Eufemia Eriksdotter

Eufemia Eriksdotter (* 1317 ; † before June 16, 1370 ) was Duchess of Mecklenburg.

Her parents were the Swedish duke Erik Magnusson and the Norwegian princess Ingeborg Håkonsdotter . She was the granddaughter of King Håkon V.

Erik Magnusson and his brother Waldemar were killed at the Nyköping banquet . Erik Magnusson's three-year-old son Magnus Eriksson became king as the successor to King Birger Magnusson, who had been expelled from the nobility . Eufemia's widowed mother Ingeborg was now a duchess in Sweden. When the Norwegian King Håkon V died in 1319 , Magnus inherited the throne. Norway and Sweden were ruled by Magnus in personal union. In 1319 the details were laid down in the Treaty of Oslo in the presence of the widow Ingeborg; Ingeborg was allowed to remain politically active. In the following years she took part in the meetings of the Imperial Council. She had received Axvalls castle and fief in Västergötland for her maintenance. She resided on Varberg and thus ruled North Halland. She thus assumed a key political and geographic position that her husband had previously held. The Duchess surrounded herself and the young king with her own court, in which her husband's followers were represented, including the Dane Knut Porse, whom she soon married, as the most powerful man. Members of the Holstein dynasty van Kyren, who had previously belonged to Duke Erik's supporters, were also there. With these and other advisers, the Duchess began to pursue her own policy on behalf of her son bypassing the Norwegian and Swedish Imperial Councils. This led to a conflict with the Swedish Imperial Council.

The conflict between the Duchess and the Imperial Council reached its climax when the Imperial Council approached the Danish King Christopher II so that he would not interfere in the Swedish succession issue, while the Duchess and the Varberg Circle made contact with Christopher's enemies, especially in Skåne . So in 1321 a contract between the Duchess Ingebjørg on behalf of her son and Heinrich von Mecklenburg came about in Bohus . The contract also contained a marriage agreement between Eufemia Eriksdotter and Heinrich's nephew Albrecht, as well as an assistance pact in the event of a Danish attack. In 1336 Eufemia married Albrecht von Mecklenburg and had with him the son Albrecht III. , who was deposed in 1336 in the course of a nobility revolt.

However, by decision of the Norwegian Imperial Council, her son had been excluded from the line of succession because he had waged war against Norway. Margaret I became queen instead .

literature

• Knut Robert Geete: Article "Eufemia Eriksdotter" in: Nordisk familiebok. Vol. 7 (Stockholm 1907) Col. 1030.
• Jerker Rosén: “Magnus Eriksson, omyndighetstiden och de lugna åren 1319–1356.” In: Henning Stålhane (ed.): Den svenska historien 2: Medeltid 1319–1520 . Stockholm 1966. pp. 14-27, 14-18.