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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-03 > 0888796033


From: "Todd A. Farmerie" <>
Subject: Re: Haithabu (was: Link between Charlemagne and Holy Roman Empire)
Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998 18:47:13 -0500


Frank H. Johansen wrote:
>
> Stewart Baldwin wrote:
>
> > All of the above observations make me suspect that you have taken your
> > information from a secondary source which was not very careful in its
> > treatment of the evidence. If you want to provide more details
> > regarding the sources and reasons for the above claims, we could
> > discuss this in more detail.
>
> I might have mixed up two different Godfrieds. I'll check my sources...
>

I think Frank has mixed up two Godfrieds. A standard reconstruction
places an earlier Godfried, who fl. 810, as identical to Gudrod,
"father" of Halfdan the Black. This view was championed by Howorth,
among other, but is centered on the assumption that the Heimskringla can
be accepted as valid historical tradition for this period. Considering
that it was written centuries later, this has more recently been
questioned. There are internal inconsistancies which suggest that
independant dynasties were cobbled together (specifically at the link
between Halfdan the Black and the earlier dynasty), and it has also been
suggested that the connections between Harald Fairhair and St.Olaf and
his half-brother Harald Hardrada have been invented to provide a
dynastic continuity.

ta

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