!SOURCE: Encyclopedia Britannica 99 CD-ROM, article "Harald III
Sigurdsson".
byname HARALD THE RUTHLESS, Norwegian HARALD HARDRAADE, or 1066,
Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire, Eng.), king of Norway (1045-66). His harsh
suppression of lesser Norwegian chieftains cost him their military support
in his unsuccessful struggle to conquer Denmark (1045-62).
The son of Sigurd Sow (Syr), a chieftain in eastern Norway, and of Estrid,
mother of the Norwegian king Olaf II Haraldsson (St. Olaf), Harald fought at
the age of 15 against the Danes with Olaf II in the celebrated Battle of
Stiklestad (1030) in which Olaf was killed. He then fled to Russia, where he
served under the grand prince of Kiev, Yaroslav I the Wise, whose daughter
Elizabeth he later married. After enlisting in the military service of the
Byzantine emperor Michael IV (reigned 1034-41), he fought with the
imperial armies in Sicily and Bulgaria and is said to have made a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem. His military exploits under Michael IV were described by both
Byzantine and Norse medieval historians.
When Harald returned to Norway in 1045, he agreed to share the
Norwegian throne with the reigning king, his nephew Magnus I Olafsson.
Harald became sole ruler in 1047, when Magnus died in a military expedition
that the two rulers had launched against Denmark. He spent the next 15
years attempting to wrest the Danish throne from Sweyn (Svein) II. After
Sweyn''s defeat in the Battle of Niz (1062), the two rulers recognized each
other as sovereign in their respective countries. Harald also quarreled with
Pope Alexander II and Adalbert, the archbishop of Bremen and the Holy
Roman emperor''s vicar for the Scandinavian countries. Harald antagonized
the two prelates by maintaining the independence of the Norwegian church.
Harald expanded Norway''s colonial possessions in the Orkney, Shetland, and
Hebrides islands and in 1066 attempted to conquer England, allying himself
with the rebel earl Tostig against the new English king, Harold II. After
gaining initial victories, Harald''s forces were routed by the English king in
September 1066 at Stamford Bridge, where Harald was killed. His son
Magnus (c. 1048-69) succeeded him and ruled jointly with Olaf III, another
of Harald''s sons, until Magnus'' death in 1069.