After his father was brutally murdered, 12-year-old Erik was left to rule a country where nobility was fighting royalty alongside the church and peasants angered by increasing taxation.
King Erik Menved
Erik Menved was only 12 year old when his father, King Erik Klipping, was brutally murdered in a barn outside the town of Finnerup. Since Erik was much too young to be king, his mother Agnes was appointed as regent in charge.
Nobility and Church
The men accused of Erik Klippings murder were noblemen, who during a questionable trial were all found guilty of the murder and exiled from Denmark. Lead by Marsk Stig Andersen, who was thought to have been the instigator behind the murder of Klipping, they fled to Norway where King Eirik, also a rival of the Danish kings, welcomed them. For decades to come the outlawed noblemen continued to raid the Danish coasts and cause warfare between Denmark and Norway.
The nobles weren’t the only threat to the young King. For many years the Danish royalty had been in an ongoing feud with the church. To make matters worse, the newly elected archbishop, Jens Grand, was of the Hvide clan, a family, who for many years had fought the Danish throne. Grand was related to several of the exiled noblemen and made no attempt to hide the fact that he was supportive of them.
To eliminate the threat of the bishop, King Erik had him arrested and thrown in jail. But after a short stay in prison the bishop escaped and fled to Rome to lay his case against the king in front of the Pope. The Pope ruled in favor of the bishop and demanded King Erik to pay 49,000 silver marks and reinstate Grand as bishop. The king refused and the Pope immediately excommunicated the king along with the whole country of Denmark. A few years later the king wrote the pope apologizing and asking for mercy. The pope agreed to lower the fine and assign Jens Grand to another papal in order to keep him away from the Danish king.
The Age of Decay
Erik Menved dreamed of recreating the Scandinavian empire once ruled by Danish king Valdemar the Victorious but in his quest he spent more money than the country had and drove the country into severe debt. Especially loans from German noblemen seem to be of preference to the king, who even pawned off parts of the country to the Germans to finance his battles. When things started looking grim the king imposed new, unreasonable taxes, which angered the already overtaxed peasants. The nobles and the peasants teamed up in a rebellion against the king and even the king’s brother Christoffer, joined the rebels in an attempt to take the throne for himself. The king in turn got help from the German noblemen, from whom he had loaned money. Even though he stopped the rebels, the king was facing great financial troubles as he continued to run the kingdom of Denmark into bankruptcy.
When the king died in1319, he left a country in financial ruins. Erik had fathered many children with his wife Ingeborg but all had died as infants, which left to country to his brother Christoffer, who after fighting for the right to the throne for many years was finally crowned King of Denmark.
For more on the history of the Danish Monarchy read: The Danish Monarchy-The Beginning and The Danish Monarchy 1319-1332, King Christoffer II
Sources:
www.kongehuset.dk
www.kingsofdenmark.dk
www.kongernesjelling.dk
