Beorn Estrithson (died 1049) was the son of Jarl
Ulf and
Estrid Svendsdatter
Estrid Svendsdatter of Denmark (also known as ''Estrith'' or ''Astrith''; 990/997 – 1057/1073) was a Danish princess and titular queen, a Russian princess and, possibly, duchess of Normandy by marriage. She was the daughter of Sweyn Forkbeard a ...
, sister of
Cnut the Great
Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...
.
Life
Beorn established himself in England where many of his relatives held high positions. He held an Earldom (Huntingdon) in what is now the East Midlands.
In 1047, Beorn's cousin
Sweyn Godwinson
Sweyn Godwinson () ( 1020 – 1052), also spelled Swein, was the eldest son of Earl Godwin of Wessex, and brother of Harold II of England.
Early life
In 1043 Sweyn was raised to an earldom which included Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Oxf ...
fled England. Along with
Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman ...
, Beorn profited from Sweyn's absence by being awarded a share of his land.
[Walker ''Harold'' p. 22]
When Sweyn returned to England in 1049 and attempted to secure a pardon from the king, Beorn and Harold refused to return any land. With three others, Beorn was guided to
Bosham
Bosham () is a coastal village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex, England, centred about west of Chichester with its clustered developed part west of this. ...
by Sweyn, where he was taken captive. He was sent by ship to
Dartmouth, killed and his body buried.
[Walker ''Harold'' pp. 24–25]
Harold, Sweyn Godwinson's brother, later had Beorn reburied adjacent to his uncle King Cnut, in the
Old Minster, Winchester
The Old Minster was the Anglo-Saxon cathedral for the English diocese of Wessex and then Winchester from 660 to 1093. It stood on a site immediately north of and partially beneath its successor, Winchester Cathedral.
Some sources say that the m ...
.
Siward, Earl of Northumbria
Siward ( or more recently ; ) or Sigurd (, ) was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname ''Digri'' and its Latin translation ''Grossus'' ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts. It is possibl ...
, has been conjectured to be Beorn's son.
Beorn may have had a son. ''
Morkinskinna
''Morkinskinna'' is an Old Norse kings' saga, relating the history of Norwegian kings from approximately 1025 to 1157. The saga was written in Iceland around 1220, and has been preserved in a manuscript from around 1275.
The name ''Morkinskinn ...
'' recounts an Åsmund, nephew of king
Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark, explicitly describing him as son of the king's brother Beorn, yet ''Harald Hardrådes saga'', part of ''
Heimskringla
() is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (117 ...
'', calls the same Åsmund the sister's son of Sweyn.
[P. A. Munch (1855), ''Det Norske Folks Historie'', vol. 5, no. 5, p. 287]
Ancestry
References
External links
*
1049 deaths
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