disunity, had a greater capacity of amalgamating in temporary coalitions to repel the invaders.
3. The Third Scanian War
Some generations after Duke Styffein’s voluntary conversion to Christianity, his grandson, the powerful Eirikr of Värend, became the godfather of Jarl Torsten of Söderköping in his baptism in 928, thus becoming the first Svearish ruler to voluntarily convert to Christianity. Besides being an historical landmark, dividing “pre-Christian” and “Christian” Svealand, this conversion provoked a noticeable domino effect, inspiring the baptism of minor lords, and the consequent recognition of the Geatish suzerainty.
By this time, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of pagans from south and eastern Scandinavia had migrated to Garðaríki, and the weakened remnants in the homeland were gradually overwhelmed by the violence of the Geats and the Danes. Even if the fear of the Frankish arms was now but a distant memory, the Geats themselves had become the most formidable bulwark of Christianity inside Scandinavia. While Duke Styffein adopted a tolerant policy towards pagans, his successors, like his grandsons Karell and Styffein, were ardent Christians, and condemned the worship of the ancient idols.
The tensions had mounted up during the 940s, during the reign of Eirikr’s son, Duke Lukas "God-Lover" Eirikson, intensified the raids against the pagan Svear beyond the border fixed in the Braviken bay and forced the communities of Södermanland to abandon the old gods. Until then, the border had been grudgingly respected by both sides, Christian and pagan, and these peoples enjoyed a tense peace. The Geatish aggression, even if anticipated by the northern pagans, was even more violent than foreseen, as Duke Lukas mustered an immense army of Geats, Danes and even Saxon and Pomeranian mercenaries, numbering about 5.000 men-at-arms, and 600 heavy cavalry, a numerical record in Scandinavian military conflicts, all joined not only by the promise of plunder, slaves and the most fertile fiefs in Scandinavia, but also of religious salvation. After all, this war was the first one to be sanctioned directly by the Pope, after the Archbishop of Lund had corresponded with him regarding the righteousness of such a violence. The seating Pope at the time was *Gregorius IV [3], and he responded by enthusiastically supporting the “holy war” against the heathens, and even furnished a standard representing the triple-tiered Papal Cross, proudly waved by Duke Lukas. This symbol would in the centuries following become the national flag of the Geatish kingdom, a white triple cross upon a burgundy field (the color of the Styffeinling Dynasty).
Modern Flag of the Kingdom of Geatland, adopted in the late 13th Century
The news that the pagans had formed a coalition to oppose Duke Lukas Eirikson gave him the convenient pretext to launch a grand-scale war of conquest. His decisive victory in near the shores of the Lake Örebro (949) apparently demonstrated the righteousness of their sanguinary enterprise.
Through the next four years, Duke Lukas tirelessly waged a bloody war of conquest, breaking the Svearish confederation by attrition and by exploiting its internal divisions. Like his forefather, Duke Styffein, he used the strategy of divide and conquer, knowing that many of the allied Svearish tribes actually harbored ancient feuds between each other, while some others were more tolerant towards Christianity. His army’s discipline and organization became proverbial, restrained from their basest vices by his iron-fist and will, even as more and more bands of adventurers arrived from Frankia, determined to fight against what they believed to be Christ’s enemies in exchange for promised forgiveness.
The famous siege and later destruction of Uppsala, in 954, would be propagated by countless poems and chronicles, and by the 13th Century would be regarded as the Christian Trojan War. It became notorious for uniting under the same cross-banner a multitude of nations, as if the whole Christendom had come to destroy a notorious center of paganism, an ancient temple near a tremendous oak tree that the Scandinavians believed to be the representation of the world-tree, Yggdrasil. A serious historian, however, can hardly be persuaded by these romantic exaggerations. If there were indeed foreigners in Duke Lukas Eirikson’s army, they were mostly mercenaries interested in the legendary riches hidden in mounds protected by dragons and demons in the Scandinavian wilderness, although there might be indeed a few contingents of fanatical Franco-Germanic groups seeking indulgence by battle, a pattern that would reach entirely new proportions in the 11th Century, as Papal-sanctioned holy wars became frequent. Regarding the numbers, instead of the alleged 100.000 soldiers figure presented by the
Gesta Gautorum [4], its likely that the Geatish troops were about 6.000 fighting men, mostly feudal levies of peasants and fishermen. It is an amazing number in its own right, of course, especially considering that at the time the Scandinavian population had diminished by the diaspora.
The razing of the fortified temple in Uppsala by Duke Lukas Eirikson marked the decline of Norse paganism in eastern and central Scandinavia. Afterwards, most of the Svearish jarls baptized (955), and only a few, more remote warlords remained to provide sacrifices to the national deities. In Norway, as already said, paganism remained strong, as the Christian expeditions were more successfully opposed by the unforgiving wilderness and rugged mountains.
This period also marked the apogee of the Geatish hegemony, as Duke Lukas Eirikson was recognized as the overlord above various Geatish and Svearish petty lords, and it was this mighty principality that would give birth to the Kingdom of Geatland in the late 11th Century.
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[1] "Småland" is a region in southern Sweden. The name used is anachronistic, but I preferred to use it because its more widely known. During the Viking Ages, these lands were inhabited by the Geats, a people descended from the ancient Goths, but historically they were conquered and assimilated by the the Kingdom of Sweden.
[2] Art by Ethically Challenged from Deviant-Art
[3] This is an ALT-Gregory IV. Due to butterflies, some Papal names will be repeated, but they will be different from OTL persons.
[4] "Gesta Gautorum" is a Latin name meaning (loosely) "Deeds of the Geats", and its a fictional TTL chronicle of the History of the Geats, like OTL Gesta Dannorum and Gesta Francorum.