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8. ANUND, EMUND AND ADALBERT. 77
1021 A.D. 1022 A.D., he had been king for nearly thirty
years since his father died, but he was, if the story is cor
rect, only forty-two years old. He was thus probably older
in years than the other prominent kings of this period
the two Norwegian Olafs and Knut who may all be sup
posed to have been about forty at the dates of their deaths.
The short reigns of some, and the early deaths of most, of
these kings contrast with the long lives of the lagmen and
of the bishops, so that we can readily see how it was that a
quiet order in Church and State might continue and make
progress, while the nominal rulers, after a brilliant display
of force, passed away and left less definite results behind
them. Two things Sweden seems to have acquired in the
reign of Olof, the use of money coined in the country
instead of in England or elsewhere (S. H.1
, Vol. i., p. 261),
and the use of letters for correspondence. The first
instance recorded in the Sagas of written private letters,
instead of verbal messages and tokens, is in the correspond
ence of Olof s daughter, Ingegerd, with Jarl Ragnvald, and
his wife, Ingeborg, about her projected marriage with
Haraldson (St. O. S., ch. 71). Of course, the clergy had
long been accustomed to write letters, and, on this account,
were constantly used as ambassadors. The later futhorc
of sixteen runes had probably been in use on monuments
from the latter part of the ninth century, and was, I
presume, the one used by Ingegerd.
21
8. ACCESSION OF ANUND JAKOB (1021 A.D. 1050 A.D.).
Olof of Sweden was succeeded about the year 1021 A.D.
(St. O. S. ch. 120) by his son, Anund Jakob, who, accord
ing to Adam,
"
was superior to all his predecessors in
wisdom and piety : no king being more loved by the
Swedish people than Anund" (Adam: ch. 94). He had
a long and fairly quiet reign of some thirty years, in the
21
The letters on Olof s coins are, however, like those on
Ethelred s, of Anglo-Saxon type, not runes (S. H. 1
, figs. 330,
349). The new edition of S. H. has considerably more on this
subject of coinage.
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