Gisela Harthacnutsdottir (862-892) was the second wife of Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg and the sister of Guthred, the Danish King of Northumbria.
Biography[]
Gisela was the daughter of Harthacnut and the sister of Guthred, and her family resided in Cumberland. She first met Uhtred of Bebbanburg in 878, when her brother named Uhtred the commander of his army, and the two of them married to secure Uhtred's loyalty to Northymbre; she had previously been promised to Ivar Ivarsson's son in order to forge an alliance, but, as the northern lords had failed to capture Dunholm from Earl Kjartan the Cruel as part of Gisela's dowry, these initial plans fell through. She was devastated when Guthred betrayed Uhtred to his uncle and rival Aelfric, but the two were eventually reunited when Uhtred escaped form Iceland two years later. By then, she had been forced to become a Christian nun to avoid being married to Kjartan's son Sven the One-eyed. Uhtred then prevented her from marrying Aelfric by proxy, killing Abbot Eadred Lulisc in the process. They then had two children, Uhtred and Stiorra, and they settled on Uhtred's estate at Coccham in Berkshire, where they built a Great Hall in the Norse style and raised their family. Gisela died in 892 while giving birth to their third child.