Olaf II of Norway

Holy Olaf or Olav Haraldson, known as the Large or the Saint , king de Norvège (1016-1028), born in 995, dead the July 29th 1030.

He would have been baptized in Norway in 998, or perhaps towards 1010 with Rouen by the Robert archbishop. Like Viking in his youth, it goes several times to England and is interested in the Christian faith , introduced as of IXe century in Scandinavia by missionary S of various countries, and mainly the monk Saint Anschaire, the “apostle of North”, later bishop of Bremen then Archevêque of Hamburg.

Olaf passes then its life to dispute the kingdom of Norway to the large king Knut or Silk worker Ier, king of Denmark and England. Indeed, the Scandinavian great power is, at the beginning of XIe century, the kingdom Viking of the Denmark. About 1015-1017, Olaf Ier the Fort (predecessor of Olaf saint), from Norwegian big family, benefits from what Knut is occupied in England to make independent the Norway. The new king settles with Nidaros (current Trondheim), and builds a church there.

Saint Olav II, his successor, after some difficulties, is elected king de Norvège, and at the head puts himself to extirpate the Paganisme of it, to make Christianity the religion of his country. A sharp opposition of the pagan and some Seigneur S which fears his authority encourages it to repress them hard.

He is the large legislator of the Church in Norway and like its ancestor Olaf Tryggvason, he tries to make disappear the traces from the old faith and to build churches in the place of the old crowned places which he profaned or destroyed. He also makes come from the bishops and the priest S of England.

He returns to the local things their importance, he amends the codes of laws, deliberately inserts his country in Western civilization by establishing a national Church with the assistance of his friend the bishop Gimkell, and by founding an effective hierarchy.

After having subjected the Greenland to its authority in 1023, Knut sends an embassy to him to claim the crown about 1024-1025, to him which he refuses while being combined with the king de Suède, and he fights to him a battle without winner in 1026. But Knut, after a Pèlerinage with Rome unloads in Norway in 1028 and proclaims king with Nidaros.

After two years of exile, and the conquest of the Iceland in 1029, it tries a return in Norway but is made beat and kill with Stiklestad the July 29th 1030.

It is the hatchet of Olav saint whom holds between the legs, according to the tradition, the lion which is reproduced on the blazon of Norway. The life of Olav saint holds a big part of the saga kings of Norway written by Snorri Sturluson: the Heimskringla .

See too

Sources

Heimskringla Snorri Sturluson

The saga of Olaf Saint translated and presented by Governed Boyer Payot Paris (1983) ISBN 2-228-13250-0

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