Mstislav, the eldest son of Vladimir II…

Mstislav, the eldest son of Vladimir II Monomakh by Gytha of Wessex, figures prominently in the Norse Sagas under the name Harald, taken to allude to his grandfather, Harold II of England, slain in 1066 at the Batttle of Hastings.

According to Saxo Grammaticus, two of Harold's sons and a daughter escaped the Norman Conquest to the court of their uncle, king Sweyn Estridsson of Denmark.

They were treated by Sweyn with hospitality, while their sister was married to Waldemar, king of Ruthenia, i.e.

Vladimir II Monomakh.

(The pateric of St. Pantaleon Cloister in Cologne says that "Gytha the Queen" died as a nun on March 10.

It is assumed that she followed Godfrey of Bouillon in the first Crusade and died in Palestine, most likely in 1098, as a year later Vladimir Monomakh married a noblewoman of Constantinople, by whom he had Yuri Dolgoruki, the future founder of Moscow, and two daughters: Eufemia, who married King Coloman of Hungary, and Maria, married to the pretender to the throne of Constantinople who called himself Leon Diogenes.)

As his father's future successor, Mstislav has reigned in Novgorod from 1088-93 and (after a brief stint at Rostov) from 1095-1117, building numerous churches in Novgorod, of which St. Nicholas Cathedral (1113) and the cathedral of St. Anthony Cloister (1117) survive to the present day.

Mstislav's life thus far has been spent in constant warfare with Cumans (1093, 1107, 1111) and Estonians (1111, 1113, 1116).

In 1096, he had defeated his uncle Oleg of Chernigov on the Koloksha River, thereby laying the foundation for the centuries of enmity between his and Oleg's descendants.

(Mstislav will be the last ruler of united Rus, and upon his death, as the chronicler put it, "the land of Rus was torn apart".)