Anund Jacob or James, Swedish: Anund Jakob was King of Sweden from 1022 until around 1050. He is believed to have been born on July 25, in either 1008 or 1010 as Jakob, the son of King Olof Skötkonung and Queen Estrid. Being the second Christian king of the Swedish realm, his long and partly turbulent reign saw the increasing dissemination of Christianity as well as repeated attempts to influence the balance of power in Scandinavia. Through out his regin he tried to subvert the rising Danish hegemony in Scandinavia by supporting the Norwegian monarchy. He also supported the reign of Yaroslav the Wise in Kievan Rus, his brother-in-law. He is referred to in positive terms in German and Norse historical sources. His reign was one of the longest in Sweden during the Viking Age and Middle Ages. Accession The main sources for Anund Jacob's reign are the near-contemporary ecclesiastic chronicle of Adam of Bremen and several Norse histories from the 12th and 13th centuries, in particular Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. Adam and Snorri both relate that Anund Jacob's father Olof Skötkonung (c. 995–1022) ran into trouble with his subjects towards the end of his reign. According to Adam, the still pagan population of Svealand urged the fervently Christian ruler to withdraw to Västergötland. Snorri, on the other hand, asserts that King Olof's high-handed rule caused the Swedes to rise against him, whereby his young son Jacob was hailed as king. When the Swedish Thing was to elect him the ruler of Sweden, the people objected to his non-Scandinavian name. They then gave him the name of Anund. Olof and Anund Jacob eventually came to an agreement: Olof was to retain his royal title for the rest of his life, but Anund Jacob would be co-ruler and govern part of the realm, and had to support the peasantry if Olof caused further trouble. In Snorri's chronology this happened in c. 1019. Three years later Olof died, leaving Anund Jacob as the sole ruler. Political agenda Indigenous Swedish historiography has preserved very meager recollections of the pre-1250 rulers, but points out Anund Jacob as a heavy-handed master. The enumeration of kings appended to the Westrogothic law (c. 1240) says that he had the epithet of Kolbränna ("Coal-burner") as he had the habit of burning down the houses of his opponents. This may refer to the practice known from medieval Sweden of legally