Kungahälla was a medieval
NorwegianNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
settlement in southern
Bohuslän' is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden , situated on the west coast of the country. It borders Dalsland and Västergötland as well as the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea and Østfold in Norway....
on what is presently the property of Kastellgården in
Kungälv MunicipalityKungälv Municipality is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Kungälv....
.
The
Norwegian Kings' sagasA Legendary saga or Fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the colonization of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century...
talk of Konghelle as a
Viking AgeViking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
settlement, excavations to date provide no evidence that the site was inhabited before the 12th century. There is, however, archaeological evidence for a royal estate slightly north of the city, dating back to the Viking Age, and to date only 1% of the Kungahälla site has been excavated.
According to
Snorri SturlusonSnorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
, Kungahälla was the location of two important royal summits to conclude peace between Sweden and Norway.
Kungahälla was a medieval
NorwegianNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
settlement in southern
Bohuslän' is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden , situated on the west coast of the country. It borders Dalsland and Västergötland as well as the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea and Østfold in Norway....
on what is presently the property of Kastellgården in
Kungälv MunicipalityKungälv Municipality is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Kungälv....
.
The
Norwegian Kings' sagasA Legendary saga or Fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the colonization of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century...
talk of Konghelle as a
Viking AgeViking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
settlement, excavations to date provide no evidence that the site was inhabited before the 12th century. There is, however, archaeological evidence for a royal estate slightly north of the city, dating back to the Viking Age, and to date only 1% of the Kungahälla site has been excavated.
According to
Snorri SturlusonSnorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
, Kungahälla was the location of two important royal summits to conclude peace between Sweden and Norway. The first saw the two King Olafs,
Olaf the StoutOlaf Haraldsson was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, . His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair...
of Norway and Olof Skötkonung of Sweden, agree a peace treaty, ca 1020. The second is called the
meeting of the three kings, during which the three Scandinavian kings
Inge IInge Stenkilsson was a king of Sweden. He was the son of the former king Stenkil and died c. 1100.He shared the rule of the kingdom with his probably elder brother Halsten Stenkilsson, but little is known with certainty of Inge's reign...
of
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
, Magnus Barefoot of
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
and
Eric EvergoodEric I of Denmark , also known as Eric the Good Eric Evergood , was King of Denmark following his brother Olaf I in 1095. He was a son of King Sweyn Estridson, by his wife Gunhild Sveinsdotter, and he married Boedil Thurgotsdatter.He was born in the town of Slangerup in North Zealand...
of
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
met in Kungahälla in 1101.
In 1135 the town was attacked and sacked by the
PomeraniansPomerania during the High Middle Ages covers the History of Pomerania in the 12th and 13th centuries.The early 12th century Obodrite, Polish, Saxon, and Danish conquests resulted in vassalage and Christianization of the formerly pagan and independent Pomeranian tribes...
. Snorri, writing a century later, said that Konghelle never completely recovered.
The first reliable mention of Konghelle appears around 1135 in writings by
Orderic VitalisOrderic Vitalis was an English chronicler who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and England.-Background:...
, which name the town as one of six Norwegian
civitates. The town was a centre of royal authority during the early Middle Ages, and especially the 13th century, when it was the Norwegian kingdom's southernmost outpost and played a role in
Haakon IV of NorwayHaakon Haakonsson , also called Haakon the Old, was king of Norway from 1217 to 1263. Under his rule, medieval Norway reached its peak....
's expansionist politics. At this time the fort
Ragnhildsholmen fort and a
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
monastery were constructed at the site, while the 12th century
Kastellekloster monastery was rebuilt. In the early 14th century, Konghelle was the fief of Eric Magnusson of Sweden, father of Magnus II of Sweden, the future king of Sweden and Norway.
After the construction of the stronghold Bohus in 1308, the castle on Ragnhildsholmen started to lose its importance as a royal seat. It is not mentioned after 1320. In the later Middle Ages the town's importance further declined. It burned down in 1612, and was afterwards moved to a location near Bohus, and renamed
KungälvKungälv is a city and the seat of Kungälv Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 21,139 inhabitants in 2005.-Geography:Kungälv is roughly translated as "King River" and is such named because of the two rivers that float in the vicinity, Göta Älv and Nordre Älv...
.
Archaeological excavations began in the late 19th century (at the Ragnhildsholmen and the monastery of Kastellklostret sites) and continue today. The ruins are open to visitors.