Eric of Pomerania (1381 or 1382 – 3 May 1459) was
KingKing may be a title for a head of state.King may also refer to:-Places:* King, Ontario, Canada* King, Indiana, United States* King, North Carolina, United States* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin, United States...
Eric III of NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
(1389–1442) Norwegian
Eirik, King
Eric VII of DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
(1396–1439), and King of
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
(1396–1439) known there mainly as
Erik av Pommern. He was the first King of the Nordic
Kalmar UnionThe Kalmar Union is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway , and Sweden under a single monarch, though intermittently and with a population less than 3,000,000.The countries had not...
, succeeding his adoptive mother
Margaret I of DenmarkMargaret I was Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden , and founder of the Kalmar Union, which united the Scandinavian countries for over a century.-Name:...
.
Referring to Eric of Pomerania as
Eric XIII of Sweden is a later invention.
Family
Eric was a son of Wratislaw VII, Duke of Pomerania, and Mary of
Mecklenburg-SchwerinMecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany from 1348 on, when Albert II of Mecklenburg and his younger brother John were raised to Dukes of Mecklenburg by King Charles IV...
.
His paternal grandparents were
Bogislaw V, Duke of PomeraniaBogislaw V was a Duke of Pomerania.Eldest son of Duke Wartislaw IV and Elisabeth of Silesia, Bogislaw had two brothers, Barnim IV and Wartislaw V. The brothers were joint rulers from their father's death in 1326...
and his second wife Adelheid of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. His maternal grandparents were Heinrich III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Ingeborg of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Heinrich was a rival of
Olaf HaakonssonOluf IV Haakonsson was king of Denmark as Oluf II and king of Norway as Olav IV . Oluf was son of King Haakon VI of Norway and the grandson of Magnus II of Sweden. His mother was Queen Margaret of Denmark which made him the grandson of Valdemar IV of Denmark...
in regard to the Danish succession in 1375.
Ingeborg was a daughter of
Valdemar IV of DenmarkValdemar Atterdag was a King of Denmark from 1340 to 1375.He was the youngest son of Christopher II and spent most of his childhood and youth in exile at the court of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor in Bavaria after the defeats of his father...
and his Queen consort Heilwig of
SchleswigSchleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark...
. Her maternal grandparents were Eric II, Duke of Schleswig (reigned 1312–1325) and Adelheid of
Holstein-RendsburgThe Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein were titles of the Holy Roman Empire. The dynastic family came from Schauenburg near Rinteln on the Weser in Germany...
.
Claim to the throne
Eric was born in 1382 in Rügenwalde (Darłowo). Initially named Bogislaw, he was son to the only surviving granddaughter of
Valdemar IV of DenmarkValdemar Atterdag was a King of Denmark from 1340 to 1375.He was the youngest son of Christopher II and spent most of his childhood and youth in exile at the court of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor in Bavaria after the defeats of his father...
and also a descendant of
Magnus III of SwedenMagnus Birgersson , usually called Magnus Ladulås, English: Magnus III Barnlock, was King of Sweden from 1275 until his death in 1290....
and
Haakon V of NorwayHaakon V Magnusson was king of Norway from 1299 until 1319. He was married to Eufemia of Rügen, and father to Ingeborg Håkonsdotter who married duke Eric Magnusson of Sweden. He is considered to be the last Norwegian king in the Fairhair dynasty.He was the younger surviving son of Magnus the...
.
On 2 August 1387,
Olav HåkonssonOluf IV Haakonsson was king of Denmark as Oluf II and king of Norway as Olav IV . Oluf was son of King Haakon VI of Norway and the grandson of Magnus II of Sweden. His mother was Queen Margaret of Denmark which made him the grandson of Valdemar IV of Denmark...
, King of Denmark since he was five years old and King of Norway since the death of his father, died unexpectedly at seventeen years of age. His mother the Dowager Queen of Norway had added the phrase "the true heir of Sweden" to Erik's list of titles at his coronation. Erik's claim to the Swedish throne came through his great-granduncle,
Magnus IV of SwedenMagnus IV Eriksson of Sweden, also Magnus VII of Norway was king of Sweden , Norway, and Terra Scania, and was the son of Duke Erik Magnusson of Sweden and Ingeborg, a daughter of Haakon V of Norway...
