The Crusades?!!!! — sixty ships from Bergen, and the first monarch to personally lead a crusade

In the autumn of 1107 a fleet of sixty ships put out from Bergen Bergen × Norway's western trading capital, founded around 1070 on the inner Byfjorden. For four centuries the largest city in the country and the wharf through which the entire western export economy ran — dried cod from the Lofoten fisheries, stockpiled and traded by the Hanseatic merchants at Bryggen from 1360 to 1754. Norway's commercial and intellectual heart through the Hanseatic period; eclipsed by Oslo only in the twentieth century. The painted wooden Bryggen wharf is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and substantially what it was in the late seventeenth century. On the trip The Ungdommene (the Youngsters) arrive in Bergen on Tuesday 28 July 2026 via the Norway-in-a-Nutshell train-and-ferry route from Oslo. They walk Bryggen, climb Mount Fløyen on the funicular, and spend two nights in the city before flying back to Oslo and driving on to rejoin the Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters) in Lillehammer. The Gråhårsklubben do not visit Bergen this trip — their split-week path runs north to Trondheim and the heritage country of Stjørdal, Hegra, and Kylloplass. Bergen Also discussed in The Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen WharfBefore There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility and the end of the kingsThe Golden Age — an empire of the North … reaching farther than you thinkThe 400-Year Night — when the Northern Lion lay dormantThe Reformation, 1537 — the year Denmark eradicated Norway's Catholicism and installed a Lutheran state churchWorld War II — the occupation, the resistance, and the Norwegian role in the Holocaust on the western Norwegian coast and turned south. The ships were not going raiding. Their course ran the length of Christian Europe Latin Christendom × The medieval cultural and religious community of Western European countries that recognised the spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome and used Latin as the language of their liturgy, law, scholarship, and diplomacy — distinct from Eastern (Greek) Christendom centred on Constantinople, with which it formally split in 1054. Norway joined Latin Christendom in the eleventh century with the canonisation of Saint Olav and the organisation of the diocesan structure, and remained in it for five centuries until the 1537 Reformation made the country Lutheran. At its height in the high medieval period, Latin Christendom stretched from Norway to Sicily, from Portugal to the Baltic. Also discussed in A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions , through the Strait of Gibraltar Gibraltar × The narrow strait between the southern tip of Spain and Morocco connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, about thirteen kilometres at its narrowest. The Norse fleet that had ravaged the Atlantic coast of Iberia in 859–862 passed through Gibraltar in both directions, raiding into the western Mediterranean and harrying the Moroccan and southern French coasts before returning north — the deepest reach south any Norse expedition is known to have made. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" , east across the Mediterranean, and the harbour they were steering for, after a voyage that would take the better part of four years, lay on the coast of the Holy Land Holy Land × Medieval Christian and Muslim term for the region of Palestine — the area in which the events of the Old and New Testaments are set, centred on Jerusalem. In the early eleventh century under Fatimid Caliphate rule, with a Christian population that retained pilgrim access to Jerusalem and the other holy sites. Harald Hardrada served there as a Varangian commander in Byzantine campaigns of the late 1030s, possibly reaching Jerusalem as a pilgrim. The Crusader conquest of Jerusalem followed in 1099. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" . The man who had called the fleet out was a king of Norway not yet out of his teens.

The First Crusade First Crusade × The military expedition called by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos's appeal for help against the Seljuk Turks. Took Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 after a five-week siege — the founding act of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the three other crusader states (the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli). Led by dukes, counts, and the second sons of the great noble houses of Latin Christendom — Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond of Taranto, Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy — but not by any reigning king of Western Europe. Sigurd Jorsalfar's 1107–1111 expedition was the first such crusade led personally by a reigning monarch. had stormed Jerusalem Jerusalem × Sacred city of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in the Judean Hills. Under Fatimid Caliphate rule when the First Crusade took it on 15 July 1099 after a five-week siege — the founding act of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099– 1291). The kingdom was a thin strip of captured Levantine coast held by a small Frankish army, with the holy city itself as its religious and political centre. Sigurd Jorsalfar was received in Jerusalem in 1110 by King Baldwin I, shown the holy places, and given a splinter of the True Cross to take home to Norway. Re-taken by Saladin in 1187; under successive Ottoman, British Mandate, Jordanian, and Israeli control in the centuries since. eight years earlier, in the summer of 1099. The men who had stormed it were dukes, counts, and the second sons of the great noble houses of Latin Christendom. Not one reigning king had marched with them. The monarchs of Europe — Philip I of France, William Rufus of England, Henry IV of the German empire — had stayed on their thrones and sent others. The Norwegian king who put out from Bergen in 1107 was the first reigning ruler in the history of Europe to leave his own kingdom and sail for the Holy Land at the head of his own fleet. The expedition entered the record afterwards as the Norwegian Crusade The Norwegian Crusade × The military expedition led personally by Sigurd Jorsalfar, King of Norway, to the Holy Land in 1107–1111 — the first crusade ever led in person by a reigning European monarch. A fleet of sixty ships and perhaps five thousand men put out from Bergen in the autumn of 1107, wintered in England, then in Galicia, then in Sicily, and reached Acre in the summer of 1110. The Norwegians fought through the Iberian Atlantic coast and the western Mediterranean on the way, took several Muslim- held ports, joined King Baldwin I of Jerusalem at the siege of Sidon, received a splinter of the True Cross from Patriarch Gibelin of Arles, and ended the voyage by giving the fleet to the Byzantine emperor at Constantinople. Sigurd came home overland in 1111. . The next reigning monarch to do anything comparable would not set out for almost forty years.

