Albrecht III. (Mecklenburg)

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Albrecht III.
The royal seal of Albrecht III.
Stones from Mora at the polling site
Grave slab of his second wife Agnes in Gadebusch

Albrecht III, Duke of Mecklenburg , often imprecise in the literature as Albrecht von Mecklenburg (* around 1338 - † March 1, 1412 ) was King of Sweden from 1364 to 1389 and (ruling) Duke of Mecklenburg from 1384 until his death .

Life

Albrecht was the second son of Duke Albrecht II of Mecklenburg and his wife Eufemia , who was a sister of the Swedish King Magnus II Eriksson . After the reigning King Magnus II and his son Håkon, Albrecht was third in line to the throne.

In 1363 the Swedish Imperial Council came to the Mecklenburg court under the direction of Bo Jonsson Grip . This had risen against King Magnus and wanted to depose him as ruler. They were expelled from the country for giving up their allegiance and submission. Encouraged by the Reichsrat, Albrecht invaded Sweden in the same year with the support of his father, the Mecklenburg Hanseatic cities and some north German princes. With Stockholm and Kalmar , long-standing German trading bases surrendered without a fight. In February 1364 Albrecht received the title of king in Stockholm, while he was not recognized in Värmland , Dalarna and some parts of Västergötland . The homage was made on the stone of Mora .

An eight-year civil war ensued. Near Enköping Magnus and Håkon were defeated by German fighters in the Battle of Gata in 1365 and Magnus was captured, whereupon Håkon received support from the Danish King Waldemar IV Atterdag . Magnus was not released until 1371. Albrecht, on the other hand, quickly lost reputation among the Swedish people, mainly because he sold large parts of the Swedish country to followers from the north German aristocratic families such as B. Barnekow , Moltke , Vieregge and Vietzen pledged who had come to Sweden with him and on which the kingdom of Abrecht III. significantly supported. With peasant support, Håkon and his army soon stood in Norrmalm near Stockholm (now Stockholm city area), whereupon the Imperial Council in 1371, through trilateral negotiations, enforced that Albrecht was allowed to keep his crown, but the factual power in his hands, the council, and with it passed into that of his most powerful husband, Bo Jonsson Grip, whereby the civil war could initially be ended and Magnus Eriksson was regained freedom.

When Bo Jonsson died in 1386, Albrecht made a new attempt to restore royal power. He intended to take over the guardianship of Bo Jonsson's widow and children and wanted to move in some noble estates. Thereupon Bo Jonsson's executor turned to the Danish Queen Margaret I for help. This immediately intervened in southern Sweden and defeated Albrecht in 1389 in the battle of Åsle near Falköping . Albrecht was captured together with his son Erich . The two were held captive in the Lindholmen imperial fortress in Skåne for six years . The release in 1395 took place after three years of negotiations with the participation of Lübeck's mayors Hinrich Westhof and Johann Niebur on the condition that Albrecht hand over the Swedish throne to Margarethe if he could not pay a fixed sum of money within three years. In 1398, Margarethe took possession of Stockholm, which had been occupied by the Hanseatic League, with the consent of Lübeck .

After his defeat Albrecht III returned. returned to Mecklenburg and took over the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. During his imprisonment, a guardianship government for his underage nephew Johann IV under the leadership of Johann I and later Johann II of Mecklenburg-Stargard was established. With Johann IV. Albrecht III ruled. henceforth together the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where he was primarily confronted with the consequences of his failed Swedish kingship. The island of Gotland , which was still owned by Mecklenburg, was in fact ruled by the Brothers Vitality until the Teutonic Order was forced to take this island because of the damage to trade by the pirates. As part of the final peace agreement with Denmark, Albrecht III. Gotland to Queen Margaret. After the Mecklenburg dukes no longer took the members of the Mecklenburg lower nobility in pay for the war for the Scandinavian royal crowns, and also no longer employed lower aristocratic war entrepreneurs for this purpose, large parts of the Mecklenburg knighthood looked around for other sources of income and often fell into feuds and Road robbery. Although Albrecht III. Keeping peace in the country against them also punished a number of less powerful lower nobles, but could not defeat muggers from leading Mecklenburg aristocratic families, who, due to their quality as former lower aristocratic war entrepreneurs, also had numerous bailiffs in the country as pledges. Albrecht III was missing to redeem all bailiwicks. under the impression of the late medieval agricultural crisis, the financial means, so that he only had initial successes here. His government barely extended over the pledged Mecklenburg parts of the country because the pledge owners from the leading Mecklenburg noble families consequently kept their distance from the Mecklenburg ducal house as a result of the discontinuation of war entrepreneurship and the change in policy towards the redemption of pledge bailiffs. Due to the bad finances, Albrecht III was able to. nor did he continue to bind the leading Mecklenburg noble families through his court. Instead, he was forced to focus on lower-ranking Mecklenburg noble families and their help to stabilize the duchy to some extent.

Albrecht died in 1412 and was buried in Doberan Monastery.

family

Grave of Richardis von Schwerin in Stockholm

Albrecht III. Was married twice.

His first marriage was Richardis von Schwerin († 1377 in Stockholm, buried in the monastery of the Black Brothers in Stockholm), a daughter of Count Otto I. von Schwerin . He had at least three children with her:

  • Erich (* after 1359; † July 26, 1397), 1395–1397 Regent of Gotland.
  • Richardis († after 1400), married to Johann , Duke of Görlitz.
  • (another daughter), evidenced by documents as: Duke Albrecht von Mekelimburg sone daughter eyne, who is the iungiste .

In his second marriage he married Agnes († 1410) in Schwerin in 1396 , who was a daughter of Duke Magnus of Braunschweig . Agnes was buried in the Albrechtskapelle of the town church St. Jakob and St. Dionysius von Gadebusch , where her grave slab (today in the choir of the church) is preserved. With her he had a son:

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Oelgarte: The rule of the Meklenburger in Sweden . In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology . No. 68 , 1903, pp. 2-70 .
  2. ^ Göran Dahlbäck: Albrekt av Mecklenburg , 1989. In: K. Marklund et al. (Ed.) Nationalencyklopedin (Swedish). Bokförlaget Bra Böcker AB, 1989-96. ISBN 91-7024-620-3
  3. ↑ Lindholmen, Svedala kommun ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Swedish, English, German), Länsstyrelsen Skåne, accessed June 20, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lansstyrelsen.se
  4. ^ Tobias Pietsch: Leading groups in the late medieval lower nobility of Mecklenburg . Kiel 2019.

Web links

Commons : Duke Albrecht III. zu Mecklenburg  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor

Magnus II. 		King of Sweden
1364–1389
Margarethe I.

Johann IV. 		Duke of Mecklenburg
1384-1412
Albrecht V.
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht III.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albrecht of Mecklenburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Sweden and Duke of Mecklenburg
DATE OF BIRTH around 1338
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1412