Erik II (Denmark)

Erik II. Emune

Erik II. Emune , the memorable , (* around 1100 ; † September 18, 1137 at a meeting in Umehoved near Aabenraa ) was King of Denmark from 1134 to 1137 .

Life

Erik II was an illegitimate son of Erik I. Ejegod (Immergut) . Nothing is known about his birth and childhood. He is first mentioned at the end of the 1120s when he supported his half-brother Knud Lavard against King Niels .

1132 married Erik II and Malmfred, the daughter of Grand Duke Mstislav of Novgorod and Christine Ingesdotter of Sweden and sister of Ingeborg, who was married to Knud Lavard . She was the wife of the Norwegian King Sigurd Jorsalfari († 1130) until 1128 . Erik's son Svend Grate possibly gave birth to his concubine Thunna.

Fight against King Niels

On January 7, 1131, Magnus , the son of King Niels, murdered the son of Erik Ejegod , Erik's half-brother Knud Lavard , because he threatened to compete with him for the throne. Magnus was on the Thing in Ringsted for friedlos explained. Knud Lavard's half-brothers, Harald Kesja and Erik, who was Jarl von Lolland at the time. They organized an uprising against King Niels when he brought his son Magnus back. This in turn was also supported by King Magnus IV of Norway. For the next three years a battle was fought between the opponents every summer, first at Ribe , then at Hals in Jylland and in 1133 at Værebro on Sjælland . Each time King Niels and his son Magnus won the battle, so Erik had to flee to Norway.

In the following summer (1134) he achieved an alliance with Archbishop Asker in Lund and perhaps also with Emperor Lothar III. In any case, 300 modern knights are said to have come to Skåne . The doubts arise from the fact that Magnus was a vassal of the emperor, who on the other hand had supported Erik's uprising. The sources are not clear. On the second day of Pentecost in 1134 there was one of the greatest battles of the early Middle Ages at Fodevig , of which Saxo Grammaticus gives a very dramatic description. Erik won the battle, Magnus fell and King Niels fled to Schleswig , where the residents avenged the murder of Knud Lavard and killed him.

Regency

Erik was worshiped in the church of Sankt Libers near Lund . He settled in Lund and made it the capital of Denmark. Erik was able to hold onto the throne for three years. He operated the canonization of his half-brother Knud Lavard to confirm his family's claim to the throne. But the wish of his family to bury Knud with pomp and splendor in Roskilde , he refused and had him buried in the church of Ringsted . There he founded a monastery which, among other things, had the task of documenting the miracles at Knud's grave. It was there that Sjællandske Lov , a collection of laws, began to be compiled.

Erik made Eskil , Archbishop Asser's nephew , bishop in Roskilde .

In order to secure his power, Erik acted cruelly against his enemies, even against his brother Harald Kesja. Harald Kesja had been appointed by Niels to be his co-king, had fled to Norway after the battle of Fodevig and had been elected king after his return from exile on the Thing in Gauteng . Erik attacked Harald in 1135 in Skibet near Vejle and had seven of his eight sons killed. The only surviving son Oluf Haraldson tried 1139-1141 in vain to assert his claims to the throne.

In August 1135, Erik supported King Harald Gille , who had been expelled from Norway , by giving him troops for his return to Norway.

In 1136 Erik undertook a crusade to Jaromarsburg on Rügen against the local Ranen . He had the narrow land connection between Rügen and the mainland pierced and a shaft dug into the chalk cliffs so that the groundwater was drained and the well of the castle dried up. The Jaromarsburg had to surrender and the residents were forced to be baptized.

In Denmark, however, its enemies increased. Bishop Eskil von Roskilde and the aristocrat Peder Bodilsen, formerly a friend of Erik and now his bitter enemy, instigated an uprising in Zealand that quickly spread, and Erik had to abandon his crusade the following summer. The reason why his friends switched to enemies is not known. Erik succeeded in regaining Zealand and forcing Eskil to make an expensive settlement, but on September 18, 1137 he was killed on a thing in Umehoved near Aabenraa by the nobleman "Sorte Plov". He was buried in the Ribe Cathedral. He was succeeded by Erik Lam , the son of his sister Ragnhild and his last living relative.

Erik was nicknamed "Emune", which means "the one to remember". The Chronicon Roskildense , the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus and the Knýtlinga saga all describe Erik Emune as cruel.

See also

• Family table of the Danish kings

literature

• Aksel E. Christensen: Erik II Emune. In: Dansk biografisk leksikon. Volume 4, Copenhagen 1980, pp. 210-211.

Web links

Commons : Erik II (Denmark)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Erik Emune from danmarkshistorien.dk (Danish)

Footnotes

1. ↑ He had sworn the emperor's feudal oath in 1131 and at Easter 1134.
2. ↑ Erfurt Annals militibus Teutonikus and Saxo.
3. ↑ Princes can also have appointed knights with the tacit approval of the emperor. After all, there had been attacks on Germans in Roskilde and elsewhere under Magnus.

predecessor	Office	successor
Niels	King of Denmark 1134–1137	Erik III.