Three brothers, one throne

His name was Sigurd Magnusson Sigurd Jorsalfar × Sigurd I Magnusson (c. 1090 – 26 March 1130), king of Norway 1103–1130, bynamed Jorsalfar — "the Jerusalem-farer" — for leading the Norwegian Crusade of 1107–1111. The first reigning European monarch ever to lead a crusade to the Holy Land in person. Ruled jointly with his brothers Eystein I (until 1123) and Olav (until 1115), then alone for his last seven years. Brought a splinter of the True Cross back from the siege of Sidon and kept it at his border town of Konungahella, where it was lost in the 1135 Wendish raid. His contested succession at his death in 1130 opened the century of the Norwegian civil wars. Also discussed in The Golden Age — an empire of the North … reaching farther than you think . He was one of three sons of King Magnus Barefoot Magnus Barefoot × Magnus III Olavsson (1073–1103), king of Norway 1093–1103, bynamed Berrføtt ("Barefoot" or "Bare-legged") in saga tradition — said to refer to his adoption of the Gaelic kilt during campaigns in the Isles. The last Norwegian king to lead a major Viking-style military expedition in the western Atlantic. Imposed direct Norwegian rule over the Orkneys, Hebrides, and Isle of Man across the 1090s, and was killed in 1103 leading a military expedition into Ireland — struck down in an ambush in Ulster. Father of Sigurd Jorsalfar, Eystein I, and Olav Magnusson, who divided the throne between them after his death. , who had died in 1103 leading a military expedition into Ireland. By the agreement that followed his father’s death, Sigurd held the Norwegian kingdom jointly with his elder brother Eystein Eystein I Magnusson × King of Norway 1103–1123, sharing the throne with his half-brothers Sigurd the Crusader and (until 1115) Olav. Remembered chiefly as a builder and administrator rather than a warrior — the foil to Sigurd's military exploits in the Mediterranean. Founded the Benedictine monastery of Munkeliv on the western shore of Bergen in the early twelfth century, one of the earliest monasteries in Norway. Sponsored road and harbour improvements across the country and established the kongsgård (royal estate) infrastructure that supported the medieval Norwegian court. Also discussed in A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen Wharf and his younger brother Olav Olav Magnusson × Olav Magnusson (c. 1099 – 22 December 1115), the youngest of the three sons of Magnus Barefoot. Shared the Norwegian throne with his elder brothers Sigurd Jorsalfar and Eystein I from his father's death in 1103. Died young at sixteen, leaving the throne to be shared between Eystein and Sigurd until Eystein's death in 1123. The three-brother joint kingship of 1103-1115 was unusual in medieval Europe and remembered in the saga tradition as a peaceful and unusually well-managed arrangement. : a single throne shared by three men without being carved into pieces, an arrangement rare anywhere in medieval Europe but settled enough in Norwegian practice that the brothers made it work for the better part of two decades.

When word reached the brothers that the new crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem × Frankish Christian state established in the Levant by the First Crusade after the taking of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. A thin strip of captured coast held by a small Frankish army, with Jerusalem itself as the religious and political centre. Ruled by an elected king from 1100 onward — beginning with Baldwin I (1100–1118), the first crowned monarch. Reinforced through the twelfth century by crusading expeditions from Western Europe, including the Norwegian Crusade of 1107–1111 that joined the siege of Sidon in 1110. Re-conquered by Saladin in 1187; a rump kingdom centred on Acre survived until 1291, when the Mamluk Sultanate's capture of Acre ended the crusader presence on the Levantine coast. needed reinforcements to hold what the First Crusade had taken, the question of who would answer was settled the way the brothers settled most things: by negotiation. One of them would go east. Two would stay to govern. Sigurd, the middle brother, around seventeen years old, was the one who went.

What he was committing himself to was an undertaking on a scale his country had no recent precedent for. Norway had sent men overseas for three centuries by then, but the men who had gone had gone in their hundreds, on their own account, for plunder and trade. Sigurd was leading out an army of perhaps five thousand under a royal banner, on a religious mission a Norwegian king had never undertaken, for a destination almost none of them had seen. The expedition was the first of its kind.

Three winters at sea

The fleet did not try to make the voyage in a single sailing season. A fleet of sixty ships cannot cross a continent of coastline that fast, and Sigurd did not attempt it. He brought his ships into England for the winter of 1107, and was received there by Henry I Henry I of England × King of England 1100–1135, the youngest son of William the Conqueror. Seized the English throne on the death of his brother William Rufus, defeated his older brother Robert Curthose at Tinchebrai in 1106 to add Normandy to his realm, and ruled an Anglo-Norman state across the English Channel for thirty-five years. Hosted Sigurd Jorsalfar and the Norwegian crusader fleet at his court for the winter of 1107–1108, the first stopover of the four-year voyage to the Holy Land. His death in 1135 without a clear male heir produced the Anarchy — twenty years of English civil war until the accession of his grandson Henry II in 1154. , who lodged the Norwegians at his court until the weather turned.

