Ingebjørg Håkonsdatter

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Ingebjørg Håkonsdatter in Linköping Cathedral .
Ingebjørg's seal

Ingebjørg Håkonsdatter (Swedish: Ingeborg Håkansdotter ) (* 1301 ; † June 17, 1361 ) was a Norwegian king's daughter and Swedish duchess.

Life

Her parents were the Norwegian King Håkon V. Magnusson and his wife Eufemia . She was Håkon's only legitimate child. In 1302 her father passed a new law of succession to the throne, by which a son of hers moved up to the third place and she herself to the seventh place in the line of succession. This made her a pawn in her father's politics from birth.

Håkon V was involved in the Nordic power struggle, in which the dispute over power in Sweden between King Birger and his two brothers stood out. As a child, Ingebjørg was engaged to both Birger's brother, the Swedish Duke Erik Magnusson , and King Birger's son Magnus Birgersson , depending on who her father was allied with. When King Håkon then preferred an alliance with the Swedish dukes against King Birger, she was married to Erik on September 29, 1312 in Oslo. Her cousin Ingebjørg Eriksdatter was married to his brother Waldemar Magnusson at the same time .

With Duke Erik she had their son Magnus in 1316 and a year later their daughter Eufemia . After King Birger had cleared his brothers out of the way in the winter of 1317/1318 at the banquet in Nyköping , the duke's supporters gathered around Erik's young widow. King Birger had to flee the country, and Ingebjørg's son Magnus was elected King of Sweden on July 8, 1319, two months after he had inherited the Norwegian crown from his grandfather Håkon V.

As mother of the king and due to her own right of inheritance to the throne, Ingebjørg had an outstanding social position in both countries, even if she had no place in the official government. After Duke Erik's death, she tried to some extent to influence politics in his favor and in the name of her son. Above all, she seeks to win Skåne . Their aggressive policy towards Denmark was entirely in line with Norwegian foreign policy in the second half of the 13th century. This also included the alliance with Duke Heinrich II of Mecklenburg against Denmark, which was sealed in 1321 by the marriage contract between their daughter Eufemia and Albrecht , the duke's son.

But when the Danish nobleman Knut Porse and German mercenaries invaded Skåne on his own initiative, the leading personalities in Norway and Sweden soon realized that the measures taken by the Duchess and Knut Porses meant that they were losing political control. Therefore, they appointed an imperial administrator and thus disempowered the duchess. This happened in Sweden in 1322 and in Norway in 1323. Sweden then made peace with Denmark. Ingebjørg married Knut Porse in 1327, who became Duke of their Danish possessions in South Halland and Samsø . Although Knut had reached a settlement with the leading figures in Norway immediately before the wedding, he was immediately accused of intriguing against Norway, and was also referred to as an enemy of Sweden. The marriage was seen as a security threat and estates were confiscated in both countries. With that, Ingebjørg left Norwegian and Swedish politics. The affairs of state in Norway were carried out by Erling Vidkunnsson with the title "The King's Truchsess in Norway".

After the death of her second husband Knut in 1330, Ingebjørg tried to defend their large estates in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The defense of the large feudal estates that Knut Porse had left to their two sons, Håkon and Knut, embroiled them in the domestic political conflicts in Denmark. When the Swedish government bought Skåne for a large sum, parts of Ingebjørg's Danish possessions were mortgaged for the sum. In return, she got her personal Swedish and Norwegian possessions back.

Her sons, whom she had with Canute, both died in 1350. Although she had already lost control of Samsø and South Halland in 1344, she held her Danish duke title until 1352.

literature

  • Knut Helle: Under kirke og kongemakt. 1130–1350 (= Aschehougs Norgeshistorie. Vol. 3). Aschehoug, Oslo 1995, ISBN 82-03-22016-9 .
  • Erik Opsahl: Ingebjørg Håkonsdatter. In: Norsk biografisk Leksikon . Retrieved January 26, 2012.

Footnotes

The article essentially follows the presentation in the Norsk biografisk leksikon . Other information will be shown separately.

  1. ↑ Helle: Under kirke og kongemakt. 1130-1350. 1995, pp. 217-221.
  2. ↑ Helle: Under kirke og kongemakt. 1130-1350. 1995, p. 222.
personal data
SURNAME Ingebjørg Håkonsdatter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ingeborg Håkansdotter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish duchess
DATE OF BIRTH 1301
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1361