King Svend Estridsen
Sweyn I "Forkbeard" (Svend Otto Haraldsen; Danish: Svend Tveskæg, originally Tjugeskæg or Tyvskæg, Norwegian: Svein Tjugeskjegg). Sweyn succeeded his father Harold I "Blåtand" (Bluetooth) as king of Denmark, probably in late 986 or early 987. Sweyn had coins made with his likeness, being the first Danish king to do so. The inscription read "Zven, Rex ad Dener" which translates as "Sweyn, king of Danes". The year of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been born before his father accepted Christianity in the early or mid-960s. When the royal family converted, Sweyn is said to have been given the Christian name Otto in honour of the German Emperor. Sweyn is rarely recorded as having used this name though, and the inscriptions on his coinage and the fact that he was accepted by the English Witan as king Sweyn seem to corroborate this.
According to historian Adam of Bremen, whose Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum is strongly anti-Sweyn, Sweyn was punished by God for supposedly leading the uprising which led to king Harold's death, and had to spend "fourteen years" abroad, perhaps a biblical reference from an ecclesiastical writer. Adam puports that Sweyn was shunned by all those with whom he sought refuge, but was finally allowed to live for a while in Scotland. The Scottish king at the time was apparently known in Europe as a heathen and a murderer, and Adam's intention is obviously to show that Sweyn belonged with heathens and murderers and couldn't rule a Christian country. He only achieves success as a ruler once he accepts Christ as his saviour. (There are several major problems with a fourteen year "exile" in Scotland. Primarily, if Sweyn was exiled for fourteen years from his father's death in 985, the would be about 1000. By then Sweyn has been ruling Denmark for about fourteen years and Norway had been subjugated into a vassal state.)
No other Western European source maintains Adam's suggestions, however, and while some sort of conflict between Danes and Swedes almost certainly took place during Sweyn's reign, the idea of him being deposed has little foundation. And most historical sources agree that Sven subjugated Norway and created a vassal state, then used both Danish and Norwegian forces in a combined assault on England.
Whether King Sweyn was a heathen or not, he did enlist priests and bishops from England rather than from Hamburg, and this must have given Adam of Bremen further cause to dislike him. It also may have been because there were ample converted priests of a Danish origin from the Danelaw in England, while Sweyn really had few connections to Germany or its priests. Sweyn must have known that once the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen gained influence in Denmark, the German Emperor Otto II would not be far behind; his Slavic neighbours to the south-east (Balkans) had all but been annexed by Germany once Otto's father Otto I had divided their lands into Bishoprics and put them under the "care" of the Holy Roman emperor. Sweyn may have envisaged the same happening to his own territory.
Following the death of Norway's king Olaf I Tryggvason in the Battle of Svolder, Sven established Danish control over most of Norway, with Erik Håkonsson, Earl as his vassal. Sweyn was almost certainly involved in the raids against England in 1003-1005, 1006-1007, and 1009-1012, following the St. Brice's Day massacre of England's Danish inhabitants in November 1002, recorded in the chronicles of John of Wallingford. Sven is thought to have had a personal interest in these due to his sister, Gunhilde, being amongst the victims. The massacre was large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Danish in England by Ethelred II the Unready. Sven acquired massive sums of Danegeld, and in 1013 personally led the Danish fleet in a full-scale invasion.
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Sweyn II Estridsson Ulfsson was the King of Denmark from 1047 to 1076. Because of his relationship to Canute the Great he appeared a pretender already from his early years. He rebelled against Norway's King Magnus who had made him a viceroy of Denmark but was defeated. Later on he allied with Harald Hardråde and made vain attempts on conquering Denmark but after the death of Magnus 1047 he was at last proclaimed a king.
He fought Harald Hardråde who was now King of Norway in a long war until 1064 when Harald relinquished his claims to Denmark. After that Sweyn began to build a strong foundation for royal power through cooperation with the church. He completed the final partition of Denmark into dioceses, and corresponded with the Pope. Sweyn seems to have been able to read and write, and he is the source of much of our current knowledge about Denmark in the 9th and 10th centuries, having told the story of his ancestry to historian Adam of Bremen around 1070.
Sweyn Estridsson joined forces with Edgar Atheling when he attempted to regain the English throne from William the Conqueror. However after capturing York Sweyn accepted a payment from William to desert Edgar, who returned into exile in Scotland.
Sweyn's first marriage was to a girl to whom he was distantly related, and it was ordered by the Pope to dissolve the union, which he did, only to take one mistress after another during the rest of his life. Sweyn Estridsson fathered at least 19 children, probably more, and while none of them were born in wedlock, and none of their mothers are known, five of his numerous sons became kings after their father, beginning with Harald III Hen in 1076 and ending with King Niels, who was murdered in 1134.