When spring came the fleet sailed on down the long Atlantic face of Iberia Iberia × The Iberian peninsula — the landmass at the southwestern corner of Europe occupied today by Spain and Portugal, with Andorra, Gibraltar, and a small piece of southern France. Around 580,000 square kilometres, separated from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees and from Africa by the Strait of Gibraltar. In Sigurd Jorsalfar's time the peninsula was divided politically between the Christian kingdoms of the north (Castile, León, Aragon, Portugal, Navarre) and the Muslim al-Andalus in the south. Sigurd's fleet sailed the entire Atlantic face of Iberia from Galicia in the northwest to the Strait of Gibraltar in the south, taking several Muslim-held coastal towns on the way. (the peninsula that is today Spain and Portugal) and wintered a second time, in Galicia Galicia × Region of northwestern Spain, bordered by the Atlantic on the north and west and by Portugal on the south. Site of the great pilgrim shrine of Santiago de Compostela. Sigurd Jorsalfar's fleet wintered in Galicia in 1108–1109 on the second leg of the Norwegian Crusade; the saga tradition remembers the winter as a hungry one, with the Norwegians storming the stronghold of a local count who had stopped selling them provisions when the season turned lean. Modern Galicia is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain with about 2.7 million people speaking the Galician language alongside Spanish. (modern-day northwestern Spain), in the country around the great pilgrim shrine of Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela × City in northwestern Spain, capital of Galicia. The discovery of what was believed to be the tomb of Saint James the Greater in the early ninth century made the city one of the three great pilgrimage destinations of medieval Western Christendom — alongside Rome and Jerusalem, and from the twelfth century alongside Nidaros and Canterbury as the principal national pilgrimage sites of northern Europe. The Camino de Santiago network of pilgrim roads converging on the cathedral is the largest pilgrim infrastructure that survives from the Middle Ages, walked again by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the North . The saga tradition remembered the Galician winter as a hungry one. A local count who had agreed to sell the Norwegians provisions stopped doing so when the season turned lean, and Sigurd’s men stormed his stronghold and took what they needed.

From Galicia the voyage became a fighting one. Through 1109 the fleet worked its way south along the Iberian Atlantic coast and into waters no Norwegian ships had sailed before, taking the Muslim-held towns of the south-western shore one after another — Sintra Sintra × Town in the hills north of Lisbon in modern Portugal. In Sigurd Jorsalfar's time a Muslim-held fortified hill town controlling the approaches to Lisbon from the north. Taken by the Norwegian crusader fleet in 1109 on its way south down the Iberian Atlantic coast — one of the first Muslim-held Iberian towns to be temporarily lost to a foreign Christian expedition during the crusading period. Permanently re-taken by Afonso I of Portugal in 1147. Modern Sintra is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its later Romantic-era palaces. , then Lisbon Lisbon × Capital of modern Portugal, on the north bank of the Tagus estuary near the Atlantic coast. In Sigurd Jorsalfar's time under Muslim rule as part of the Almoravid territories of al-Andalus. Sigurd's Norwegian crusader fleet took Lisbon briefly in 1109 on its way south; the city would not pass permanently into Christian hands until the Second Crusade's Siege of Lisbon in 1147, when an English-Flemish-German crusader fleet helped the new Portuguese king Afonso I capture it. Modern Lisbon has about 545,000 people in the municipality, around three million in the metropolitan area. , then Alkasse on the Sado estuary (all in modern-day Portugal). The ships passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow gate of the Mediterranean, and turned east along a sea that to the men aboard was the far rim of the known world. They fought through the Balearic Islands Balearic Islands × Archipelago in the western Mediterranean off the eastern coast of mainland Spain — Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. In Sigurd Jorsalfar's time the islands were under Muslim rule, serving as a base for raiders preying on Christian Mediterranean shipping. Sigurd's Norwegian fleet fought through the Balearics on its way east in 1109–1110; the saga tradition kept one Balearic scene in particular — a band of raiders holed up in a cliff cave above the sea, and the Norwegians coming at them by hauling their boats up the rock face on ropes and burning them out. The islands passed into Christian hands in 1229 when James I of Aragon took Mallorca. (modern-day Spain); the sagas kept one Balearic scene in particular — a band of raiders holed up in a cliff cave above the sea, and the Norwegians coming at them by hauling their boats up the rock face on ropes and burning them out.

Where the fleet came as a Christian power rather than as a threat, it was received with honour. On Sicily Sicily × The largest island in the Mediterranean, off the southern tip of the Italian peninsula. In the early eleventh century divided politically between Byzantine, Arab Aghlabid, and various local rulers; from 1061 conquered piecemeal by Norman adventurers, themselves descended from the Norse settlers of Normandy. Harald Hardrada fought as a Varangian commander in Byzantine campaigns against the Sicilian Muslims in the late 1030s, before the Norman conquest began. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" (modern-day Italy) the Norwegians wintered a third time, guests of the island’s young ruler, Count Roger Count Roger II of Sicily × Count, then King, of Sicily (1095–1154). The son of Roger I, the Norman conqueror of Sicily from its Muslim Arab rulers in the 1060s and 1070s. Inherited the county in 1105 at age ten and ruled under regency through his teens — the years when Sigurd Jorsalfar's Norwegian fleet wintered on the island in 1109–1110 as guests of the young count. Made himself King of Sicily in 1130 (the first crowned king of the Norman south of Italy) by uniting Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia into the Kingdom of Sicily, which lasted until Italian unification in 1861. Presided over a cosmopolitan court that mixed Norman, Greek-Byzantine, and Arab- Islamic culture at unparalleled intensity in medieval Europe. — barely in his teens, two decades before he would make himself the first crowned king of the Norman south of Italy. By the summer of 1110, nearly three years out from Bergen, the sixty Norwegian ships came into the harbour at Acre Acre × Major port city on the northern Levantine coast, in modern northern Israel (Hebrew Akko, Arabic Akka). Taken by King Baldwin I in 1104 with Genoese naval help — one of the early crusader conquests on the coast and from then on the principal port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Sigurd Jorsalfar's Norwegian fleet landed at Acre in the summer of 1110, three years out from Bergen, and was received here by Baldwin. After Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187, the city of Acre became the de facto capital of the rump crusader kingdom until its final fall to the Mamluks in 1291 ended the crusader presence in the Levant. (modern-day Akko, on the coast of Israel) on the coast of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

