Harold Harefoot

Harold I (English: Harold I Harefoot; * to 1016 in Denmark, † March 17, 1040 in Oxford / England) was King of England from 1035 to 1040. He received the nickname " Harefoot " ( coward ) because of his speed and skill in hunting.

Life

He is the son of Knut the Great and his first wife Ælfgifu of Northampton.

Knut the Great decreed before his death on 12 November 1035 that his Anglo - Scandinavian kingdom will divided among his sons:

  • Sven received Norway,
  • Hardeknut Denmark and
  • Harald should rule over England.

Although Queen Emma and Earl Godwin Hardeknut that was bound militarily in Denmark supported, was Harold Harefoot, elected king with the support of Leofric of Mercia and his mother Ælfgifu end of 1035 from the Witan at Oxford. This led to the division of England, which is also occupied numismatic: Hardeknut got the southern, Harald the northern part.

Edward the Confessor and his brother Alfred, sons of Harald's stepmother Emma from her first marriage with King Æthelred II, undertook in 1036 or 1037 to try to come to power in England. Emma lived in Winchester with Hardeknuts bodyguard, but Harald I Harefoot sent an army to their treasures to rob; destitute Emma flees to Bruges in Flanders, Count Baldwin V the Pious. Alfred was captured by Godwin, blinded and died, his entourage was massacred or mutilated. Godwin denied his guilt and was acquitted, while Edward the Confessor returned to Normandy. In 1037 Harald had enough followers found and had himself crowned king over all England.

Hardeknut sold his mother was followed in 1039 by Flanders and put there an army to go to the English throne as his half-brother Harald I Harefoot died in Oxford in March 1040 and was buried in Westminster alongside his father Knut. On June 14, 1040 Hardeknut landed with 62 warships at Sandwich and ascended the English throne unchallenged ( 1040-1042 ). Harald's corpse he had exhumed and thrown into a sewer or sump. Shortly after the body was dragged by a fisherman from the Thames and first in Westminster, later buried on the cemetery of St Clement Danes Danish in London respectful. Ælfgifu, his mother has since no longer mentioned in the sources.

Swell

  • Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
  • Symeon of Durham, Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum
  • Adam of Bremen, Gesta Pontificum Hammaburgensis ecclesiae, Hamburg Church History
North Sea Empire Harthacnut Emma of Normandy Witenagemot Baldwin V, Count of Flanders Blinding Project Gutenberg Lexikon des Mittelalters
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