draft biography of Eirik Saemundson, a Norwegian nobleman of

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M.Sjostrom

draft biography of Eirik Saemundson, a Norwegian nobleman of

Legg inn av M.Sjostrom » 19 nov 2007 15:36:03

-constructive comments, corrections and amends
welcome-


knight Eirik Saemundson (fl 1410..50) was a Norwegian
magnate who was most prominent (like Norsk Biografisk
Leksikon vol II p 497 puts it) as “the most important
support pillar of king Charles Canuteson’s rule in
Norway”.
He evidently supported the governmental ideology of
‘council-constitutionalism’, wanted to remove Norway
from the union with Denmark, and drifted to close
alliance with Swedes.

The date of Eirik Saemundson’s birth is not known
(although it practically must have been well before
the year 1400), and he was killed near Akershus on one
of the first days of 1450, on orders, probably
specifically targeting him, of Hartvig Krummedige, the
Danish castellan of Akershus.

Eirik Saemundson was born as son of Norwegian nobleman
Saemund Torgilson of Rylanda (fl 1396..1440),
justiciar of Viken in Ostlandet of Norway. The name of
his mother seems not to be historically known. His
family were seemingly regular nobles of Norway, and
their seat manor was Rylanda in the Ostfold region.
Their family Coat-of-Arms depicted a male's shank, in
Norwegian 'Bein' or 'skanke'. This has led some to
mistakenly imagine they had a surname in use. And,
today’s ‘Skanke Family Association’ likes to count him
among their forefathers, however without support of
any historically proven descent.

Eirik Saemundson was mentioned as bailiff and noble
chieftain in Viken already in 1410. He seems to have
come to own Manvik, Rylanda and Jored.

As politician, Eirik Saemundson av Rylanda og Jored
evidently supported the governmental ideology of
‘council-constitutionalism’. He wanted to reduce the
royal power and strengthen the role of the High
Council of Norway. Additionally, he obviously came to
work for removing Norway from the union with Denmark,
then already over half a century old.

The Engelbrecht revolt, or peasant revolt, of early
1430s in Sweden against king Eric of the union
temporarily shook the entire Sweden from the
Scandinavian personal union and weakened the central
power also in Norway and Denmark. For example,
nobleman Ogmund Sigurdson Bolt, one of the extensive
Bolt clan, led a revolt in Norway in 1430s, and at
least in Jylland, Denmark, a peasant revolt took
place.

In 1437, presumably already personally in his
middle-aged years, Eirik Saemundson married Estrid
Nikulasdottir, heiress of Vellinge, an important noble
maiden from Vermelandia, the border province which had
recently been quarreled over by one hand Norwegians
and the other hand by Swedes.
Her parents were lagmann Niklis Tykason av Vellinge,
justiciar of Vermland (fl 1424..33), and his wife lady
Ingebjorg Bjornsdotter, seemingly from another
powerful Vermlander family (presumably that with wings
as crest).

Niklis of Vellinge (of whom there exists no
attestation after 1433), already possibly deceased at
the time of his daughter’s marriage with Eirik (though
it is also possible he yet lived, and gave his
daughter to marriage with Eirik), was son (possibly
eldest) and one of chief heirs of lady Gunnhild
Torkilsdotter, an important Westrogothian heiress,
herself daughter of burgrave Torkel Barun, onetime
castellan of Varberg. The justiciarship of Vermelandia
had been held by the Vellinge family at least in two
recent generations, though the office was not
hereditary.

King Eric was finally deposed of his three royal
thrones, one after another, around 1439. Instead, his
sister's son, the young duke, count palatine
Christopher of Bavaria, became the mainstream
candidate for all three thrones, and after some
vicissitudes, all three kingdoms separately chose him
as their monarch (Denmark as regent 1439, king 1440,
Sweden as king 1441 and, finally in 1442, Norway
recognized him as king, of the hereditary monarchy,
after his uncle Eric had explicitly declined to hold
the Norwegian throne). High Councils of each of the
then countries were though using much of the
governmental power. It was like
council-constitutionalists had won the struggle.

Eirik Saemundson, now a knight, became High Councillor
of Norway in 1445, and, since 1446, castellan of
Tunsberg, one of the customarily important fiefs in
Norway.

King Christopher III however died in summer 1448 just
in his thirties and without children. Closest royal
relatives were fairly remote, and it took time in each
of the countries to determine whom to choose as king.

In Sweden, the powerful High Constable Charles
Canuteson, margrave of Viipuri and castellan of some
other fiefs too, was rapid to arrange, practically
through a military coup, his election to the vacant
kingship.

In Norway, the kingship was offered to Sigurd Jonson
of Giske, the High Justiciar of Norway, by a faction
who desired to cut Norway away from the union,
ensuring a native, national king, who will not be king
of any other country at the same time, and will reside
in Norway. Eirik Saemundson was among that party.
Sigurd Jonson had already been regent at the period
between king Eric and king Christopher, and was again
regent due to demise of Christopher, in virtue of his
Seneschalcy. Sigurd was the heir of the line of
collaterals of civil-war-era Bagler kings, Inge I of
Norway and his nephew Philip of Norway, descending
from the latter's nephew; and also he was a heir of
Agnes Haakonsdottir of Borgarsyssel, the illegitimate
daughter of king Haakon V of Norway whose legitimate
issue were recognized as heirs tertiary of the
Norwegian throne in 1302.
The elderly Sigurd however declined to become king
Sigurd III of Norway.