At Sidon

Sigurd was received by Baldwin I Baldwin I of Jerusalem × First crowned King of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1100–1118). Younger brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, the Frankish leader who took Jerusalem in the First Crusade in 1099 but refused the crown of king and ruled as *Defender of the Holy Sepulchre* until his death in 1100. Baldwin took the crown his brother had refused, ruled the new kingdom for eighteen years, expanded the crusader-held coast by taking Acre (1104), Beirut (1110), Sidon (1110), and other Levantine ports. Received Sigurd Jorsalfar at Acre in the summer of 1110 as one monarch receives another and rode out with him to the River Jordan and back. Died on campaign in Egypt in 1118 and is buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. , the first crowned king of Jerusalem, as one monarch receives another — a meeting without precedent in either man’s experience, a king from the Norwegian north come down by sea to the new Frankish kingdom in the south. Baldwin himself rode out with the Norwegian king, in person rather than by delegation, to the River Jordan River Jordan × River flowing about 250 kilometres south from the slopes of Mount Hermon through the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the modern eastern border of Israel with Jordan and the West Bank. In Christian tradition the river of Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist (Mark 1:9, Matthew 3:13), making it one of the principal pilgrimage destinations in the crusader-held Holy Land. King Baldwin I rode out with Sigurd Jorsalfar in person, rather than by delegation, to the Jordan and back in 1110 — a ceremonial honour the Norwegian sagas remembered as the high moment of the Norwegian Crusade. and back, and showed him the holy places of Jerusalem — the Sepulchre Church of the Holy Sepulchre × Church in the Old City of Jerusalem traditionally identified as the site of both the Crucifixion of Jesus (Calvary or Golgotha) and the empty tomb where he was buried and rose — the holiest ground in Western Christendom. Originally consecrated under the Emperor Constantine in 335; substantially destroyed by the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim in 1009 and rebuilt later in the eleventh century. Re-taken by the First Crusade with Jerusalem on 15 July 1099; shown by King Baldwin I to Sigurd Jorsalfar in 1110 as the central holy place of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Today held under the Status Quo among six Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Latin Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syriac). that the First Crusade had taken from the Fatimids Fatimid Caliphate × Shia Ismaili Islamic dynasty that ruled most of North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean coast, and parts of the Arabian peninsula from 909 (founding in Tunisia) to 1171 (overthrown in Egypt by Saladin). At its height under the caliphs of the tenth and eleventh centuries the Fatimid empire was the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan state of the medieval Islamic world, with its capital at Cairo. Held Jerusalem and the Levantine coast — including Sidon, Tyre, and Ascalon — until the First Crusade's conquests of 1099–1110. The Fatimid Egyptian relief fleet that turned back from Sidon in 1110 rather than face the Norwegian and Venetian blockade was the empire's last serious attempt to save the city. eleven years before, the relics the city held under crusader keeping. What Sigurd offered in return was the one thing the crusader kingdom most lacked.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1110 was a thin strip of captured coast held by a small Frankish army, and its weakness was the water. The crusader-held interior was the work of land battles; the cities along the Levantine shore — the eastern Mediterranean coast, today the shores of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Palestine — were the work of sea power. The coastal cities still in Muslim hands — Tyre Tyre × Ancient port city on the Levantine coast in modern southern Lebanon (Arabic Sur), one of the principal Phoenician cities of antiquity. In Fatimid Caliphate hands at the time of the First Crusade and one of the last great Muslim-held Levantine ports the crusaders had not yet taken at the time of Sigurd Jorsalfar's 1110 expedition. Finally fell to a combined crusader-Venetian siege in 1124. Remained under crusader rule until 1291, when its loss to the Mamluks ended the crusader presence on the Levantine coast. (modern-day southern Lebanon), Sidon Sidon × Ancient port city on the Levantine coast in modern southern Lebanon (Arabic Saida), one of the great Phoenician cities of antiquity and a major Mediterranean trading port through the medieval period. In Fatimid Caliphate hands at the time of the First Crusade. Besieged in autumn 1110 by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem on land and by Sigurd Jorsalfar's Norwegian fleet (later joined by Doge Ordelafo Faliero's Venetians) at sea; surrendered to the crusaders on 4 December 1110. The town remained under crusader rule until Saladin's reconquest in 1187. The splinter of the True Cross given to Sigurd at Sidon was the most valuable object the crusader kingdom ever conferred on a foreign king. (modern-day Lebanon), Ascalon Ascalon × Ancient port city on the southern Levantine coast in modern southern Israel (Hebrew Ashkelon). In Fatimid Caliphate hands at the time of the First Crusade and the southernmost major Muslim-held Levantine port the crusaders had not yet taken at the time of Sigurd Jorsalfar's 1110 expedition. Heavily fortified by the Fatimids as the principal Egyptian base on the Levantine coast and a constant threat to the southern flank of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Finally fell to the crusaders in 1153 under King Baldwin III. The site is now an archaeological park within the modern city of Ashkelon. (modern-day southern Israel) — could be supplied, reinforced, and relieved by the eastern Mediterranean, and as long as that route was open they could not be reduced. Baldwin had almost no ships. Sigurd had sixty.