He was the son of Canute Lavard, a chivalrous and popular Danish prince, eldest son of Eric I of Denmark. His father was murdered days before his birth; his mother, Ingeborg, daughter of Mstislav of Kiev, named him after her grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev.
As one heir to the throne and with his rivals quickly gaining power, he was raised at the court of Asser Rig of Fjenneslev together with Asser's son Absalon, who would become his trusted friend and minister. When Valdemar was sixteen years old King Erik III abdicated and a civil war erupted. The pretenders to the throne were: Sweyn III Grathe, son of Eric II Emune; Canute (Knud V Magnussen), son of Prince Magnus who was son of King Niels; and Valdemar himself (he was holding Jutland, at least southern Jutland, as his possession). The civil war lasted the better part of ten years.
In 1157 King Sweyn hosted a great banquet for Canute, Absalon and Valdemar. This banquet was designed to dispose Sweyn of all his rivals. King Canute was killed, but Absalon and Valdemar escaped. Valdemar returned to Jutland. Sweyn quickly launched an invasion, only to be defeated by Valdemar. He was killed during flight, supposedly by a group of peasants who stumbled upon him as he was fleeing the battlefield. Valdemar, having outlived all his rival pretenders, became sole King of Denmark.
In 1158 Absalon was elected Bishop of Roskilde, and Valdemar made him his chief friend and advisor. He reorganized and rebuilt wartorn Denmark. At Absalon's instigation he declared war upon the Wends who inhabited Pomerania and the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. In 1168 the Wendish capital, Arkona, was taken, and the Wends became Christians and subject to Danish suzeranity. Danish influence reached into Pomerania.
Valdemar married Sophia of Polacak, daughter of Rahvalod Barysavic, Duke of Duchy of Pólacak, and they had the following children:
Valdemar II (May 9, 1170 or 28 June 1170 – March 28, 1241), called Valdemar the Conqueror or Valdemar the Victorious (Valdemar Sejr), was the King of Denmark from November 12, 1202 until his death in 1241. The nickname Sejr is a later invention and was not used during the King's own lifetime.
He was the second son of King Valdemar I and Sophia Valadarsdattir, a Varangian princess. When Valdemar's father died, young Valdemar was only twelve years old. He was named Duke of Southern Jutland, represented by the regent Bishop Valdemar Knudsen (1182–1193). Valdemar became Danish king in 1202 but couldn't rule until he came of age. Bishop Valdemar Knudsen of Schleswig was appointed regent for him. Bishop Valdemar was an ambitious man and disguised his own ambitions as young Valdemar's. When in 1192 Bishop Valdemar was named Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, his plot to overthrow King Canute VI with the help of German nobility and sit on Denmark's throne himself was revealed.
Duke Valdemar realized the threat Bishop Valdemar presented. He invited the archbishop to meet him in Åbenrå in 1192. Then the bishop fled to Swedish Norway to avoid arrest. The following year he organised - supported by the Hohenstaufens - a fleet of 35 ships and harried the coasts of Denmark, claiming the Danish throne for himself. In 1193 King Canute VI of Denmark captured him. Valdemar stayed in captivity in Nordborg (1193–1198) and then in the tower at Søborg Castle on Zealand until 1206. Bishop Valdemar was released upon the initiative of the Danish Queen Dagmar and Pope Innocent III and after swearing, never to interfere again in Danish affairs.
In 1202, after the death of his brother, King Canute VI, Duke Valdemar was proclaimed king at the Jutland Assembly (Danish: landsting). The nearby Holy Roman Empire was torn by civil war due to having two rivals contesting for its throne, Otto IV, House of Guelf, and King Philip, House of Hohenstaufen. Valdemar II allied himself with Otto IV against Phillip.
In 1203 Valdemar invaded and conquered Lybeck and Holstein, adding them to the territories controlled by Denmark. In 1204 he attempted to influence the outcome of the Norwegian succession by leading a Danish fleet and army to Viken, Norway in support of Erling Steinvegg the pretender to the Norwegian throne. This resulted in the second Bagler War which lasted until 1208, when the question of the Norwegian succession was temporarily settled. The Norwegian king owed allegiance to the king of Denmark.
In 1219 the Teutonic Knights, who had been attempting to Christianize the peoples of the eastern Baltic, turned to Valdemar for help. Pope Honorius III elevated Valdemar's invasion of Estonia into a crusade. Valdemar raised an army and called all of Denmark's ship to gather to transport the army eastward. Once assembled, the fleet numbered 1500 ships.