, who was forced to abdicate by the Swedish nobles. After the abdication, the Swedish nobles, led by
Bo Jonsson (Grip)Bo Jonsson was head of the royal council and marshal under the regency of Magnus IV of Sweden. Also in the council was his friend and colleague, Karl Ulfsson av Ulvåsa, eldest son of Saint Birgitta...
, had invited
Count Albert of MecklenburgAlbert of Sweden Albert of Sweden (Albrecht von Mecklenburg in German, Albrekt av Mecklenburg in Swedish) Albert of Sweden (Albrecht von Mecklenburg in German, Albrekt av Mecklenburg in Swedish) (c. 1338 – 1 April 1412, was King of Sweden from 1364. In 1384 he inherited the ducal title of...
to take the Swedish throne. However, when Albert attempted to introduce
reductionIn the reductions in Sweden, fiefs that had been granted to the Swedish nobility were returned to the Crown.The first reduction under Charles X Gustav of Sweden in 1655 restored a quarter of "donations" made after 1632...
of their large estates, they quickly turned against him. The nobles, including his former supporter Bo Jonsson Grip, Sweden's largest landowner who controlled a third of the entirety of the Swedish territory and had the largest non-royal wealth in the country, soon conspired to get rid of him, resenting his attempts to restrict the traditional privileges of the nobility, as well as his use of German officials to fill important administrative positions in the Swedish provinces.
The Rigsråd (Danish
ThingA thing or ting was the governing assembly in Germanic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
) elected Queen Margaret as "all powerful lady and mistress and the Kingdom of Denmark's Regent". Just a year later, the Norwegians proclaimed Margaret the "reigning queen" and Albert of Sweden fought off an incursion from Norway. His respite was temporary — the Swedish nobility soon enlisted the Danish regent's help to remove Albert from the Swedish throne. In 1388, several of the Swedish nobles wrote secretly to Margaret telling her that if she could rid them of Albert, they would make her
RegentA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
. Margaret lost no time and sent an army into Sweden to attack Albert while the Swedish nobles raised their own army to drive him out of the country. In 1389, Albert's forces were defeated at the Battle of Falköping in
Västergötland' is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden , situated in the southwest of Sweden. In older English literature one may also encounter the Latinized version Westrogothia....
. Albert and his son Erik were captured when their horses became mired in mud so deep they could not escape. They were put into chains and sent by Queen Margaret to
ScaniaSkåneland, or Skånelandskapen, are Swedish scientific denominations, used in historical contexts for the historical Danish land in southern Scandinavia, which as the autonomous polity Scania joined Zealand and Jutland in the formation of a Danish state in the early 800s...
, where Albert was imprisoned in
Lindholmen CastleLindholmen Castle is a former Danish fortified castle on the banks of lake Börringe in Svedala Municipality, Scania, southern Sweden.-Medieval history:...
. It took until 1395 for Margaret to force Albert's supporters out of Stockholm. She made provisions for the three kingdoms in the event of her death. She wanted the kingdoms to be unified and peaceful and hence, chose the son of her
fatherValdemar Atterdag was a King of Denmark from 1340 to 1375.He was the youngest son of Christopher II and spent most of his childhood and youth in exile at the court of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor in Bavaria after the defeats of his father...
's surviving granddaughter, Bogislaw, to be named heir.
Young Bogislaw was the grandson of Margaret's sister. In 1389 he was brought to Denmark to be brought up by Queen Margaret. His name was changed to the more Nordic-sounding
Erik. On 8 September 1389, he was hailed as King of Norway at the
TingA thing or ting was the governing assembly in Germanic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
in
Trondheimis a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. The city of Trondheim was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...
. He may have been crowned King of Norway in
Oslois the capital and largest city in Norway. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the town was largely destroyed by a fire in 1624. The Danish–Norwegian king Christian IV rebuilt the city as Christiania . Oslo, then an alternative name, became official again in 1925...
in 1392, but this is disputed. In 1396 he was proclaimed as king in Denmark and then in Sweden. On 17 June 1397, he was crowned a king of the three Nordic countries in the cathedral of
KalmarKalmar is a city in Småland in the south-east of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 35,170 inhabitants in 2005 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality with a total of 61,321 inhabitants...
. At the same time, a union treaty was drafted, declaring the establishment of what has become known as the
Kalmar UnionThe Kalmar Union is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway , and Sweden under a single monarch, though intermittently and with a population less than 3,000,000.The countries had not...