The two kings turned the fleet on Sidon, a major port on the Levantine coast and one of the last great cities the crusaders had not yet taken. Through the autumn of 1110, Baldwin besieged Sidon Siege of Sidon (1110) × The forty-seven-day siege in autumn 1110 by which the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem took the Fatimid-held port of Sidon on the Levantine coast. King Baldwin I of Jerusalem besieged the city by land while Sigurd Jorsalfar's Norwegian fleet closed the harbour from the sea. A Fatimid Egyptian relief fleet sent up from the south turned back when the Venetian fleet under Doge Ordelafo Faliero arrived to reinforce the Norwegian blockade. Cut off from sea supply, the city surrendered on 4 December 1110. The closure of the harbour by the Norwegian and Venetian fleets between them was credited by the Latin chroniclers as the act that made the surrender possible. by land while the Norwegian ships closed its harbour from the sea. A Fatimid Egyptian relief fleet was sent up from the south to break the siege; it turned back when a Venetian fleet under the Doge Ordelafo Faliero Ordelafo Faliero × 34th Doge of Venice (1102–1117). Led the Venetian fleet that arrived at Sidon in autumn 1110 to reinforce the Norwegian blockade of the Fatimid-held port, deterring the Egyptian relief fleet from coming north and securing the surrender of Sidon to the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem on 4 December 1110. Through his reign Venice consolidated its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and secured the trading privileges across the crusader ports that would make the city the leading maritime power of the Mediterranean for the next four centuries. Killed at the Battle of Zara in 1117. arrived to reinforce the Norwegian blockade, and never came on. Cut off from the only supply line that could have saved it, the city surrendered on 4 December 1110. The Latin chroniclers of the crusader kingdom, writing within years of the event, credited the closure of the harbour to the Norwegian and Venetian fleets between them. The Norse saga tradition kept the Norwegian end of the story. Without the Northern ships standing in the harbour from the first weeks of the siege, the closing of the sea would not have been possible at all.

The four oaths

For his part in it, Sigurd was given the most valuable object the Kingdom of Jerusalem could bestow. By order of King Baldwin and Gibelin of Arles Gibelin of Arles × Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1108 until his death in 1112. Originally Archbishop of Arles in southern France; sent to the crusader kingdom as papal legate by Pope Paschal II in 1108 and elected Patriarch at the deposition of his predecessor Arnulf Malecorne. Co-authorised, with King Baldwin I, the cutting of a splinter from the True Cross relic in Jerusalem and its ceremonial handing to Sigurd Jorsalfar in 1110 in exchange for the four oaths Sigurd swore over it — the institutional Christianity the Western Church wanted planted in the new Norwegian kingdom at the northern edge of Latin Christendom. , the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, a splinter was cut from the True Cross True Cross × In Christian tradition, the wood of the cross on which Jesus was crucified — held to have been recovered in Jerusalem in the early fourth century by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, and enshrined in successive Jerusalem cathedrals from then onward. Across the medieval period the most sacred physical relic of Western Christendom; splinters cut from it were the most valuable single objects a medieval king could be entrusted with. The splinter given to Sigurd Jorsalfar at Sidon in 1110 was kept at Konungahella in Norway until its loss in the 1135 Wendish raid. The main relic itself was lost at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, captured with the True Cross-bearer by Saladin's forces. — the wood of the cross of the crucifixion, regarded across Latin Christendom as the most sacred object in the Christian world — and handed to the Norwegian king.

The relic was given on conditions. The saga tradition records four oaths Sigurd swore over it, in the presence of twelve of his men sworn beside him: that he would promote the Christian faith in his kingdom with all his power; that he would work to raise an archbishop’s seat for the Norwegian church, independent of the Danish metropolitan see at Lund Lund × Cathedral city in what is now southern Sweden, just inside the Skåne region (which was Danish territory until 1658). The seat of the Scandinavian archdiocese from 1104, when Pope Paschal II detached the Scandinavian church from the German metropolitan see at Hamburg-Bremen. From 1104 to 1152 the Norwegian bishops were suffragans of the Lund archbishopric. The 1152 mission of Nicholas Breakspear created the independent Norwegian province at Nidaros, separating the Norwegian church from Lund — though Lund remained the senior Scandinavian see and the metropolitan of the Danish and Swedish churches through the medieval period. Also discussed in A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility and the end of the kings ; that he would introduce the church tithe across his country and pay it himself; and that the splinter itself would be placed at the shrine of Saint Olav Saint Olav × Russian Orthodox iconography of Saint Olav Coat of Arms of Norway (modern) Olav Haraldsson, king of Norway 1015–1028, killed at the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030 and canonized one year and five days later by his English bishop Grimkell. Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae — the Eternal King of Norway. His shrine at Nidaros became the northernmost pilgrimage destination in medieval Christendom and the binding narrative of a converted country. The Norwegian Lion on the modern coat of arms — red lion with a golden axe — is Saint Olav's iconography. On the trip The Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters) visit Nidaros Cathedral on Tuesday 28 July 2026 — the day before the 996th anniversary of the Battle of Stiklestad. The Olafskrinet was broken up at the 1537 Reformation and the body buried somewhere inside the cathedral in a spot no medieval source preserved. The building is what the nine-and-a-half centuries of devotion built. The pilgrim road, the Pilegrimsleden, runs past the cathedral's south door — the same door the medieval pilgrims walked through. Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthThe Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"Worshiping Odin and Thor — the lived religion of pre-Christian NorwayA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Reformation, 1537 — the year Denmark eradicated Norway's Catholicism and installed a Lutheran state churchLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and the personal faith the new state church could not silenceThe 400-Year Night — when the Northern Lion lay dormantThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the occupation, the resistance, and the Norwegian role in the Holocaust at Nidaros, the holiest ground in Norway.

The oaths were not casual. A fragment of the True Cross was not the kind of object that left Jerusalem easily, and never as a courtesy. It left as a charge. What Baldwin and Gibelin were asking Sigurd for, by giving the relic, was the institutional Christianity the wider Western Church wanted at the edges of Latin Christendom — a national church organised under its own archbishop, a tithe-supported clergy, and an institutional structure tied to Rome rather than locally improvised. The patriarch had asked the Norwegian king to give them, in essence, the Norway they wanted to find in him. Sigurd accepted on the relic.