There existed no other acceptable purely Norwegian
choice for Norway's kingship. This lead to situation
where ‘proto-nationalistic’ Norwegian politicians
needed to decide between two foreign choices: Sweden
and Denmark. Many people of the nationalistic-minded
party then decided to support the new Swedish king,
who was perceived as guarantee against Denmark. Eirik
Saemundson, with his ready ties to Sweden (for
example, through property ties due to his wife’s
inheritance), was among them. A group of Norwegian
high councillors and magnates gave on 26 February 1449
a public declaration (so-called Bahus confederation)
pledging to elect Charles Canuteson, new king of
Sweden, also as king of Norway. Those magnates also
got support from Aslak Bolt, archbishop of Nidaros
(Trondhjem), head of Norwegian church.

Charles' hereditary rights to Norwegian throne were
next to non-existent. Highly likely, he was a
descendant of Birgitta Haraldsdottir, bastard daughter
of the (impostor) king Harald IV 'Gille' (reigned
1130..36), but almost all other blood ties were just
mythical or invented, and all of those pedigrees were
distant to boot anyway. That was fairly bad as to
Norway, which had traditionally and customarily, as
the only among the three Scandinavian kingdoms, been a
hereditary monarchy.
(Denmark and Sweden were constitutionally and by
customary law elective monarchies, not hereditary, in
principle – it was just that perceived eligibility for
election required some lineage good enough, such as a
descent from admired previous monarchs).

Denmark had also already in 1448 elected a new
monarch: count Christian of Oldenburg, the first of
that house (which came to dominate most Scandinavian
monarchies over half a millennium and holds Norwegian
and Danish thrones also today) to sit on a
Scandinavian throne. Christian of Oldenburg descended
directly from a daughter of king Eric V of Denmark
(which made him one of closest kinsmen of recent
monarchs of Denmark) and also from the eldest daughter
of king Eric IV of Denmark. As to Norway and Sweden,
he was a descendant of Eufemia Eriksdotter, the
daughter of Ingeborg Haakonsdotter of Norway and her
husband Eric of Sweden, duke of Sudermannia, and thus
one of closest kinsmen of the recent lineage of
monarchs of Sweden and Norway. His aim was to obtain
the thrones of all three kingdoms.
Soon he became able to assert his position also in
Norway. Many Norwegian fiefs and castles had a Danish
of Wendic-German lord, as remnant of the reign of king
Christopher; and there existed also a Danish-favoring
faction among Norwegians. Perhaps one of most
important figures in that was the originally Danish
Hartvig Hartvigsen Krummedige, castellan of Akershus.
The castle of Akershus dominated the town of Oslo and
its surrounding region, and was one of geographically
closest locations in Norway towards Denmark.

The pressure from Denmark and Danish-minded faction
were strong, and by autumn 1449, almost all Bahus
confederates had gave up supporting the Swedish king
Charles. However, (as put by Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
vol II p 497) high councillor, castellan Eirik
Saemundson stood alone in the membership of the
Norwegian high council yet to support Charles’
kingship.

Charles Canuteson arrived to Norway with some troops
in October 1449, and in Hamar, he was proclaimed as
king of Norway. He left Eirik Saemundson as his
viceroy in southern Norway, largely unsubjugated, and
continued to Trondhjem. On 20 November 1449, Charles
Canuteson (known to Norwegian historiography
technically as king Charles I of Norway) became
hastily crowned by the archbishop in the traditional
national coronation seat, the Nidaros cathedral.
Because of pressing matters and unstable circumstances
also in home front, king Charles returned to Sweden
soon after his Norwegian coronation, leaving
administrators to administer Norway in his absence. In
Trondhjem, Trondelag, he had appointed Norwegian
councillors, knight Aslak Tureson of Lund (fl
1448..72) and knight Einarr Olavson Fluga (fl 1449,
drowned 1483) as co-governors. And, Eirik Saemundson
of Rylanda acted as governor in Norwegian Ostlandet.
After Christmas 1449, king Charles returned from
Sweden to conquer Norway, starting from southern part
near Swedish borders (and nearest to Denmark too), and
with Eirik, started besieging Akershus fortress, where
Hartvig Krummedige was castellan. It was during that
siege when Eirik Saemundson became killed, on one of
the first days of 1450, on orders, reputedly
specifically targeting him, of Hartvig Krummedige.

King Charles' Norwegian reign lasted only to 1450,
practically less than a year, as he had to retreat to
Sweden, to take care of problems and business in home
and in Swedish front against Denmark. On 2 August
1450, Christian of Denmark was crowned in Trondhjem,
same place as Charles Canuteson less than a year
earlier, in fairly peaceful conditions. His dynasty
came to face only sporadical and unsuccessful risings
in Norway throughout more than three centuries, until
they lost the country in 1814 to Bernadotte of Sweden.

