Ingerd Ottesdotter

Ingerd Ottesdotter (* around 1475; † 1555 in Rovdefjord / Sunnmøre near Gurskøya ) was a Norwegian landowner and tenant.

The family

Her parents were the knight and councilor Otte Matsson Rømer († around 1512) and his wife Ingeborg Lydersdotter. She married the knight, imperial councilor and later imperial court master Nils Henriksson (Gyldenløve) in 1494 at the latest .

The Norwegian historian Ludvig Daae considered Ingerd to be the “last representative of the Norwegian aristocracy”. Together with her son-in-law Vincens Lunge , she also played an important political role. Her name is not mentioned in the documents during her husband's lifetime. When her husband was accepted into the brotherhood of the Nonneseter Monastery in Bergen in September 1494, the document still said “Nils Hendriksson and his wife”. Shortly after his death in 1523, she entered the political arena.

The landowner

She belonged to the younger line of the Rømer family and was able to trace her ancestors back to Gertrud and Otte Rømer, who lived on the Austrått estate around 1400 . The estate had come to Ingegerd for several generations. She had inherited most of the bulk from her father. That was a large part of Hans Sigurdsson's property, which had been divided in 1490 in an inheritance dispute. Ingerds Gro Alvsdotter's grandmother had been one of the main heirs. Their share included areas in Sogn , Nordfjord , Finnmark and the islands north of Scotland. When her brother Olav died shortly after her father's death, she was sole heir.

But this property was not enough for her. With the help of her husband, she tried to buy more property. So she first moved in the Giske property after the death of the owner Karl Knutsson, the son of Knut Alvsson , and only gave it back in 1533 after a ruling by the Diet of Bud. She also had an inheritance dispute with Ingerd Erlendsdatter . After their death in 1529, the estate was awarded to Otte Holgersson's sons by judgment of the Lord's Day. In 1526 she tried to usurp lands from Gaute Bille and the inheritance to Nils Lykke . She did not win any of these inheritance lawsuits.

In the dispute with Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson , her sons-in-law Vincens Lunge and Erik Ugerup succeeded in obtaining the feudal property from Nils Henriksson after his death. Erik received the fortress of Vardøhus , and Vincens left Fosen , Edøy, Romsdal and Sunnmøre to his mother-in-law. In addition, she had Härjedalen as a pawn loan . So she became one of the greatest liege lords in Norway.

Political failures

It was politically awkward to look after the Swedish insurgent Peder Sunnanväder (called Peder Kansler), who was imprisoned in their fiefdom in 1526 until he had to be extradited in 1527 and sentenced to death in Uppsala in 1527 and whacked. Another political failure was that she accommodated the Daljunker , who had fled Sweden , and even promised him her daughter Eline. He was also a rebel and had to be extradited to Sweden under pressure from King Frederick .

The desire to increase her property made her have no hesitation in giving up the Catholic faith. In any case, the inhabitants of Sogn complained in 1529 about attacks by Ingerd and Vincens lungs and that they had "given up the holy Christian faith". There was a conflict with the archbishop. In 1531 he tried to persuade Ingerd to pay homage to Christian II . But she refused. In a letter to the archbishop Christian II described Ingerd and her two sons-in-law as his main enemies and asked him to take them prisoner. The archbishop then withdrew all their fiefs in Trøndelag , but had to surrender them again after Christian was chased away.

In 1531 Ingegerd succeeded in being elected director of the Rein monastery. In the tense times after the Diet at Bud in 1533, Fau Ingegerd and the archbishop were among the losers. She lost two sons-in-law and was unable to enforce her inheritance claims. The archbishop had to leave the country. The last thing the Archbishop had to plunder was Austråt when he was sailing out of Trondheimsfjord.

In 1539 she lived with her daughter Anna on Seim, the administrative seat of the fiefdom of Tønsberg, from where she wrote to Deventer that the treasures that Olav Engelbrektsson had taken from her should be returned. But her journey home to Bergen in 1555 suggests that she was able to take over the management of her property again. But the trip ended for her and her daughter Lucie in a shipwreck in which both perished. Their bodies were found and buried in the main church of Ørland, near Austråt.

From her marriage to Nils Henriksson, she had five daughters, all of whom married Danish nobles:

• Margrete (around 1495–1550). She first married Vincens Lunge, after his death Jens Split († after 1565).
• Eline († 1532) She married Nils Lykke .
• Anna († 1557) married Erik Ugerup.
• Ingeborg (around 1507–1597). She married Peder Hanssøn (Litle).
• Lucie († 1555). She married Jens Thillufsen Bjelke.

She is one of the main characters in the play Fru Inger til Østråt (1855/1874), by Henrik Ibsen , who, however, did not stick to the historical facts in poetic freedom when he portrays her as a champion of Norwegian independence.

literature

• Ingerd Ottesdotter . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon

Individual evidence

The article is essentially taken from the Norsk biografisk leksikon . Other information is shown separately.

1. ^ Norsk biografisk leksikon vol. 1 no. 980: "Nicholaum Henrici cum conjuge sua".
2. ↑ Norsk biografisk leksikon Vol. 2 No. 1111.
3. ↑ Norsk biografisk leksikon vol. 8 no. 606.
4. ↑ Daluppror . In: Bernhard Meijer, Theodor Westrin (ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape  5 : Cestius-Degas . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1906, Sp. 1196-1200 (Swedish, runeberg.org - here Sp. 1197).
5. ↑ Norsk biografisk leksikon Vol. 9 No. 636.