Bagler sagas
Norse saga
The Bagler Sagas (Old Norse Böglunga sögur) are kings' sagas relating to events which occurred between 1202–17 and are a primary source of Norwegian history during this period. There are two versions, one shorter and one longer, which are in modern editions usually printed as one saga. The authors of both versions are unknown. There are indications that both of them were Icelanders, although this cannot be said for certain.
The Bagler Sagas occur during the Civil war era in Norway. The sagas deal with the reigns of the birkebeiner kings Haakon Sverresson, Guttorm Sigurdsson and Inge Baardsson, and the bagler pretenders to the Norwegian throne Erling Steinvegg and Philippus Simonsson.
The sagas pick up the story where Sverris saga leaves off, at the death of King Sverre in 1202. The older, and shorter, version ends with the wedding of Philippus in 1209. The later and longer version, also continues the story until the death of King Inge in 1217. The older version is neutral in its depiction of events, without a clear bias for either birkebeiner or bagler.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bagler sagas” is norse saga. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bagler, sagas and Norse, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “norse saga” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q781213. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1202, 1209 and 1217.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bagler sagas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.