Halsten Stenkilsson

Halsten Stenkilsson, English exonym: Alstan[1][2] (Old Icelandic: Hallstein[3]) was a king of Sweden, son of King Stenkil and a Swedish princess. He became king some time after his father Stenkil's death (1066), and he may have ruled together with his brother Inge the Elder.[4][5][6] The date of his death is not known.[5]

Halsten Stenkilsson
King of Sweden
Reignc. 1067–c. 1070
PredecessorEric and Eric
SuccessorHåkan the Red
(as King of Gothenland)
Anund Gårdske
(as King of Svealand)
King of Sweden
with Inge the Elder
Reignc. 1079–after 1081
PredecessorHåkan the Red
SuccessorInge the Elder
(as King of Gothenland)
Blot-Sweyn
(as King of Svealand)
Bornc. 1050
Diedunknown, after 1081
IssuePhilip of Sweden
Inge the Younger
HouseStenkil
FatherStenkil
MotherIngamoder Emundsdotter
ReligionRoman Catholicism

Brief kingship

Little is known of his time as king.[5] In a scholia in the work of Adam of Bremen, he is reported to have been elected king after the violent death of two pretenders,[5] but took over a highly volatile situation. While he was clearly a Christian like his father and brother, his influence may have been limited, since Adam relates that Christianity was so disturbed that the bishops appointed by the Archdiocese of Bremen did not even dare to travel to Sweden.[1] He was deposed after a short while, in the late 1060s or early 1070s, and replaced by a princeling from Gardariki, Anund.[5][6]

Possible later reign

That he later on ruled together with his brother Inge has some support from a papal letter from 1081, by Pope Gregory VII, which refers to two kings with the initials A and I, and where they are called kings of Västergötland[5] (rege wisigothorum[7]). However, the king "A" could also be Håkan the Red.[8] His co-rulership with his brother Inge is also mentioned in the Hervarar saga.[4] In the regnal list of the Westrogothic law, he is said to have been courteous and cheerful, and whenever a case was submitted to him, he judged fairly,[5][6] and this was why Sweden mourned his death.[5] He was the father of the co-rulers Philip and Inge the Younger.[4][5][6]

The Hervarar saga, which is one of the few sources about the kings of this time, has the following to tell:

Hallsteinn hét sonr Steinkels konungs, bróðir Inga konungs, er konungr var með Inga konungi, bróður sínum. Synir Hallsteins váru þeir Philippus ok Ingi, er konungdóm tóku í Svíþjóð eptir Inga konung gamla.[3]

King Steinkel had, besides Ingi, another son Hallstein who reigned along with his brother. Hallstein's sons were Philip and Ingi, and they succeeded to the Kingdom of Sweden after King Ingi the elder.[4]

Notes and references
  1. Adam (von Bremen); Adam of Bremen; Francis Joseph Tschan; Timothy Reuter (2002-04-01). History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. Columbia University Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-231-12575-8.
  2. William Russell; Charles Coote (1822). The history of modern Europe: with an account of the decline & fall of the Roman Empire; and a view of the progress of society, from the rise of the modern kingdoms to the peace of Paris in 1763; in a series of letters from a nobleman to his son. A. Small. p. 140.
  3. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, Guðni Jónsson's og Bjarni Vilhjálmsson's edition at «Norrøne Tekster og Kvad». Archived 2007-05-08 at the National and University Library of Iceland
  4. "The Saga of Hervör and Heithrek, in Stories and Ballads of the Far Past, translated from the Norse (Icelandic and Faroese), by N. Kershaw. Cambridge at the University Press, 1921". Archived from the original on 2006-12-27. Retrieved 2006-12-18.
  5. The article Halsten in Nordisk familjebok (1909).
  6. "Halsten", Nationalencyklopedin
  7. Kaliff, A. (2001) Gothic Connections, Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000BC-500AD. Occasional Papers in Archaeology 26. Uppsala. p. 16.
  8. Inge in Nationalencyklopedin
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