Magnus the Lawmender’s Laws of the Land - 750 years

Magnus Håkonsson was born in Tønsberg May 1st 1238, being the youngest of the children of King Håkon Håkonsson and Queen Margrete Skulesdatter. We know little about Magnus’s childhood besides some sporadic insights from the saga of Håkon Håkonsson. Originally, Magnus was not intended to have any role in the line of succession to the throne. Nor did he seem to have had any prominent position in the power elite around the king. In 1257, however, the heir to the throne, his elder brother Håkon the Young, fell ill and died. Only then could the 19-year-old Magnus come out of the shadows. On Saint John’s Feast in 1257, before his father sailed against Denmark with a large war fleet, Magnus was proclaimed king by Archbishop Einar so that the kingdom would not risk being left without a king. Magnus then swore to give all the people law and justice – a promise that he truly kept. The following year, he was hailed as king at the thing assembly of Øre (opens in a new tab) in Trøndelag. In September 1261, Magnus’s wedding with Ingeborg Eriksdatter, the daughter of a Danish king, took place in the new stone-built halls at the royal estate on Holmen. In connection to this ceremony, Magnus and Ingeborg were also crowned king and queen. King Håkon Håkonsson died in December 1263 on the Orkney Islands. From then on, Magnus was the sole king of the country. Magnus was the first Norwegian king in more than a century who inherited the kingdom without any challengers. His reign was characterized by peace and stability, and he is considered one of the greatest kings in Norway’s history. The process of improving the old laws in the kingdom had already started with King Håkon, but during Magnus’s reign, this work took shape in earnest. His main achievement was the Laws of the Land from 1274. In 1276 it was supplemented by the Town Law, first for Bergen and soon after for the other larger towns. Hirðskrá, from about the same time, formulated the duties and rights of the king’s guards and court. Magnus died in Bergen May 9th 1280, barely 42 years old. He was buried in the Franciscan monastery’s Church of St. Olav, today’s Bergen Cathedral.