The event of murder of Eirik Saemundson by orders from
Eirik’s enemy Hartvig Krummedige, agent in Norway of
king Christian I of Denmark, led to blood feud of
several generations: around century after the murder,
the correspondence between the then kings of Sweden
and Denmark yet mention that family enmity between a
Danish Krummedige and a descendant of castellan Eirik.
As one of symptoms of that feud, between 1503 and 1506
Nils Ravaldson av Jored (d 1506), maternal grandson of
lord Eirik, made a revolt, some sort of recurrence of
the 1501-02 revolt of his kinsman Knut Alvson of Giske
(the latter also desired to remove Norway from Danish
union and was allied with Swedes).

High councillor, castellan Eirik Saemundson, an
adherent of council-constitutional way of government,
came to want to remove Norway from the union with
Denmark, and drifted to close alliance with Swedes,
being “the most important support pillar of king
Charles Canuteson’s brief rule in Norway”.

Seemingly Eirik was allied with Alv Knutson of Giske
and his family. We do not have that much information
of existence of Eirik’s own blood relatives and,
consequently, about their lives, as far as I am aware;
whereas Eirik’s wife came from a tad higher and
better-established noble family, whose kinsmen played
some role also at the time when this couple was
married.

His wife’s cousins included dominus Canutus April,
canon in Upsala and in Linköping, knight Gustav
Olofsson of Toftaholm, Swedish castellan of Elfsborg,
the fortress guarding the places which today are the
city of Gothenburg; knight Jens Nielsen Lageposse,
Swedish castellan of Ekholm in Vermelandia, and his
wife Merete Knudsdatter af Tun; knight Jussi
Ollinpoika of Karjaskylä, king Charles’ governor in
parts of Finland; Pirita Torkkelintytär of Grevseboda;
Erik Jensen of Hallkved; but also Merete Jensdatter af
Hallkved, widow of Danish magnate and councillor
Thorkild Pedersen Bragde, and their four Danish
(Scanian) daughters, married with Danish magnates.

About his wife Estrid's genealogical relations, much
of our knowledge comes via the Family Book composed by
her contemporary and elder kinswoman Birgitte
Mogensdatter Porse, lady of Faldenes, Aengso and
Hendelo, who deceased in 1450 without any surviving
progeny, and her entire branch of the Porse went
totally extinct.
Thus, in 1450, later in the year of the death of
Eirik, his wife Estrid was to succeed as one of barons
and co-heirs of the (ducal) House of Porse of Eastern
Denmark.
It is believed that Estrid was, among several
co-heirs, the genealogically senior, and thus
heir-general.
To the family circle of wife Estrid, one must probably
count also the trusty sons-in-law of the formidable
lady Birgitte (dowager without close blood kin),
Gustav Algotson Sture in Aengso and Johan Nilson of
Geddeholm in Faldenes, widowed both at least once.

The marriage of Estrid and Eirik produced three
surviving daughters and heiresses:
- Ragnhild Eiriksdottir, heiress at least of Vellinge
in Vermelandia and possibly in Norwegian Ostlandet.
- Ingerid Eiriksdottir, who probably inherited some
Westrogothian properties. It seems not a fully clear
matter whether Ragnhild or Ingerid was elder.
- Ingebjorg Eiriksdottir, who inherited some
properties, possibly in Norwegian Ostlandet. Ingeborg
was possibly born not much earlier than her father
died.
Lord Eirik did not live to see his daughters to marry,
his life and career meeting the ‘premature’ end.

Of Eirik's daughters, Ragnhild and Ingebjorg came to
marry Norwegian noblemen, and Ingerid married a
"half-Norwegian". The first-mentioned founded (with
her husband Rognvald Nikulasson, justiciar of Opland
and then also justiciar of Vermeland) the so-called
younger Vellinge lineage, which was inherited through
a female by the family of Krumme, then again through a
female by a member of another house, and so forth. The
presumably youngest, Ingebjorg av Rylanda & Vellinge,
had a daughter (Ingerid Ogmundsdottir av Samsal) who
married Swedish nobleman Tord Bonde, and all
subsequent lines of the House of Bonde descend from
her, including its baronial and comital branches.

The daughter Ingerid married as first wife the
half-Norwegian border nobleman, high councillor, Joens
Knutson, governor of Dalsland, youngest son of the
heiress general of high justiciar Sigurd Jonson of
Norway. Their lineage received in 1561 the rank of
counts from king Eric XIV of Sweden (counts of
Bogesund) and after extinction of a senior branch,
Giske, in 1605 they succeeded in Sigurd Jonson's
so-called Sudreim claims (the tenuous 'Bagler' lineage
to Norwegian throne and the more or less uncontested
heirship-general of the Stenkil dynasty of Sweden).
(Joens Knutson’s father had, before Joens’ mother,
been married with the heiress of Tun and Leengaard,
herself probably a third cousin of Ingerid’s mother.)






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