Who was Ulf jarl, Sven Estridsen's father?

Abstract

This posthumous article by Professor Jarl Gallén (1908-1990) was compiled on the basis of several unfinished versions on which Professor Gallén had worked intermittently for some years.

The article takes its point of departure in an article in Scandia from 1931, where Erik Arup advocated the view that Ulf Jarl was of Anglo-Saxon and not Scandinavian origin, as was generally thought. Proof of this Arup found in a genealogy of Ulfs family quoted by William Ramsey, "writing soon after the middle of the 12th century", which reads: "Ursus genuit Spratlingum, Spratlingus Ulsium, Ulsius Beorn". Here Ulsius had to be a Latinization of Anglo-Saxon Wulfsige, which the Danes had then translated into UIf. This reinterpretation influenced Arup's view of Canute the Great's English policy. Arup's finding gained widespread acceptance among Scandinavian historians, but seems not to have influenced English scholarship.