When the army landed in Estonia, near modern-day Tallinn, the chiefs of the Estonians sat down with the Danes and exchanged gifts and agreed to acknowledge the Danish king as their overlord. A few of them allowed themselves to be baptized which seemed to be a good sign. Just three days later on 15 June 1219 while the Danes were attending mass, thousands of Estonians broke into the Danish camp from all sides. Confusion reigned and things looked bad for Valdemar's crusade. Luckily for him, Vitslav of Rugen, gathered his men in a second camp and attacked the Estonians from the rear. During the Battle of Lyndanisse the legend says that whenever Bishop Sunesen raised his arms the Danes surged forward and when his arms grew tired and he let them fall the Estonians turned the Danes back. Attendants rushed forward to raise his arms once again and the Danes surged forward again. At the height of the battle Bishop Sunsen prayed for a sign and it came in the form of a red cloth with a white cross which drifted down from the sky just as the Danes began to fall back. A voice was heard to say "When this banner is raised on high, you shall be victorious!" The Danes surged forward and won the battle. At the end of the day thousands of Estonians lay dead on the field, and Estonia was added to the Danish realm. Estonians were forcibly baptised as Christians. Valdemar ordered the construction of a great fortress at Reval, near the site of the battle.[3] Eventually a city grew around the hilltop castle which is still called "the City of the Danes", Tallinn, in Estonian. The red banner with a white cross (Danish:Dannebrog) has been the national flag of the Danes since 1219. It is Europe's oldest flag design still in modern use.
Count Heinrich of Schwerin ingratiated himself into Valdemar's favor and in 1223 was invited to hunt with Valdemar on the island of Ly near Funen. The count's ship was brought to the place where the king and his men were camped. Once the king and Prince Valdemar were bound and gagged and rushed aboard the count's ship, Heinrich raced back to Schwerin and threw King Valedmar and his son into Schwerin Tower. While Valdemar sat in prison for most of a year, most of the German territories tore themselves away from Denmark. Danish armies dispatched to hold them in line were defeated. To secure his release Valdemar had to acknowledge the break away territories in Germany, pay 44,000 silver marks, and sign a promise not to seek revenge on Count Heinrich.
Pope Honorius III excused Valdemar from his forced oath, and he immediately set about trying to restore the German territories. Valdemar concluded a treaty with his nephew Otto I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and headed south to take back what he thought were his lands by right, but his luck deserted him. A series of Danish defeats culminating in the Battle of Børnehoved on 22 July 1227 cemented the loss of Denmark's north German territories. Valdemar himself was saved only by the courageous actions of a German knight who carried Valdemar to safety on his horse.
Valdemar spent the remainder of his life putting together a code of laws for Jutland, Zealand and Skåne. These codes were used as Denmark's legal code until 1683. This was a significant change from the local law making at the regional assemblies (Danish:landting) had been the long-standing tradition. Several methods of determining guilt or innocence were outlawed including trial by ordeal and trial by combat. The Code of Jutland (Danish: Jyske Lov) was approved at meeting of the nobility at Vordingborg in 1241 just prior to Valdemar's death, in the same city. Valdemar was buried next to Queen Dagmar at Ringsted.
Before his first marriage Valdemar had been betrothed to Rixa of Bavaria, daughter of the Duke of Saxony. When that arrangement fell through, he married first Margarethe of Bohemia, also known as Queen Dagmar, in 1205. She was the daughter of Premysl Ottokar, King of Bohemia, and quickly won over the hearts of the Danes. By this marriage, Valdemar had a son, Valdemar, whom he elevated as co-king at Schleswig in 1218. Unfortunately, Prince Valdemar was accidentally shot while hunting at Refsnæs in 1231. Queen Dagmar died in childbirth in 1212. Old folk ballads says that on her death bed she begged Valdemar to marry Kirsten, the daughter of Karl von Rise and not the "beautiful flower" Berengaria of Portugal (Danish:Bengerd). In other words she predicted Berengaria's sons' fight over the throne would bring trouble to Denmark.
After Margaret's death, in order to build good relations with Flanders, Valdemar married Berengária of Portugal in 1214. She was the orphan daughter of King Sancho I of Portugal and a sister of Ferdinand, Count of Flanders where she stayed until her marriage. She was beautiful, but so hard-hearted that she was generally hated by Danes until her early death, in childbirth, in 1221.
Eric IV (Danish: Erik Plovpenning, 1216 – 9 August 1250), was king of Denmark from 1241 until his death. He was the son of Valdemar II by his wife, Princess Berengária of Portugal, and brother to Abel and Christopher I.