. Queen Margaret, however, remained the
de facto ruler of the three kingdoms until her death in 1412.
Marriage
In 1402, Queen Margaret entered into negotiations with King
Henry IV of EnglandHenry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . Like other kings of England, at that time, he also claimed the title of King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, Henry Bolingbroke...
about the possibility of an alliance between the
Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state and island country to the northwest of continental Europe. At its zenith, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands—what is today the legal unit of...
and the Nordic union. The proposal was for a double wedding, whereby Eric would marry Henry's daughter,
PhilippaPhilippa of England was the Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway from 1406 to 1430. She was also the consort to King Eric of Pomerania. In fact, Philippa of England was the de-facto regent of Sweden in 1420 and the regent of Denmark and Norway from 1423 to 1425...
, and Henry's son, the Prince of Wales and future King
Henry VHenry V was King of England from 1413 until his death. From an unassuming start his military successes in the Hundred Years' War, culminating with his famous victory at the Battle of Agincourt, saw him come close to uniting the realms of England and France under his rule.-Early life:Henry was born...
, would marry Eric's sister, Catherine.
The English side wanted these weddings to seal an offensive alliance between the Nordic kingdoms and England, which could have led to the involvement of the Nordic union on the English side in the ongoing
Hundred Years' WarThe Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known...
against the
Kingdom of FranceFrance in the Middle Ages covers an area roughly corresponding to modern day France, from the death of Charlemagne in 814 to the middle of the 15th century...
. Queen Margaret led a consistent foreign policy of not getting entangled in binding alliances and foreign wars. She therefore rejected the English proposals.
The double wedding did not come off, but Eric's wedding to Philippa was successfully negotiated. On 26 October 1406, Eric married the 13-year-old Philippa at
LundLund is a city in the province of Scania, southern Sweden. The town has 76,188 inhabitants in 2005, out of a municipal total of 105,000. It is the seat of Lund Municipality, Skåne County. The city is believed to have been founded around 990, when the Scanian lands belonged to Denmark...
. The wedding was accompanied by a purely defensive alliance with England.
Reign
From contemporary sources, Eric appears as intelligent, visionary, energetic and a firm character. That he was also a charming and well-speaking man of the world was shown by a great European tour of the 1420s. Negatively, he seems to have had a hot temper, a lack of diplomatic sense, and an obstinacy that bordered on mulishness.
Almost the whole of Eric’s sole rule was affected by his long-standing conflict with the
Counts of Schauenburg and HolsteinThe Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein were titles of the Holy Roman Empire. The dynastic family came from Schauenburg near Rinteln on the Weser in Germany...
. He tried to regain
South JutlandSouth Jutland is the name for the region south of the Kongeå in Jutland, Denmark. The region north of the Kongeå is called Nørrejylland . Both territories had their own ting assemblies in the Middle Ages . South Jutland is mentioned for the first time in the Knýtlinga saga.In the 13th century...
(
SchleswigSchleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark...
) which Margaret had been winning but he chose a policy of warfare instead of negotiations. The result was a devastating war that not only ended without conquests but also led to the loss of the South Jutlandic areas that he had already obtained. During this war he showed much energy and steadiness, but also a remarkable lack of adroitness. In 1424, a verdict of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
by
Sigismund, King of GermanySigismund was one of the longest ruling Kings of Hungary, reigning for fifty years from 1387 to 1437, and was also Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, and the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Bohemia from 1419, of Lombardia from 1431, and of Germany...
, recognising Eric as the legal ruler of South Jutland, was ignored by the Holsteiners. The long war was a strain on the Danish economy as well as on the unity of the north.
Perhaps Eric's most far-ranging act was the introduction of the
Sound DuesThe Sound Dues were a toll on the use of the Sound which constituted up to two thirds of Denmark's state income in the 16th and 17th centuries...
(
Øresundtolden) in 1429, which was to last until 1857. By this he secured a large stable income for his kingdom that made it relatively rich and which made the town of
ElsinoreHelsingør is a city and the municipal seat of Helsingør municipality on the northeast coast of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. Helsingør has a population of 46,101 including the southern suburbs of Snekkersten and Espergærde...
flowering. It showed his interest in Danish trade and naval power, but also permanently challenged the other Baltic powers, especially the
HanseaticThe Hanseatic League was an alliance of trading cities and their guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly along the coast of Northern Europe, from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland, during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period...
cities against which he also fought. Another important event was his making
CopenhagenCopenhagen ; ) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,167,569 and a metropolitan area with a population of 1,875,179...
a royal possession in 1417, thereby assuring its status as the capital of Denmark.
