Óláfr's Conflicts with the Magnates

The conflicts leading to Óláfr's fall start with the episode of Asbjorn^[*] selsbani, which according to Snorri's chronology took place in 1022-1023, immediately before the turning point of the saga (chaps. 117-120; see also above). Asbjorn is a prominent man in Northern Norway who tries to increase his power and influence in the region through lavish hospitality. As this becomes difficult because of bad harvests in the North, he goes south to his maternal uncle Erlingr Skjálgsson to buy grain. That same year, however, the king has forbidden grain export from Western Norway because of his intention to go there on veitsla . Erlingr runs into a dilemma. On the one hand, he does not want to offend the king, on the other, he cannot afford to lose face by letting down a kinsman. He tries to solve the dilemma by allowing Asbjorn to buy grain from his slaves, whom he has allowed to grow something on their own. But the king's ármaðr (local representative), Selþórir at Avaldsnes, does not accept this excuse, confiscates the grain, and sends Asbjorn home empty-handed, to the scorn of his neighbors. The next year Asbjorn revenges himself, killing Selþórir in the presence of the king, who is just then visiting Avaldsnes. Asbjorn is taken captive and condemned to death, but Erlingr's son Skjálgr, who is then at Óláfr's hirð , hurries to his father for aid, while his friend Þórarinn Nefjólfsson through various pretexts manages to postpone the execution until after the Easter holidays. Erlingr then arrives with a large force just in time to save Asbjorn, forcing the king to accept compensation for the death of his ármaðr in return for Asbjorn's life. Though the king is very angry, they arrive at a settlement. Peace, however, turns out to be of short duration. New issues arise between them and lead to full enmity (chap. 121: 262). When Cnut turns against Norway, Erlingr joins him. Snorri tells of only one more meeting between him and Óláfr, in Erlingr's ship during the battle in which Erlingr is killed.

The Selsbani episode is the first of the conflicts that ultimately lead to Óláfr's fall and is at the same time the cause of some of the others. It apparently poisons the atmosphere between Óláfr and Erlingr in a way that leads to new conflicts. It also creates enmity between Óláfr and the mighty Þórir hundr at Bjarkøy, Asbjorn's uncle. Asbjorn is reconciled

with Óláfr on the condition that he takes the place of the dead Selþárir as Óláfr's ármaðr at Karmøy. When returning home to arrange things before his final departure, he is persuaded by Þórir to break the settlement and remain at home, rather than becoming the king's "slave" (OH chap. 120: 260 f.). He is then killed by Óláfr's hirðmaðr (retainer) Ásmundr Grankelsson, when Ásmundr's friend Karli, also Óláfr's hirðmaðr , points out Asbjorn^[*] to him and thus becomes his accomplice (OH chap. 123). As a revenge, Þórir kills Karli and becomes Óláfr's enemy (OH chap. 133). Like Erlingr, Þórir is reconciled with the king, though hardly in a way that is likely to lead to lasting friendship. Óláfr's man Finnr Árnason humiliates him and forces him to pay an enormous indemnity (OH chap. 139). Þórir then leaves the country before he has paid the full amount, enters King Cnut's service in England, and becomes one of the leaders of Óláfr's enemies in the battle of Stiklestad, even giving Óláfr one of his deadly wounds (OH chap. 139: 325 f., chaps. 219, 221, 228, etc.).

The other conflicts between Óláfr and individual magnates, three in number, all take place toward the end of Óláfr's reign, after Cnut has made his claim on Norway. Óláfr has made Ásmundr Grankelsson his hirðmaðr and representative in Ásmundr's home district of Northern Norway as a counterweight against Hárekr at Tjøtta. When Hárekr runs into conflict with Ásmundr and his father Grankell over a hunting and fishing ground and Óláfr supports the latter, Hárekr joins Óláfr's adversaries (OH chaps. 106, 123, 140, 169, 170). A little later, conflict is imminent between King Óláfr and the Árnasons, his closest friends among the lendir menn , because of Þorbergr Árnason protecting an Icelander who has killed the king's ármaðr . Þorbergr is in a conflict of loyalty, because of the services the Icelander has done to his wife in the past (OH chap. 138). Like Erlingr Skjálgsson earlier, Þorbergr and his brothers assemble an army and force the king to accept indemnity for his ármaðr . But this time the settlement lasts.

Snorri thus accentuates the political reasons for Óláfr's fall. The ecclesiastical sagas and Fagrskinna are mainly concerned with the ideological reasons for this, Óláfr's strict justice and his fight for Christianity. The stories that serve to build up Snorri's picture, are not his own, however. Most of them are found in the Legendary Saga , and the one which is not, that of Hárekr at Tjøtta, may have been borrowed from Styrmir's Óláfs saga . Both by his chronological arrangement and his way of linking these stories together, Snorri apparently uses them in a different way from his predecessors to create a picture of the political issues involved in the rebellion against Óláfr. By contrast, the Legendary Saga gives them less prominence and more directly than Snorri tries to subordinate them to the ideological picture of the conflict.^[6]

Snorri's ideological explanation of Óláfr's fall thus turns out to be a conventional piece of rex iustus -ideology, borrowed from earlier, clerical authors, whereas his real explanation lies in a series of power struggles between Óláfr and individual magnates. The individuals in question are the very men who led the army against him at Stiklestad (OH chaps. 219-220). This seems to indicate that Snorri is more interested in individual conflicts than in the relationship between the king and the aristocracy in general. If the examples are to be generalized, the most likely hypothesis is that Snorri intends them as examples of the way in which even other magnates became Óláfr's enemies, as is indicated by Bishop Sigurðr's words that there was hardly a single man in the army who did not have cause for revenging himself on Óláfr. The alternative hypothesis, that Snorri intends them as an illustration of the general conflict of interest between the monarchy and the aristocracy receives little support from the rest of Heimskringla .