Blanche from Namur

Blanche of Namur, date unknown

Blanche von Namur (* around 1320 in Namur ; † autumn 1363 in Tønsberg ) was Queen of Sweden and Norway from 1335 until her death .

Early years

Blanche von Namur was the daughter of John I of Dampierre, Count of Namur (1267-1330) and his second wife Marie von Artois (1291-1365), a relative of King Louis VIII. She was probably born in the citadel of Namur , her Year of birth is unknown. However, she is described as being about the same age as her husband. According to the Swedish Chronicle of Ericus Olai, it is said to have been exceptionally beautiful.

queen

In June 1334 Magnus Eriksson traveled with his entourage to Namur and got engaged to Blanche there. The wedding of the two took place in October or November 1335, probably in Tønsberghus, but it is also called Oslo because Erik borrowed festive decorations from the Nonneseter monastery. In addition, King Edward III. for Blanche and her entourage on August 12, 1335 a letter of safe conduct for the trip to Norway to get married. The mother provided 268 Paris pounds as trousseau. Then the couple went to Sweden. As a morning gift, she received the income from the Tønsberg tax district. How this choice of spouse came about is not known. Steinar Imsen points out, however, that Blanche had family ties with both the French and the English royal family and the imperial family of Luxembourg and that Norwegian foreign policy at that time was traditionally oriented towards France and Flanders . That is why her brother-in-law Albrecht von Mecklenburg initiated the marriage. In addition, two of her brothers were politically active in the Baltic Sea region , even if the contacts are only documented after 1335.

In the summer of 1336, Blanche and Magnus were solemnly crowned queen and king of Norway and Sweden by a German bishop, probably on July 22nd in the Nicolaikirche in Stockholm . Her court master was Birgitta of Sweden when she was a minor . The marriage is portrayed as happy. Blanche von Namur is described by contemporary sources as pretty and intelligent, but no picture has survived. However, their connections to their homeland did not seem to be severed. In 1345 her half-brothers from her father's first marriage to Margarethe von Clermont, Ludwig and Wilhelm von Namur, came to visit and in 1353 Ludwig even entered the service of the king. In 1341 the king gave her two marks of Kölnisch in gold annually for life. In 1346 he gave her a further annual sum in silver from the income from the market in Skanör . In the same year they transferred large estates to Birgitta of Sweden, including Vadstena , where she built a monastery for the Birgittine order she had founded .

In 1353 Blanche exchanged the tribute district Tønsberg for most of Båhuslen and Borgar syssel because these areas were closer to their possessions Dalsland and Värmland in Sweden. These properties were to serve as a widow's livelihood in the event of her husband's death.

Blanche was the first of a series of Union queens who helped shape the Nordic history in the 15th and 16th centuries, of which the most important her daughter Margaret I was. She sealed documents in the presence of the king and on March 19, 1351 in Jönköping, in the presence of many ecclesiastical and Swedish gentlemen and the Norwegian imperial administrator Orm Eysteinsson, concluded an agreement with the nuncio Johannes Guilaberti on the conditions under which the taxes due to the pope were War against Novgorod were loaned to Pope Clement VI. had called. The agreement was confirmed by the king a few months later. According to an invoice for the Swedish share, she had received 12,000 Swedish marks. For this she pledged her entire domain and the king also had to pledge parts of his crown property.

Blanche was unjustly accused by contemporary diatribes of having carried out a poison attack on her son Erik and his wife Beatrix in 1359 , from whom they died, because there was a reconciliation before his death. The plague is the more likely cause of death.

death

It is not known what Blanche died of. Her grave is also unknown. In their wills, she and the king had designated Vadstena monastery as a burial place. Her personal effects were sparse, as the inventory of her estate from February 27, 1365 shows. It was ruined by the king's wars and the ensuing pledging of its property.

family

Blanche and Magnus had three daughters as well as the sons and later kings Erik XII. (1339-1359) and Haakon VI. (1340-1380).

literature

• Halvard Bjørkvik: Folketap og sammenbrudd 1350–1520 . Aschehougs Norges historie B. 4, Oslo 1996, ISBN 82-03-22017-7 .
• Michael Nordberg: I kung Magnus tid . Norstedts, Stockholm 1995, ISBN 91-1-952122-7 .
• Anteckningar om svenska qvinnor . (Swedish)
• T. Höjer: Blanche from Namur . In: Bernhard Meijer (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 3 : Bergsvalan – Branstad . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1905, Sp. 643 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).

Web links

• Diplomatarium Norvegicum
• Steinar Imsen: Blanca Av Namur . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon
• Regesta Norvegica

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Nils Petter Tuesen: Norsk historie i årstall Oslo 2004, ISBN 82-458-0713-3 , p. 94.
2. ↑ According to the Diplomatarium Norvegicum vol. 2 no. 372, Blanche sealed a document from the king on July 1, 1363 in Tønsberg. See also Norsk biografisk leksikon .
3. ↑ ^{a b} S. Tunberg: Blanka . In: Svensk biografisk leksikon ; Retrieved July 20, 2012.
4. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 19 No. 547 (Latin).
5. ↑ Regesta Norvegiae Vol. 4 No. 1129a.
6. ↑ Bjørkvik p. 140. At this time Norway was divided into five tribute districts (fehirdsle): Nidaros, Bergen Tønsberg, Oslo and Båhus (Nordisk familiebok vol. 7 col. 1493).
7. ↑ ^{a b} Imsen in Norsk biografisk leksikon.
8. ↑ This is what Birgitta writes in her book Revelationes extravagantes .
9. ↑ Werner Paravicini: From the Heidenfahrt to the cavalier stool. Knowledge literature in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, Vol. 13. Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-88226-555-8 , pp. 91–130, 97.
10. ↑ Regesta Norvegiae Vol. 5 No. 402.
11. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 6 No. 177.
12. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 2 No. 319. (norrön) and Imsen.
13. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 2 Nos. 355, 297; Vol. 12 No. 21.
14. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 8 No. 157.
15. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 6 No. 199 ff.
16. ↑ Norwegian National Archives ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : PA Munch i Vatikanet.  
17. ↑ Diplomatarium Norvegicum Vol. 5 No. 149. (Latin)
18. ↑ Regesta Norvegiae Vol. 6 No. 1041.

Predecessors	Office	Successors
Margrethe Eriksdatter of Denmark	Queen of Sweden 1335–1363	Richardis of Schwerin
Euphemia of Rügen	Queen of Norway 1335–1363	Margarethe I.