Siward ( or more recently ; Old English: Siƿard) or Sigurd (Old English: Sigeweard, Old Norse: Sigurðr digri; died 1055) was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts. He emerged as a regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered most of England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath, rising to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest, he was in control of southern Northumbria, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.
Siward entrenched his position in northern England by marrying Ælfflæd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He supported Cnut's successors Harthacnut and Edward with vital military aid and counsel, and probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s. There is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s, Siward turned against the Scottish king Mac Bethad mac Findlaích ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the adventure in Scotland earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually become Earl of Northumbria in 1072. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward.
Source material on Siward's life and career is scarce. No contemporary or near-contemporary biography has survived, and narratives from around the time of his life such as the Encomium Emmae and the Vita Ædwardi Regis scarcely mention him; historians depend on a few entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and comparable Irish sources. Later Anglo-Norman histories may or may not be reliable, but useful ones include the Chronicle of John of Worcester (compiled between 1124 and 1140), William of Malmesbury (writing between c. 1125 and 1142), Henry of Huntingdon (writing between c. 1133 and 1154), and Orderic Vitalis (writing between c. 1114 and 1141). Other sources include the material attributed to Symeon of Durham (compiled and written as extant between the late 11th century and the first half of the 12th century). Legendary material, such as that in hagiography or later medieval sources such as John of Fordun or Andrew of Wyntoun, is not generally regarded as useful beyond its limited potential for cleanly preserving earlier source material.
Siward's career in northern England spanned the reigns of four monarchs; from Cnut, Harold Harefoot, and Harthacnut, into the early years of Edward the Confessor. Most important was the reign of Cnut, in which so many new political figures rose to power that some historians compare it to the Norman Conquest five decades later. These "new men" were military figures, usually with weak hereditary links to the West Saxon royal house that Cnut had deposed. As Cnut ruled several Scandinavian kingdoms in addition to England, power at the highest level was delegated to such strongmen. In England, it fell to a handful of newly promoted "ealdormen" or "earls", who each ruled a shire or group of shires on behalf of the king. Siward was, in the words of historian Robin Fleming, "the third man in Cnut's new triumvirate of earls", the other two being Godwine, Earl of Wessex and Leofwine, Earl of Mercia.
Northern England in the 11th-century was a region quite distinct from the rest of the country. The former kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Humber and Mersey estuaries, northward to the Firth of Forth, where, passing the western Kingdom of Strathclyde, it met the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland). Northumbria had been united with the West Saxon English kingdom only in the 950s, by King Eadred, and subsequent control was exerted through the agency of at least two ealdormen, one to the north and one to the south of the River Tees. The former is associated with the stronghold of Bamburgh, while the latter is associated with the great Roman city of York. It was a politically fragmented region. The western part, from Lancashire to Cumberland, formed an older British stronghold and experienced links with and settlement of Gaels, while in the rest of Northumbria; British (predominantly in Yorkshire and further North) English and Anglo-Scandinavian(generally restricted to the eastern coasts) regional magnates—thegns, holds and high-reeves—exercised a considerable degree of independence from the ealdormen. One such example was the magnate Thurbrand, a hold in Yorkshire, probably based in Holderness, whose family were frequently at odds with the ruling earls at Bamburgh.
Historians generally claim Siward to be of Scandinavian origin, a conclusion supported by the Vita Ædwardi Regis, which states that Siward was "[called] Digri in the Danish tongue" (Danica lingua Digara). Legendary material incorporated in the Vita et passio Waldevi comitis (or simply Vita Waldevi), the hagiographic biography of Siward's son Waltheof, states that Siward was the son of a Scandinavian earl named Bjorn and provides a genealogy claiming that he was the descendant of a polar bear, a commonplace piece of Germanic folklore.
Historian Timothy Bolton has recently argued that the similarities between these genealogies is evidence of a shared family tradition between the descendants of Siward and Thorgil Sprakling. Bolton hypothesized that Siward's alleged father Bjorn was probably a historical figure, a brother of Thorgil Sprakling. Siward would then have been first cousin to Earl Ulf, the earl of Denmark who married Cnut's sister Estrith and founded the dynasty of Danish monarchs that eventually succeeded Cnut's. Bolton argued that the Sprakling family had only recently risen to prominence in Scandinavia, and so Siward's career in England was another indication of that family's success in Scandinavian politics.
The Vita Waldevi provides further legendary detail of Siward's journey from Scandinavia to England. According to the Vita, Siward passed through Orkney, killing a dragon there before moving on to Northumbria. There he encountered another dragon, before meeting an Odin-like old man on a hill, who handed him a raven banner and instructed him to proceed to London to receive the patronage of the king of England.
Career under Cnut, Harold and Harthacnut
The exact date and context of Siward's arrival in England are unknown, though the Vita Waldevi offers a legendary account. Charters dating to 1019, 1024, 1032, 1033 and 1035 mention a Si[ge]ward Minister, "the thegn Siward", but it is impossible to securely identify any of these names with the man who became Earl of Northumbria. The earliest certain contemporary record of Siward occurs in a charter of King Cnut to Ælfric Puttoc, Archbishop of York, in 1033. This charter attestation can be identified as Siward the earl because he is styled dux ("earl").
Although it is clear that Siward was earl by 1033, he may have attained the position somewhat earlier. His predecessor Erik of Hlathir last appeared in the historical sources in 1023, leaving a ten-year gap during which Siward could have taken the position. Although William of Malmesbury asserted that Erik was driven back to Scandinavia, Scandinavian tradition firmly maintained he died in England. Historian William Kapelle believed that Erik ceased to be earl in or soon after 1023, and that Carl son of Thurbrand was appointed hold or high-reeve (heahgerefa) for the king in Yorkshire. Carl retained this position, it was argued, even after Siward was installed as earl a few years later, but from then on he acted as a deputy to the earl rather than to the king. Richard Fletcher remained agnostic on the point, although he did argue that Erik must have been dead by 1028. Timothy Bolton, although rejecting Kapelle's argument concerning Carl son of Thurbrand, believed Erik died c. 1023 and that the earldom may have remained vacant for a period. Bolton argued that Cnut left the earldom of Northumbria empty and appears to have paid it little attention until the last years of his reign, and another northerner Ealdred son of Uhtred rose to power in the political vacuum.