Catherine of Ymseborg

Catherine Sunadotter of Ymseborg (Swedish: Karin Sunadotter av Ymseborg or Katarina Sunesdotter), (born c. 1215, died 1252 at Gudhem Abbey), was a Swedish queen, wife of King Eric XI of Sweden and queen consort of Swedes and Goths from 1244 to 1250 and then in her latter years was abbess of Gudhem Abbey.

Heir of the Sverker dynasty

Catherine was the eldest daughter of the sonless Princess Helena Sverkersdotter of Sweden and Sune Folkason (d. 1247), Lord of Ymseborg, lawspeaker of Västergötland, who in some literature is also titled as Earl of the Swedish.

Sune Folkason's father was Folke Birgersson of Bjelbo (killed 1210), Earl of the Swedish, and thus Sune's paternal grandparents were Birger Bengtsson of Bjelbo (d. 1202), Earl of the Swedish, and his wife Brigida Haraldsdotter of Norway, former queen of Sweden. Helena Sverkersdotter's parents were King Sverker II of Sweden and Queen Benedikte Ebbesdotter of Hvide. Descending from the families of Bjelbo and Sverker, she was of the Geatish clans regarding the original formation of Sweden.

After the death of Sverker II's last surviving son, King John I of Sweden, the maternal uncle of Catherine, in 1216, his sister lady Helena, and her daughters, were the chief heirs of the Sverker dynasty, one (the more Geatish) of the two rival houses to alternate on the Swedish throne at least since the 1150s.

Queen of Sweden

After 1234, the young king Eric XI (1215-50) of the rival Eric dynasty held the throne, in the midst of difficulties and after an intervening exile from 1229 to 1234. Young Eric was, according to semi-legendary material, physically lame and spoke with a stutter ("läspe och halte"), though reportedly of a kindly nature. Catherine's father Sune and mighty supporters of the young king agreed to strengthen his position and to foreclose one source of rival throne claims by marrying Eric and Catherine. The marriage took place in 1244, or 1243, at Fyrisängen near Uppsala. Catherine had received an immense dower upon the marriage: some legends speak romantically about "half the kingdom".

In the same year (1244), Catherine's younger sister Benedikta of Ymseborg, who was finishing her education in Vreta Abbey, was kidnapped by Lars Petersson, the lawspeaker of Östergötland, in an attempt to have her as his wife. There are some sources imputing royal ambitions also to Lord Lars and this marriage plan. The coup failed and Benedikta was returned.

Her husband King Eric died in 1250, at the age of thirty-four.

It is unclear whether the marriage produced any children. Some researchers have directly concluded that it did not. On the other hand, there are some old sources indicating the existence of some children, who possibly died young. What is certain is that no son survived at the time of Eric's death; had there been such he would either have been made king under a regency, or at least some groups would have used a boy's existence as pretext for throne pretension (as had occurred at least in 1234, 1216 and 1210 and everyone contemporary knew this custom). Later German sources have dubbed one or two of this era's Scandinavian ladies married to German princely houses as daughters of King Eric. If one or more really were such, it seems that no one seriously tried to use any of them as the pretext for a revolt or a coup - perhaps waiting for a baby girl to grow up to an age to marry a pretender king or to give birth to a son was deemed too long - despite the customary and high potential to do so, nor were any such girls suggested to be married to later incumbent kings to further legitimize the settlement of the Swedish crown. Catherine immediately devoted herself to a sequestered religious life and not to family. The conclusion has tended to be that they did not have surviving children.

Queen dowager and abbess

Upon the death of her husband, the now Queen Dowager retreated to the Gudhem convent. Because Scandinavian customary law dictated that no clan property (i.e., lands and such) can be held by a religious, she then donated and transferred all her lands, including her queenly dower, to certain relatives and as donations to ecclesiastical institutions. For example, her sister Benedikta received as a gift from her the town of Söderköping, one of the Queen's dower possessions. The widowed Queen soon became the Abbess of Gudhem Abbey, and served in that position until her own death.

The underage Valdemar Birgersson, a nephew of king Eric, was chosen as the next King of Sweden. Her sister lady Benedikta (c. 1225-c. 1261) married, presumably some time in the early 1250s (we do not know if Catherine was still living or not) Lord Svantepolk Knutsson of Viby (c. 1220-1310), son of the Danish duke of Reval, Estonia, Laland and Blekinge, and his wife, a Pomerelian princely lady. During the 1250s, Benedikta gave birth to at least one son and several surviving daughters.

References

* cite book
author =Lars O. Lagerqvist
title = "Sverige och dess regenter under 1.000 år",("Sweden and it's regents under a 1000 years").
publisher = Albert Bonniers Förlag AB
id = ISBN 91-0-075007-7
date = 1982
language = Swedish

Sucession