It is here.
Chapter 41:
Anarchy
Excerpted from A Saga Without Heroes, Volume 2: The New World
s, by Erik Haraldsson, ©2013 Nidaros University Press.
Used with permission.
It was an era of change.
In Norway, the king, Halfdan II, had done something unprecedented since the feudal system had become dominant in Europe: He took over the entire realm into his hands, appointing non-hereditary governors who could be replaced and appointed at will of the king.
The decree doing away with the feudal system,
Iustitia Regis, came into effect at midnight on New Year's Day, 1453.
The news soon spread to Scotland, where an embattled King Archibald II, of the usurping Irish dynasty, attacked by the Crovan king of 'England' in a struggle for his crown, adopted the system, and after his victory it was implemented in the entire realm.
But across the sea things were different. On hearing the news, the Norwegian lords of the Kingdom of France demanded protection from any similar act their king, Ossor av Poitiers, might be inspired to implement.
Ossor, fully aware that the elective system of inheritance in his realm would cause the downfall of his dynasty if he refused, assented, and the nobles kept their rights.
In the Mongol empires, though, the vassals had already long since taken their independence by the sword- the once mighty Golden Horde had been especially humbled by those.
But mighty they still were.
On the second day of 1453, still drunk on his triumph, Halfdan received the terrible news from the East:
At first it was thought that mighty Norway would be forced to submit, but Halfdan mobilized the Germans and sent them to invade the Golden Horde's territories in Austria,
and even Poland, and after three years of struggle managed to convince the Khan of Khans to admit defeat.
But in 1459 he was less lucky, having been forced by a rapidly-emptying treasury to disband most of his troops, and surrendered to the Khan.
It was the opening shot of a generation of anarchy in the realms of the Ynglings.
In 1461 Halfdan Halfdansson, heir to the throne, took ill, and despite his father's uncontrolled spending on the best doctors in the world, the acme of fifteenth-century medicine was unable to save him, and he died.
This pushed the king into the arms of a certain courtesan whose name has been lost due to the primness of the royal chroniclers who are our major sources for this period, producing a son, whom Halfdan, motivated by the need of an heir, legitimized as Hakon Yngling.
It may be, as the pious chroniclers claim, that this sparked the great rebellion.
At a conclave of bishops at Rome in 1462, the assembled clergymen were split into two groups:
The Pope and his supporters who held the orthodox view that Jesus was not naturally conceived, but rather was the manifestation of God's Spirit on earth.
On the other hand, there was a group of radical dissidents who held that he was the biological son of Joseph and Mary, and for some reason lost to time this faction was called the
Hus.
All the members of the
Hus faction were summarily excommunicated for holding such a heretical belief, but the matter did not end their.
The
Hus bishops returned to their dioceses, where they now openly preached their beliefs, and those who followed them became forever known as 'Hussites'.
When the king, whose meddling with strange women had been scandalously exposed to the public, announced his support for the orthodox papal view, it was the worst mistake of his life.
In various provinces from Jamtland to Lecce the Hussites took to arms to enforce their belief in the Natural Conception, fighting off the royal troops sent to put them down.
The Hussite rebellions would continue, on and off, especially during times of war, throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century, destabilizing the realm significantly.
This instability was expressed further when a still grief-stricken and overstressed Halfdan died in 1465, causing a pretender named Niels to rise up in Spain, coinciding with yet another Mongol war.
Though the rebellion was ultimately crushed, it led to a still-greater disaster:
The
Tyskeinvasjon, the German Invasion.
It had begun when Jaume III Wigeriche, the Rhienlandish king of Aragon, declared war on a now-adult Hakon for control of Dresden.
Desperate offers to surrender Dresden went rejected, and an expedition into Jaume's lands in Alcantara ultimately faltered, defeated by low supplies and cash.
Then, the banner of Aragon was flown over Tintagel when its troops invaded Cornwall, taking advantage of a scanty Norwegian garrison in the area.
This was the last straw. Unable to fight any more, Hakon signed the humilliating Treaty of Tintagel, surrendering Badajoz and Cornwall to Aragon plus a cash payment.
More rebellions followed, of heretics, peasents, disaffected nobles and particularists, and through it all Hakon retreated to his palace at Nordhamptaborg, which daily became more and more of a fortress, fearful of invasions by sea.
His heir, Christoffer, died, and although another son, Harald was born, it was doubtful he would be any better than Hakon.
As the thirty-year-mark since
Iustitia Regis's inception, there was one question on every peasant, merchant and courtier in Norway's lips:
Who would be their savior?