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The petty kingdoms of Norway were the entities from which the later Kingdom of Norway was founded. Before the hypothetical unification of Norway in 872 and during the period of fragmentation after King Harald Fairhair's death Norway was divided in several small kingdoms. Some could have been as small as a cluster of villages and others comprised several of today's counties. By the time of the first historical records of Scandinavia, about the 8th century, a number of small political entities existed in Norway. The exact number is unknown, and would probably also fluctuate with time. It has been estimated that there were 9 petty realms in Western Norway during the early Viking age.〔Bjørn Ringstad, ''Vestlandets største gravminner. Et forsøk på lokalisering av forhistoriske maktsentra'', (Bergen, 1986)〕 Archaeologist Bergljot Solberg on this basis estimates that there would have been at least 20 in the whole country.〔Bergljot Solberg, ''Jernalderen i Norge'', (Oslo, 2000)〕 There are no written source from this time to tell us the title used by these rulers, or the exact borders between their realms. The main written sources we have on this period, the kings' sagas, were not written until the 12th and 13th centuries. While they were in part based on skaldic poems, and possibly on oral tradition, their reliability as sources for detailed events of the Viking age continues to be debated among historians. The sagas, most notable of which is Heimskringla, often refer to the petty rulers as ''konungr'', i.e. ''king'', as in Agder, Alvheim, Hedmark, Hordaland, Nordmøre og Romsdal, Rogaland, Romerike, Sogn, Solør, Sunmmøre, Trøndelag, Vestfold (which at various times included several of the aforementioned) and Viken; however in Hålogaland the title was jarl (compare earl), later ''Ladejarl'' (from the rulers power base at Lade, in modern day Trondheim). The rulers of all the areas might be called petty kings, herser, subkings, kings or jarls depending on the source. A number of small communities were gradually organised into larger regions in the 9th century, and in 872 King Harald Fairhair unified the realm and became its first supreme ruler. Many of the former kingdoms would later become jarldoms under the Norwegian high king and some would try to break free again. Below follows an incomplete list of petty kingdoms of Norway and their known rulers. Most of the people mentioned in this list are legendary or semi-legendary. Some of the areas might have a contested status as petty kingdoms. == Kingdom of Agder == Rulers: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Petty kingdoms of Norway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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