Margarete Skulesdatter

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Margarete Skulesdatter (* around 1210; † 1270 in Reins Kloster ) was Queen of Norway from 1225 to 1263 through her marriage to King Håkon Håkonsson .

Her parents were Skule Bårdsson (1189-1240) and his wife Ragnhild (mentioned between 1219 and 1247). In 1225 she married King Håkon Håkonsson. The marriage was supposed to resolve the tension between King Håkon and Skule Bårdsson. It didn't play a political role. It is first mentioned in 1219 when King Håkon's advisers suggested he marry Margarete. This was to prevent Skule from re-asserting claims to the throne, which he had made unsuccessful when Håkon was elected king in 1217.

The wedding was to take place in Bergen at Easter 1225. The appointment was endangered by the fact that the king was bound by his fight with the Ribbunge in Viken. But he managed to be in Bergen at Easter so that the wedding could take place.

Two years later she gave birth to her first son Olav, who died a few years later. But the sons Håkon unge and Magnus grew up and were both given the royal name. The daughter Kristin was married to the brother Philip of the Spanish king Alfonso X of Castile and León. It was part of the king's foreign policy.

The marriage with Håkon did not prevent the relationship between Skule and the king from deteriorating and culminating in an uprising in which Skule was killed, which is said to have hit Margarete very badly. In any case, her position between her husband and his hostile father was difficult.

Because of his uprising, Skule's property had been confiscated by the king. It is therefore unclear whether she inherited her father's fortune. In any case, she had kept the dowry. She also had a donation from King Håkon, which Pope Innocent IV at her request placed under his protection before Håkon's coronation in 1247. The three chapels in the diocese of Stavanger, whose patronage rights Cardinal Wilhelm von Modena transferred to the queen and her children on the occasion of the coronation, probably came from her property . There had been a dispute between you and Bishop Åskjell Jonsson of Stavanger about this. One of the chapels may have become the former St. Peter's Church in Stavanger, which King Magnus later called his "Odelskirche" and gave it to the hospital in the city. In Stavanger it was mentioned for the first time among the witnesses when King Håkon confirmed the transfer of the power of government from the bishop over the city by King Magnus Erlingsson .

According to the sources, the queen traveled regularly with the king to the larger cities of the country and held a leading position at court. Because of this position she received in 1238 and 1240 from the English King Henry III. a scarlet festive robe. A richly illustrated English psalter that came to Norway in the middle of the 13th century should have belonged to her. Her daughter Kristin also received a noble psalter that had been made in Paris. This means that both of them, like the king who commissioned many translations, were able to read.

As a widow, she moved with her son Magnus from Bergen to Trøndelag in autumn 1264 and visited the Reins monastery . She lived there from 1267 until her death in 1270. She gave the monastery a gold goblet, which Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson allowed to take with him on his flight to Holland in 1531.

children

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helle (1995) p. 172.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Margarete Skulesdatter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Queen of Norway (1225–1263)
DATE OF BIRTH around 1210
DATE OF DEATH 1270
Place of death Pure monastery