Orm Eriksson

Orm Eriksson ( also Orm Eiriksson, c. 1476 - 1521 ) was a Norwegian nobleman living in Stavanger and the alleged leader of the tax revolt in Rogaland, which ended with his execution in 1521.

It is uncertain whether Orm Erikson of Voss in 1482 was the same as the citizen and later væpner ( squire ) Orm Erikson of Stavanger. Asgaut Steinnes wrote in 1961 that the Orm Erikson of 1484 and the Orm Erikson of 1497 were the same man.

Orm Erikson is known to have been in the city records of Stavanger before 1518. The earliest mention of him was dated 17 June 1490, when he was one of the witnesses of a legal document. He did not have at that time a title of nobility. But, sometime between 1490 and 1509, he gained the title of a væpner [ squire ]. 1509 was the first time he was mentioned in 1509 as a væpner. A year later, in 1510, Orm Eriksson “av våpen” [ with his coat-of-arms ], and wife Astri Ormsdatter bought the Hana farm in Sandnes. The document was created at Skagen in Stavanger. This is the only document linking Orm Erikson to any particular place in the Stavanger area. It is possible that Orm Erikson was then living at Skagen. In two documents, which were definitely from Stavanger, Orm Erikson was described as a væpner.

The war between Denmark and Sweden ended in March 1520 when, as one of the conditions of the settlement, the Swedes accepted Christian II as the King of Sweden. But the settlement came with a price. Rogaland, like the other areas of Norway, had been obliged to supply extra taxes and men to support the war. In 1518 he demanded an additional tax of two marks but he got a riot in Rogaland so, in 1519, a penalty tax of two marks was tacked to the incomes in Rogaland. In 1521 another 10% tax was added.

Sometime in the fall of 1519, Jon Eilifson was put in the prison at Bergen. The illegitimate son of the former bishop of Stavanger, Eilif Jonson, he had been asked by the commoners in Ryfylke to deliver their letter to the King to get their taxes reduced but he was arrested before he could accomplish his mission. From the prison, he wrote a letter of complaint to the King. He wrote that there was violence in the conflict between the commoners and the Danish governor [ lensherre ] of Bergenhus len - Jørgen Hansson. Eilivson believed, however, that many used more violence than he himself did. He wrote that Orm Erikson was a traitor. He knew Orm, who had been one of the witnesses of the will of Jon's father. Jon claimed that Orm had kept things, chased away the priest Torkild with guns and would have killed him. Orm was a nobleman but, at that time, he was neither a lagmann [ judge ] nor a fogd [ bailiff ] so he did not have the legal authority. But Eilivson never revealed the reasons for any of Eriksson's actions as well as the identity of Father Torkild. Torkild may be the priest who had left the Diocese of London in England for the in Germany in 1519 to further his studies. He was known to have been ordained in the summer of 1519 so the altercation with Orm Eriksson might have happened at that time. It is possible that Hoskuld Hoskuldsson, who succeeded Eilif Jonson as the Bishop of Stavanger, sent Torkild abroad for the studies to keep him away from Orm and the authorities for a while. Sending possible witnesses out of the diocese was one of the Bishop's usual tactics of dealing with problems; he had done it before in his dispute with the abbot of Utstein Abbey. was one of his favored hiding places; he had studied at the University there.

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