In 1218, shortly after his birth, he was created Duke of Schleswig. After the death in 1231 of his half-brother Valdemar, the designated heir to the throne, he was crowned king at Lund Cathedral 30 May 1232 as his father's coruler and heir. Subsequently he ceded the Duchy of Schleswig to his younger brother Abel. When his father died in 1241, he automatically acceded to the throne.
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His rule was marked by bitter conflicts and civil wars against his brothers. Especially he fought his brother, Duke Abel of Schleswig who seems to have wanted an independent position and who was supported by the counts of Holstein. Eric also fought the Scanian peasants, who rebelled because of his hard taxes, among other things, on ploughs. The number of ploughs a man owned was used as a measure of his wealth (more ploughs, more farmland). This gave the king the epithet "plough-penny", Danish, Plovpenning). Abel and the Holsteiners stormed into Jutland burning and pillaging as far north as Randers in 1247. Eric returned the favor in southern Jutland the following year, and kept a wary eye on Christopher who held Lolland and Falster. A truce was arranged by Eric's sister Sofie which left Eric in firm control of all of Denmark.
Erik raised an army and sailed to Estonia to secure his base there in 1249. On his way home in 1250 he took his army to Holstein to prevent the capture of the border fortress of Rendsburg and to teach the German counts who was still king. His brother, Duke Abel of Southern Jutland offered him hospitality at his house at Gottorp in Schleswig. While they sat in the great hall, Duke Abel reminded Erik of the attacks that he had endured early in Erik's reign. "Do you remember that a few years ago your men ravaged this city, and my daughter was forced to run for her life without so much as a pair of shoes for her feet." "I have enough," replied Erik, "that I can give her a pair of shoes." That evening as the king gambled with one of the German knights, the duke's chamberlain and a group of other men rushed in and took the king prisoner. They bound him and dragged him out of the duke's house and down to a boat and rowed out into the Schlien. They were followed out onto the water by a second boat. When King Erik heard the voice of his sworn enemy, Lave Gudmundsen, he realized he was to be killed. The king asked for a priest to hear his last confession, and the conspirators agreed to Erik's request. The king was rowed back to shore; a priest was brought to hear Erik's confession, and then he was rowed back out into the bay. One of the captors was paid to deliver the king's death blow with an ax. Erik was beheaded and his body dumped into the Schlien. The next morning two fishermen dragged the king's headless body up in their net. They carried the body to the Dominican Abbey in Schleswig.
Abel swore that he had nothing to do with the murder. "I hadn't the will to hold him prisoner, let alone murder him," was his reply. Few Danes believed Abel and within a year and a half Abel was killed, many said, struck down by God for his part in Erik IV's death.
Eric had only daughters surviving from his marriage with Jutta of Saxony, who he married on 17
November 1239, the most important of whom were:
1. Sofia of Denmark (1241-1286), married to King Valdemar of Sweden
2. Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of Norway (1244-1287), married to King Magnus VI of Norway
3. Jutta, Abbess of St. Agneta in Roskilde (1246–1284)
4. Agnes, Abbess of St. Agneta in Roskilde (1249–1288/95)
Sophia was the eldest daughter of Eric IV of Denmark and Jutta of Saxony. Her father was murdered in 1250 when she and her younger sisters, Agnes and Jutta of Denmark were young. As he left no son, Eric IV's brothers, Abel of Denmark and then Christopher I of Denmark assumed the Danish throne.
Sophia was married to Valdemar I of Sweden in 1261, as part of Birger Jarl's policy of peace between Scandinavian kingdoms. It is said, that when she was informed about the arranged marriage, she left the room, went in to her chamber and asked God; Give me happiness with him and him with me. Sophia was described as a politically interested, witty beauty with a quick tongue. She was also known for her interest in chess.
In 1269, Sophia visited her father's grave in Denmark as well as visiting her sisters, Agnes and Jutta, who had both been placed in Agnesklostret convent in Roskilde. In 1272, Sophia's sister Jutta visited Sweden and became Valdemar's mistress. The affair resulted in a child born in 1273. The following year, Jutta was again placed in a convent and Valdemar was forced to make a pilgrimage to Rome to ask for the Pope's absolution. According to legend, Queen Sophia said: I will never recover from this sorrow. Curse the day my sister saw the kingdom of Sweden.
In 1275, Valdemar was deposed by his younger brother, Magnus III of Sweden after the battle of Hova. The news was said to have reached the queen while she played chess. Many stories are told about her sharp tongue. She is said to have complained about her husband's brothers as "Magnus Ticklingfingers" and "Eric Everything-and-anything". In 1277, Sophia separated from her spouse and returned to Denmark. Her husband lived openly with mistresses in his comfortable prison. In 1283, the ex-queen gave her income in the fishing of Norrköping to the Saint Martin Abbey in Skänninge. She died in 1286.
