User:Angusmclellan/Ivar

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Ívarr (died 873), Old Irish Ímar, was a Viking king in Britain and Ireland. His ancestry and origins are uncertain and a matter of debate. He is the eponymous ancestor of the Uí Ímair kindred to which many kings of Dublin and kings of York appear to have belonged.

The recorded activities of Ívarr begin circa 853 in Ireland. In the years that followed he has been associated with the invasion of Northumbria and capture of York in 866, with the Viking conquests of East Anglia and death of King Edmund the Martyr in 869, with the siege of Dumbarton Rock in 870. At his death in 873 he is called the "king of the Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain".

Ivarr was the basis of the saga character Ivar the Boneless, but the extent to which Scandinavian sagas and histories, or indeed later sources in general, are trustworthy sources for the events of the 9th century is questionable.

Contents

[edit] Sources

The most credible sources for the lives and times of Ívarr and his kinsmen are contemporary annals kept in England, Ireland and Francia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the best known English source, and the most nearly contemporary with events. Other lost annals and records may survive in part in later works, such as those attributed to John of Worcester, Symeon of Durham and other post-Norman Conquest historians of the 12th and 13th centuries. Irish annals do not survive in contemporary forms, but in later editions which have been glossed and revised. The now-lost Chronicle of Ireland was the source of the core of the later annals.

As well as English historians of the 12th and 13th centuries, Irish and Scottish records of the 11th and 12th centuries, such as the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland and the The War of the Irish with the Foreigners may contain accurate records of Ívarr's times. The degree to which even later sources such as the saga of Ragnar Lodbrok's sons can be used as the basis of narrative history is disputed. Frankish sources rarely notice events in Britain and Ireland, but the Annales Bertiniani, kept at Saint Omer, may contain some contemporary clues to Ívarr's origins and activities.

[edit] Background

[edit] Origins

Ívarr's kin after Irish sources.
Ívarr's kin after Irish sources.

There is no general agreement on Ívarr's origins ...

Ívarr's ancestry is contained in the so-called Osraige saga within the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. This calls him Ímar son of Gofraid son of Ragnall son of Gofraid Conung son of Gofraid (Ívarr son of Guðrøðr son of Røgnvaldr son of [King?] Guðrøðr son of Guðrøðr), but, with the possible exception of his father's name, this is considered to be unreliable. Other parts of the Fragmentary Annals make Ívarr one of four brothers, the others are Amlaíb (Óláfr), Albdann (Hálfdan) and Auisle (Ásl or Auðgísl). The Ingwar of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, who is often identified with Ívarr, is said to have been the brother of Hálfdan and another, unnamed brother. Amlaíb is described as "son of the king of Laithlind" by the Irish annals; it is possible that this king is to be identified with "the king of Lochlann, Gofraid", who "died of a sudden hideous disease" circa 873, according to the Fragmentary Annals.

Lochlann

McTurk

Woolf, Hudson

[edit] Ireland and Northumbria

[edit] East Anglia and Dumbarton

[edit] Death and posterity

[edit] Scandinavian and Irish sagas

[edit] Ivar the Boneless today

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Scribbles

  • Smyth, Warlords: @148, sack of Crowland in 868 (Pseudo-Ingulf?); @151, son of Ragnar ([851] "... Danes ... possibly led by Ragnar Lodbrok and his son Ivar", WTF?, further Ragnar nonsense @152; @158 (Great Army); @160; @190 (GmF); @200 ("claims to York"); @215, Dumbarton &c.
  • Downham, "Cearbhall"
  • Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland: @251; @252; @253-4
  • Wormald, "The Ninth Century": @145; @148
  • Sawyer (ed), Ill. Hist. Vikings: @13: @54; @90; @92; @97
  • Boyer, Les Vikings: @156 (cf Ragnar Lodbrok