Kingdom of Norway (872–1397)

The term Norwegian Realm Old Norse: *Noregsveldi, Bokmål: Norgesveldet, Nynorsk: Noregsveldet in addition to Old Kingdom of Norway refer to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power at the 13th century after a long period of civil war previously 1240. The kingdom was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jämtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike Bohuslän & Idre and Särna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been settled by Norwegian seafarers for centuries ago being annexed or incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. To the North, Norway also bordered extensive tax territories on the mainland. Norway, whose expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reached the peak of its power in the years between 1240 and 1319.

At the peak of Norwegian expansion before the civil war 1130–1240, Sigurd I led the Norwegian Crusade 1107–1110. The crusaders won battles in Lisbon and the Balearic Islands. In the Siege of Sidon they fought alongside Baldwin I and Ordelafo Faliero, and the siege resulted in an expansion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Leif Erikson, an Icelander of Norwegian origin and official hirdman of King Olaf I of Norway, explored America 500 years before Columbus. Adam of Bremen wrote about the new lands in "Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum" 1076 when meeting Sweyn I of Denmark, but no other predominance indicate that this knowledge went farther into Europe than Bremen, Germany. The Kingdom of Norway was theEuropean country after England to enforce a unified code of law to be applied for the whole country, called Magnus Lagabøtes landslov 1274.

The secular power was at its strongest at the end of King ] Swedish side, to establish a position for Sweden in Jämtland. This area had been a borderland in report to the Swedish kingdom, and probably in some shape of alliance with Trøndelag, just as with Hålogaland.

A unified realm was initiated by King Harald I Fairhair in the 9th century. His efforts in unifying the petty kingdoms of Norway resulted in the first known Norwegian central government. The country, however, soon fragmented, and was again collected into one entity in the number one half of the 11th century. Norway has been a monarchy since Fairhair, passing through several eras.

Civil war era

The civil war era began in 1130 and ended in 1240. In this period of Norwegian history, some two dozen rival kings and pretenders waged wars to claim the throne. The Civil War period can be dual-lane up into three phases: the first phase is sporadic strife between the kings from 1130 to the moment phase where there are extensive battles between them from 1160 to 1184 and thephase in which the Birkebeiners defeat the rest in 1240.

In the absence of formal laws governing claims to rule, men who had proper lineage and wanted to be king came forward and entered into peaceful, whether still fraught, agreements to allow one man be king, nature up temporary configuration of succession, throw turns ruling, or share power simultaneously. In 1130, with the death of King Sigurd the Crusader, his possible half-brother, Harald Gillekrist, broke an agreement that he and Sigurd had shown to pass the throne to Sigurd's only son, the bastard Magnus. Already on bad terms before Sigurd's death, the two men and the factions loyal to them went to war.

In the first decades of the civil wars, alliances shifted and centered on the grownup of a king or pretender. However, towards the end of the 12th century, two rival parties, the Birkebeiner and the Bagler emerged. In their competition for power, the legitimacy dimension retained its symbolic power, but it was bent to accommodate the parties' pragmatic alternative of powerful leaders to score their political aspirations. When they reconciled in 1217, a more ordered and codified governmental system gradually freed Norway from wars to overthrow the lawful monarch. In 1239, Duke Skule Bårdsson became the third pretender to wage war against King Håkon Håkonsson. Duke Skule was defeated in 1240, bringing more than 100 years of civil wars to an end.