| Gudfred | |
|---|---|
 Gudfred (Gøtrik den Gavmilde) as depicted in 1670 | |
| King of the Danes | |
| Reign | c. 804–810 |
| Predecessor | Sigfred |
| Successor | Hemming |
| Born | Late 8th century Denmark |
| Died | 810 Denmark |
| Issue | Horik I |
| Dynasty | Sigfredian |
Gudfred was a ninth century Danish king who reigned from at least 804 to 810. Alternate spellings include Godfred (Danish), Göttrick (German), Gøtrik (Danish), Gudrød (Danish), and Godofredus (Latin). He stands at the threshold of the History of Denmark in the sense that he is the first ruler about whom there is substantial knowledge from contemporary sources. He waged offensive war against the Carolingian Empire with some success, but was murdered under murky circumstances before a major confrontation had taken place. There is no unambiguous trace of Gudfred in the later Norse sagas, and his history can only be traced from the hostile Frankish texts which makes an assessment of his role problematic. His paternity is unknown but he may have been closely related to Sigfred, who preceded him as king of Denmark c. 770–804.[1] He was the uncle of the later Danish King Hemming (810–812) and the father of King Horik I (813–854).
- ^ The only statement of his paternity in the medieval literature is Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum (c. 1200), which asserts that Gudfred or Gøtrik was the son of a King Gorm; this figure, however, appears to be a duplicate of the much later Gorm the Old (d. c. 958). Henrik Schück identified Gudfred with a certain Gudfred the King, mentioned in an Irish genealogy in the Three Fragments (11th century), who in turn was the son of another Gudfred, according to Schück presumably a brother of Sigfred. Henrik Schück (1895), "De senaste undersökningarna rörande ynglingasagan" [1] The value of this genealogy is however debatable.