Through the great city

The crusade had one port left to make. From the Levantine coast, Sigurd sailed north and west to Constantinople Constantinople × Capital of the Eastern Roman (later Byzantine) Empire, on the Bosphorus where the Black Sea meets the Mediterranean. Founded by the Roman emperor Constantine in 324 CE on the site of the older Greek colony of Byzantion and dedicated as the city of Constantinople on 11 May 330. Capital of the Eastern empire from 395 until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453; officially renamed Istanbul under the Turkish Republic in 1930. The Gothic historian Jordanes wrote the Getica, the first written account of the Norwegian petty-kingdom world, while working in the city in 551 CE. Norse mercenaries (the Varangians) later served there as the Byzantine emperor's elite imperial guard. Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey) — Miklagard, “the great city,” as the Norwegians called it — and was received by the Byzantine Byzantine Empire × The continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the western half in 476, with its capital at Constantinople until the Ottoman conquest in 1453. The Greek-speaking, Eastern-Christian Byzantine state was the wealthiest and most institutionally sophisticated polity of the medieval Mediterranean. The Byzantine emperors maintained the Varangian Guard — an elite imperial bodyguard of Norse warriors — from the late tenth century onward; Harald Hardrada served in it for a decade in his thirties before returning to claim the Norwegian throne. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" emperor Alexios I Komnenos Alexios I Komnenos × Byzantine Emperor 1081–1118 — founder of the Komnenian dynasty and the emperor who appealed to Pope Urban II for Western military aid against the Seljuk Turks in 1095, triggering the First Crusade. Hosted Sigurd Jorsalfar at the imperial court in Constantinople in 1111 at the end of the Norwegian Crusade and received Sigurd's sixty ships as a gift. Recruited many of the returning Norwegian crusaders into the imperial Varangian Guard. Daughter Anna Komnene wrote The Alexiad, the principal Byzantine narrative source for his reign and one of the great histories of medieval Greek literature. with the ceremony due a fellow sovereign. There the fleet’s voyage ended. Sigurd presented his ships to the emperor as a gift. The gilded dragon-head from the king’s own vessel was set up in a church in the city, where later Norse travellers reported they could still see it for generations afterward.

Many of the Norwegian crusaders never sailed home at all. They took service in the emperor’s household troops, the Varangian Guard Varangians × Byzantine Greek Várangoi — the Norse warriors who served as the Byzantine emperor's elite imperial bodyguard from c. 988 onward, initially recruited under an agreement between Emperor Basil II and the Kievan Rus prince Vladimir of Kiev. The Varangian Guard was the most prestigious military service available to a Norse warrior of the eleventh century; service paid extraordinarily well and Norse sources speak of returning Varangians as the wealthy men of their generation. Harald Hardrada commanded Varangian forces in Sicily, North Africa, and the Holy Land for a decade before returning north to claim the Norwegian throne. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway" — the corps of Norse and English warriors who guarded the Byzantine throne. The imperial court sought them out for what their northern descent gave them: tall and strong, trained in the older axe-and-shield tradition of personal combat that Byzantium’s own armies no longer produced, and foreigners whose only loyalty was to the emperor whose hand they took the gold from. They were, in Constantinople’s eyes, the exotic warriors of the north — the most highly-paid soldiers in the city, where a Northern fighter could grow wealthy on imperial wages as nowhere else on the medieval map.

Sigurd himself went home overland: north through the Balkans (modern-day southeastern Europe), Hungary, the German lands, and Denmark, and reached Norway in 1111. He had been gone four years.

What he brought back

He came home with a name. For the rest of his life, and in every record since, Sigurd Magnusson has been Sigurd Jorsalfar — Sigurd the Jerusalem-farer, the king who went to Jerusalem.

Of the four oaths he had sworn over the True Cross, Sigurd kept some and broke some, and the keeping was uneven. He established the church tithe across his realm, which was the work of the rest of his reign and which became one of the foundational fiscal acts of the medieval Norwegian church. He promoted the faith, in the saga tradition’s account, with the conviction of a king who had stood at the holy places.

The splinter of the True Cross, however, never went to Nidaros. Sigurd kept the relic instead at Konungahella Konungahella × Medieval Norwegian town on the Göta River about twenty kilometres north of modern Gothenburg, in what is today southwestern Sweden. The southeastern border town of medieval Norway, the country's commercial gateway to the Baltic and the German lands. Favoured and substantially enlarged by Sigurd Jorsalfar through his later reign; the splinter of the True Cross he brought back from Sidon in 1111 was kept here in a church Sigurd built for it. Destroyed in 1135 by a Wendish raiding fleet from the southern Baltic coast that sailed up the Göta and burned the town to the ground; the True Cross splinter was lost in the sack. The medieval town site is preserved as an archaeological park at modern Kungälv. (now Kungälv, in modern-day western Sweden), the southeastern Norwegian border town on the Göta River Göta River × River in modern southwestern Sweden, draining Lake Vänern (the largest lake in the European Union) west into the Kattegat strait near modern Gothenburg. About ninety-three kilometres long. In Sigurd Jorsalfar's time the Göta marked the southeastern boundary of medieval Norway with Sweden; the Norwegian border town of Konungahella stood on its bank about twenty kilometres up from the sea. The 1135 Wendish raiding fleet that destroyed Konungahella came up the Göta from the Kattegat. After the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde transferred the surrounding region (Bohuslän) from Norway to Sweden, the Göta has been entirely within Swedish territory. that he favoured and enlarged through his later reign, and he built a church there to house it. The relic stayed at Konungahella through the rest of his life and for nearly a generation after his death. In 1135, twenty-five years after the siege of Sidon, a Wendish raiding fleet Wendish raid on Konungahella (1135) × A Wendish raiding expedition from the southern Baltic coast that sailed up the Göta River in August 1135 and burned the Norwegian border town of Konungahella to the ground. About five hundred and fifty ships under the Wendish prince Ratibor — by the saga tradition's count — overwhelmed the town's defences. The splinter of the True Cross that Sigurd Jorsalfar had brought back from Sidon in 1111 and kept in a church at Konungahella was lost in the sack — destroyed in the fire of the church or carried off by the raiders into the Baltic. Konungahella was rebuilt but never recovered its earlier prominence. The Wendish raids of the twelfth century were one of the principal motives for the later Northern Crusades against the still-pagan southern Baltic peoples. from the southern Baltic coast came up the Göta and burned Konungahella to the ground. The splinter of the True Cross was lost in the sack: carried off into the Baltic by the raiders, or destroyed in the fire of the church Sigurd had built for it. The relic Norway had sailed three years to fetch from Sidon had lasted in the country for less than a generation.

