Battle of Nesjar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Battle of Nesjar was a sea battle off the coast of Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

in 1016. It was a primary event in the reign of King Olav Haraldsson

Olaf II of Norway

Olaf II Haraldsson was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised in Nidaros by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. Enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral...

(later Saint Olav). Sigvatr Þórðarson

Sigvatr Þórðarson

Sigvatr Þórðarson or Sigvat the Skald was an Icelandic skald. He was a court poet to King Olaf II of Norway, as well as Canute the Great, Magnus the Good and Anund Jacob, by whose reigns his floruit can be dated to the earlier eleventh century.Sigvatr was the best known of the court skalds of...

composed the poem Nesjavísur in memory of the battle.

Tradition places the location of the battle in west end of Oslofjord

Oslofjord

The Oslofjord is a bay in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the Torbjørnskjær and Færder lighthouses and down to Langesund in the south to Oslo in the north....

. The exact location is unknown, but it is somewhere in today's Langesundfjorden intet in Frierfjord

Frierfjord

Frierfjorden is a fjord in the Grenland traditional district in the county of Telemark, Norway. It stretches from Brevik, and Gunneklevfjord, to the mouth of the Porsgrunn river . At the fjord mouth, Breviksstrømmen, it is about 300 m across and is crossed by the Brevik bridge...

, in Brunlanes

Brunlanes

Brunlanes is a parish and former municipality within Larvik municipality in Vestfold county, Norway.-History:The parish of Brunlagnæs was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 . Small parts of Brunlanes were moved to Larvik in 1875 and to the neighboring municipality Stavern in 1883,...

, Larvik

Larvik

is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Larvik. Larvik kommune - has about 41 364 inhabitants and covers 530 km2....

, Vestfold

Vestfold

is a county in Norway, bordering Buskerud and Telemark. The county administration is in Tønsberg.Vestfold is located west of the Oslofjord, as the name indicates. It includes many smaller, but well-known towns in Norway, such as Larvik, Sandefjord, Tønsberg and Horten. The river Numedalslågen runs...

county. The fighting parties were the throne claimant Olav Haraldsson on one side and an alliance backing the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

vassal Sveinn Hákonarson

Sveinn Hákonarson

Sveinn Hákonarson was an earl of the house of Hlaðir and co-ruler of Norway from 1000 to c. 1015. He was the son of earl Hákon Sigurðarson. He is first mentioned in connection with the battle of Hjörungavágr, where the Heimskringla says he commanded 60 ships...

on the other.

After the defeat of Olav Tryggvason at the Battle of Svolder

Battle of Svolder

The Battle of Svolder was a naval battle fought in September 999 or 1000 in the western Baltic Sea between King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway and an alliance of his enemies...

, Norway had been divided into a Swedish

Sweden

part governed by Sveinn Hákonarson and a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

part run by Eiríkr Hákonarson

Eiríkr Hákonarson

Eiríkr Hákonarson or Eric of Norway or Eric of Hlathir was earl of Lade, ruler of Norway and earl of Northumbria.-Background:...

. However, after Eiríkr joined his brother-in-law Canute the Great

Canute the Great

Cnut the Great , also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F...

in his campaign to conquer England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Danish

Denmark

rule folded, and power was assumed by Olav Haraldsson

Olaf II of Norway

, a throne claimant from the Harald Fairhair family line.

Sveinn, who was based in Trøndelag

Trøndelag

Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. The region is, together with Møre og Romsdal, part of a larger...

, learned that Olav was rallying support in Eastern Norway. He set sail along the coast of Norway. Along the way he joined forces with those of several allies among Norway's farmer-chieftains. The most prominent of these was Erling Skjalgsson

Erling Skjalgsson

Erling Skjalgsson was a Norwegian political leader of the late 10th and early 11th century. He has been commonly seen as this period's foremost defender of the historic Norwegian social system...

.

Olav Haraldsson, on the other hand, had finished raising his forces, and had begun his trip northwards to confront Sveinn. The fleets clashed off the coast on Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....

25 March 1016 . Few accounts of the battle survive; however, it is generally regarded as a fierce battle with heavy casualties. None of the major players were killed, as would be usual in this age of chieftains leading the line. However, Sveinn Hákonarson was chased off, thus relinquishing his grip on power. Sveinn retreated to Sweden

Sweden

, but he died of illness before he could muster a force to retake Norway.

The road now seemed open for King Olav to establish a unified rule of Norway. However, along the way he was later forced to ally with Erling Skjalgsson, an alliance which was always uneasy. It also ended violently when Erling Skjalgsson was killed in connection with the Battle of Boknafjorden in 1028. His followers got revenge two years later, when King Olav himself was killed in the Battle of Stiklestad

Battle of Stiklestad

The Battle of Stiklestad in 1030 is one of the most famous battles in the history of Norway. In this battle, King Olaf II of Norway was killed. He was later canonized...

Other sources

Hellberg, Staffan Slaget vid Nesjar och Sven jarl Håkonsson (Scripta Islandica, Uppsala 1972) Swedish
Ferguson, Robert The Vikings: a history (New York City: Penguin Group. 2009)

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