Rögnvaldr Óláfsson (d. 1249)

Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson
King of Mann and the Isles
Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson's name as it appears on folio 47r of Cotton MS Julius A VII (the Chronicle of Mann): "Reginaldus Olavi filius".
Reign	6 May 1249 – 30 May 1249
Predecessor	Haraldr Óláfsson
Successor	Haraldr Guðrøðarson
Died	30 May 1249
Burial	Rushen Abbey
House	Crovan dynasty
Father	Óláfr Guðrøðarson
Mother	Cairistíona inghean Fearchair

Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson (died 30 May 1249) was a mid-thirteenth-century King of Mann and the Isles who was assassinated after a reign of less than a month. As a son of Óláfr Guðrøðarson, King of Mann and the Isles, Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson was a member of the Crovan dynasty. When his father died in 1237, the kingship was assumed by Haraldr Óláfsson. The latter was lost at sea late in 1248, and the following year Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson succeeded him as king.

Only weeks after gaining the kingship, Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson was slain by a knight named Ívarr and his accomplices. The kingship was then seized by Haraldr Guðrøðarson, Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson's first cousin once removed, suggesting that the killers and the new king had colluded together. The assassination, therefore, appears to have been a continuation of the vicious family feud that had engulfed the Crovan dynasty since the late twelfth century, when Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson's father and Haraldr Guðrøðarson's grandfather first contested the kingship of the Isles.

Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson was one of several sons of Óláfr Guðrøðarson, King of Mann and the Isles (died 1237), and thus a member of the Crovan dynasty. Although Óláfr is known to have had two wives, and no contemporaneous source names the mother of his children, there is evidence suggesting that their mother may have been Óláfr's second wife: Cairistíona, daughter of Fearchar mac an tSagairt, Earl of Ross (died c.1251). Specifically, the Chronicle of Mann states that, when Óláfr died in 1237, he was succeeded by his fourteen-year-old son, Haraldr Óláfsson (died 1248). This source therefore dates Haraldr Óláfsson's birth to 1223, about the time when Óláfr and Fearchar allied themselves in marriage. The ancestral origins of Fearchar's family are unknown, although he appears to have been a native of eastern Ross. The Norse-Gaelic Crovan dynasty, founded by Rǫgnvaldr Óláfsson's paternal great-great grandfather, held royal power in the Isles from the late eleventh to the mid thirteenth century. Consisting of a region roughly encompassing the Hebrides and Mann, the Isles are named in Old Norse sources as Suðreyjar ("Southern Isles"), and in Gaelic sources as Innsi Gall ("Islands of the Foreigners"). Various documentary sources, in the form of contemporary chronicles and sagas, reveal that during the dynasty's tenure of power, the kings of the Isles tended to acknowledge the authority of the kings of Norway.