During the 1430s the policy of the king fell apart. In 1434 the farmers and mine workers of Sweden began a national and social rebellion which was soon used by the Swedish nobility in order to weaken the power of the king. He had to yield to the demands of both the Holsteiners and the
Hanseatic LeagueThe Hanseatic League was an alliance of trading cities and their guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly along the coast of Northern Europe, from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland, during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period...
. In Norway, a peasant rebellion led by Amund Sigurdsson Bolt rebelled against King Erik and his officials, besieging Oslo and Akershus Castle. When the Danish nobility opposed his rule and refused to ratify his choice of Duke Bugislaw of Pomerania as the next King of Denmark, he left Denmark and settled at his castle
VisborgVisborg refers to a fortress in the town of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland. There was no one fortress called "Visborg", rather it refers to successive fortresses built in Visby...
in
Gotland' is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, it makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area. The region also includes the small islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the north, and the tiny...
, apparently a kind of a “royal strike” which led to his deposition by the National Councils of Denmark and Sweden in 1439. The Norwegian nobility remained loyal to King Erik, and in 1439 he gave
Sigurd JonssonSigurd Jonsson was a Norwegian nobleman and knight, and the supreme leader of Norway during two interregnums in the mid-15th century. After the death of King Christopher in 1448 he was mentioned as a possible candidate for the vacant throne of Norway, but declined to pursue a claim to the...
the title of
drottsete, under which he was to rule Norway in King Erik's name. But with the King isolated in Gotland, the Norwegian nobility also felt compelled to depose him in 1440.
For ten years Erik lived on Gotland and made his living by piracy against the merchant trade in the Baltic. Eventually the Danes forced him out of Gotland and he returned to Pomerania.
Duke of Pomerania
In 1440, Eric, having been deposed in Denmark and Sweden, was succeeded by his nephew,
Christopher of BavariaChristopher of Bavaria, known by his Danish and Norwegian title as Christoffer af/av Bayern and by his Swedish title as Kristofer av Bayern, was union king of Denmark , Sweden and Norway .-Biography:He was probably born at Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, the son of Duke John of Pfalz-Neumarkt and...
, who had been chosen for the thrones. After he had been deposed as king in Sweden and Denmark, the Norwegian
RiksrådRigsraadet , is the name of the councils of the Scandinavian countries that ruled the countries together with the kings from late Middle Ages to the 17th century. Norway had a Council of the Realm that was abolished by the Danish-Norwegian king in 1536...
remained loyal to him, and wanted him to remain king of Norway only. He reputedly refused the offer. Christopher, his successor, died in 1448, long before Eric himself.
The next monarch (reigned 1448–81) was Eric's kinsman,
Christian I of DenmarkChristian I , Danish monarch and union king of Denmark , Norway and Sweden , under the Kalmar Union. In Sweden his short tenure as monarch was preceded by regents, Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna and Erik Axelsson Tott and succeeded by regent Kettil Karlsson Vasa...
, who was the son of Eric's earlier rival, Count Theodoric of Oldenburg. To him Eric handed over Gotland in return for the permission to leave for Pomerania.
From 1449–59, Eric ruled the
Duchy of PomeraniaThe Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania ....
-Stolp (Słupsk)), part of the Duchy of Pomerania, as Eric I. He died in 1459 at Rügenwalde Castle in Pomerania, and was buried in Rügenwalde.
See also
- List of Pomeranian duchies and dukes
- History of Pomerania
Settlement in Pomerania started by the end of the Vistula Glacial Stage, about 13,000 years ago. Archeological traces have been found of various cultures during the Stone and Bronze Age, Veneti and Germanic peoples during the Iron Age and, in the Middle Ages, Slavic tribes and Vikings...
- Duchy of Pomerania
The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania ....
- House of Pomerania
The House of Pomerania, , also known as House of Greifen or House of Griffins, was a dynasty of dukes that ruled the Duchy of Pomerania from the 12th century until 1637. The name was used by the dynasty since the 15th century and had been taken from the ducal coat of arms, which depicted a...
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