The archbishop’s seat Sigurd had sworn to bring did not come in his lifetime either. It came in 1152, more than four decades after he had sworn it, when an English papal legate convened the Norwegian bishops at Nidaros Nicholas Breakspear (Pope Adrian IV) × English cardinal (c. 1100–1159) and, as Pope Adrian IV (1154–1159), the only Englishman to have held the papacy. In 1152 — three years before his election to the throne of Saint Peter — Breakspear was sent as papal legate to Scandinavia and reorganised the Norwegian church around a new archdiocese at Nidaros, raising the bishop of Nidaros to archbishop and giving Norway its own ecclesiastical province independent of Lund. The province stretched from Trondheim to the Faroes, Greenland, and the Norse colonies of the British Isles. Died at Anagni in 1159. Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and detached them from the Danish see at Lund, and the Norwegian church became its own province under its first archbishop. The crusade had carried the obligation home; the country had taken two more generations to discharge it.

Sigurd ruled for nineteen years after his return. His brother Olav had died young in 1115, and when Eystein died in 1123 Sigurd held the whole kingdom alone, the first time in his life. His reign is remembered in the saga tradition as a prosperous one, an unusually long stretch of Norwegian peace, ended only by his own death in 1130. What he left behind him was a contested succession that did not resolve in his lifetime and did not resolve in his children’s lifetimes either. The hundred years after 1130 are the years of the Norwegian civil wars Norwegian Civil Wars × The hundred-year period of intermittent civil war over the Norwegian throne (c. 1130–1240) that followed the contested succession at the death of Sigurd Jorsalfar in 1130. Multiple pretenders and pretender-factions — the Birkebeinar (the "Birch-Legs," supporters of the pretender Sverre Sigurdsson), the Baglar (church-supported rivals), and various claimants through legitimate and contested descent — fought across Norway in shifting coalitions. The civil wars were finally brought to an end by the kings of the thirteenth-century Golden Age, particularly Hákon IV Hákonarson, whose long reign (1217–1263) established the stable royal succession that Norway had lacked for over a century. Also discussed in The Golden Age — an empire of the North … reaching farther than you think — the slow grinding fight over the throne that only the thirteenth-century kings would finally bring to an end.

What Sigurd had brought home was a thing of weight no civil war could diminish. The splinter of the True Cross was, in the medieval reckoning, the holiest physical object on earth — the wood of the crucifixion itself, the relic of Calvary. For the quarter-century it rested in the church Sigurd had raised for it at Konungahella, that wood lay in the keeping of a kingdom at the furthest northern edge of Latin Christendom. A Norwegian king had stood at the Sepulchre and the Jordan; had been received in Acre and Constantinople as a fellow sovereign; had fought in the army that took Sidon for Christendom; and had come home with the holiest object a king of his century could be entrusted with. He had crossed the medieval map at its full length, and he had brought a piece of the cross back across it.

And what he had vowed over the cross — the tithe, the archbishopric, the institutional planting of the faith — became, in the four centuries that followed, the foundation of medieval Catholic Norway. The shrine at Nidaros never received the relic. But the Norwegian church Sigurd had pledged to plant did rise. The church that held the country from those vows until the Reformation of 1537 was the church Sigurd had sworn it to.

The gilded dragon-head from Sigurd’s ship stayed in Constantinople, far from the northern forests its timber had grown in. The king who had sailed it there had come home over land. He was the only king of Norway who ever made the journey.

Sources & further reading

Primary sources

• Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson × Thirteenth-century Icelandic chieftain, poet, and historian. Composed the Heimskringla and the Prose Edda in the 1220s from oral tradition and skaldic verse — three hundred years after the Viking-age events he describes. The single richest source for Norway's pre-conversion centuries and also the most aware Christian-Icelandic editor of them. Modern scholarship accepts what other sources independently confirm and treats his richest expansions as the work of a poet writing about a kingdom he had never seen. Assassinated at Reykholt on 23 September 1241 by agents of King Hákon IV after a falling-out at court. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldWorshiping Odin and Thor — the lived religion of pre-Christian NorwayThe King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Golden Age — an empire of the North … reaching farther than you think , Heimskringla Heimskringla × Snorri Sturluson's prose history of the kings of Norway, composed in the 1220s. Sixteen sagas running from the semi-mythical Yngling line through to the late twelfth century. The single most extensive medieval source for Norway's Viking and Christianization centuries — trusted on the broad shape of political history, questioned in the literary expansions, and written by a Christian Icelander three hundred years after the events. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"Worshiping Odin and Thor — the lived religion of pre-Christian NorwayThe King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutionsThe Golden Age — an empire of the North … reaching farther than you think , “Magnússona saga” Magnússona saga × The Saga of Magnus's Sons — the saga in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla covering the joint reign of Sigurd Jorsalfar, Eystein I, and Olav Magnusson, the three sons of Magnus Barefoot. Composed in Iceland around 1230, a century after the events. The principal medieval narrative of the Norwegian Crusade of 1107–1111 — Sigurd's voyage, the siege of Sidon, the True Cross splinter and the four oaths sworn over it, the reception at Constantinople, and the long peace of Sigurd's reign after his return. The saga preserves anecdotal and legendary material that earlier and more reliable sources (the contemporary skaldic verse, the Latin chronicles of the crusader kingdom) only partly confirm. (the Saga of Magnus’s Sons), c. 1230. The principal medieval narrative of Sigurd’s crusade, composed in Iceland a century after the events. English translation by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes, 3 vols. (Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011–2015); also in Lee M. Hollander’s older translation (University of Texas Press, 1964, reissued 2009).
• Halldórr skvaldri, Útfarardrápa, c. 1115. A contemporary skaldic praise-poem on Sigurd’s crusade, surviving in fragments preserved by the later prose tradition. In Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, vol. II, ed. Kari Ellen Gade (Brepols, 2009).
• Morkinskinna Morkinskinna × "Rotten Vellum" — an early Icelandic king-collection compiled around 1220, before Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, covering the Norwegian kings from Magnus the Good (r. 1035–1047) through the mid-twelfth century. Named for the deteriorated condition of its surviving thirteenth-century manuscript (GKS 1009 fol. in the Royal Library, Copenhagen). One of the older surviving narratives of Sigurd Jorsalfar's Crusade, drawn on by Snorri and other later saga authors and preserving anecdotal material not found elsewhere. English translation by Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Cornell University Press, 2000). , c. 1220. An early Icelandic king-collection with one of the older surviving narratives of the crusade. Translated by Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade as Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) (Cornell University Press, 2000).
• Theodoricus Monachus Theodoricus Monachus × Norwegian monk and historian, active in the late twelfth century (probably c. 1175–c. 1185). Author of *Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium* ("History of the Antiquity of the Norwegian Kings"), a short Latin history covering the Norwegian kings from Harald Fairhair to Magnus the Blind (d. 1139). One of the earliest written accounts of Olav II Haraldsson's sainthood; pre-dates Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla by half a century. Almost certainly a Premonstratensian or Augustinian canon attached to the cathedral at Nidaros, though the precise identification has not been settled. Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how Christ came to the NorthA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions , Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, c. 1180. The earliest Latin Norwegian history. English translation by David and Ian McDougall (Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998).
• Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, c. 1101–1127. The earliest Latin chronicle of the Crusader Kingdom and the contemporary Western source for the siege of Sidon. English translation by Frances Rita Ryan, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127 (University of Tennessee Press, 1969).
• Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, c. 1130. The major Latin narrative of the First Crusade and its aftermath, including the siege of Sidon. Edited and translated by Susan B. Edgington (Clarendon Press, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2007).
• William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, c. 1170–1184. The standard twelfth-century history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. English translation by Emily A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (Columbia University Press, 1943).
• Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum, c. 1170. The Western Latin source for the Wendish raid that destroyed Konungahella in 1135. English translation by Francis J. Tschan (Columbia University Press, 1935; reprinted Octagon Books, 1966).

Modern scholarship

• Pål Berg Svenungsen, Norge og korstogene: En studie av forbindelsene mellom det norske riket og den europeiske korstogsbevegelsen, ca. 1050–1290 (PhD thesis, University of Bergen, 2016). The standard modern study of Norwegian crusading, available open-access through Bergen’s research archive.
• Sverre Bagge, Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton University Press, 2014). The standard modern synthesis on medieval Scandinavian political-religious formation, with substantial treatment of Sigurd’s reign.
• Knut Helle, ed., The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520 (Cambridge University Press, 2003). The reference treatment of Sigurd’s place in the consolidation of the medieval Norwegian kingdom.
• Gary B. Doxey, “Norwegian Crusaders and the Balearic Islands,” Scandinavian Studies 68, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 139–160. The standard article on the Balearic episode of the voyage.
• Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge University Press, 1997). Places Sigurd’s expedition in the wider European crusading movement.
• Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Penguin / Harvard University Press, 2006). The most comprehensive modern history of the Crusades in English, with the strategic context for the Sidon siege.
• Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (Simon & Schuster / Ecco, 2010). The leading recent narrative history of the Crusades, with the early Crusader Kingdom under Baldwin I.
• Sigfús Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium, trans. and rev. Benedikt S. Benedikz (Cambridge University Press, 1978). The standard study of the Norse Imperial Guard whom Sigurd’s men joined in Constantinople.
• Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, trans. John Gillingham, 2nd English edition (Oxford University Press, 1988). The classic short history of the Crusades.

Reference

• Store norske leksikon (snl.no). The Norwegian peer-reviewed encyclopedia. See in particular Sigurd 1 Magnusson Jorsalfare, Magnussønnenes saga, Slaget om Sidon 1110, and Konungahella.
• Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 23 vols. The standard collection of medieval Norwegian documents, online at https://www.dokpro.uio.no/dipl_norv/diplom_field_eng.html.

Visit

• Bergen. The western Norwegian port from which Sigurd’s fleet of sixty ships put to sea in 1107. The medieval Bryggen wharf, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, stands on the eastern shore of the harbour the fleet would have departed from.
• Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim. The shrine of Saint Olav where Sigurd had sworn to place the True Cross splinter. The cathedral over Olav’s burial place is the building the relic was promised to.
• Kungälv (medieval Konungahella), about twenty kilometres north of Gothenburg on the Göta River. The site of the southeastern border town where Sigurd actually kept the relic, and where it was destroyed in the Wendish raid of 1135. The medieval town site is preserved as an archaeological park; nothing of Sigurd’s Church of the Holy Cross survives.
• Stiklestad National Cultural Centre, Verdal in Trøndelag. The battle site at which Saint Olav was killed in 1030 — the saint whose shrine Sigurd had sworn the relic to.