On December 1, 1374, a ship sank in the Bömmelfjord outside Bergen. One of those who died that day was a deposed Swedish king, stripped of his throne and more or less exiled to Norway, where his son ruled.

Magnus Eriksson, because he died there in the cold water, is possibly one of the Swedish kings who has received the least attention. Possibly, this was due to the long-standing bad reputation he had received through the care of one of our saints: St. Bridget had a horn in his side and devoted extensive space in her so-called prophecies to slandering both King Magnus and his queen, Blanca of Namur.

But let’s take it from the beginning and look at what led to that fjord.

Magnus was only three years old when he became king, of course, with a guardian government. The year before he was appointed king in 1319, his father and his uncle had died in what came to be known as Nyköping’s feast. His father, Duke Erik, and uncle, Duke Valdemar, had long questioned their brother’s rule and wanted more power. To achieve that, in 1306, they kidnapped King Birger and forced him to divide the kingdom between them.
When Birger’s revenge came, Magnus lost his father when Birger let his brothers Erik and Valdemar starve to death at Nyköpingshus.

Magnus, who was three years old, was elected king of Sweden and Norway in 1319. Years of guardianship followed, but Magnus was crowned king of Sweden on July 21, 1336. At that time, he was also king of Skåne, which had been recaptured from Denmark.

Magnus should be remembered for his extensive work with Swedish legislation. In that area, he carried out unprecedented work. His great-grandfather, Earl Birger, had already begun work on his oath laws that mandated church peace, women’s peace, domestic peace and court peace. These can be somewhat rudimentarily summarized as that one was not allowed to abuse or kill anyone in the church, at home or at the court. Nor were women allowed to be subjected to violence or any type of abuse, such as rape.

Magnus continued that work, and already in the year before his coronation, he issued four statutes in which he abolished serfdom in Västergötland and Värmland’s law saga, among other things. This is the only statute issued in all of the Nordic countries where the phenomenon that a human being could own other humans is expressly prohibited. He also legislated around inheritance, giving grandchildren the same right to inherit from their grandparents as their parents had. In a time when women did not have much to say, he also states that the woman who marries against her parent’s will or to a man they disapproved of shall lose the right to inherit from her parents. In a somewhat twisted form of equality, he also legislates that women, just like men, can be executed when convicted of a crime.

But here, he commits what can be called the mistake that is most likely behind his reputation as a bad monarch, which has lived on through history, not least because of the contemporary vilification to which he was subjected during his reign: he legislated to limit the power of the magnates and citizens’ unearned rights.
In the first charter from 1335, his legislation is aimed specifically at citizens in Uppsala. By living in properties belonging to knights, squires, or clergy, they had skimped on rights that actually only accrued to those with the previously mentioned titles. Among other things, they had avoided paying taxes, and that would now end if King Magnus got his way.

The king also tried in other ways to get the magnates’ abuse of power under control. In the Skänninge statute from 1335, he establishes the rights and protections of the ”common man” against the big men. Among other things, these were no longer allowed to ride in large retinues through the country, and one can assume that this is connected to something that Magnus Eriksson’s grandfather, Magnus Ladulås, had already legislated against rape. In the Middle Ages, the better-off on their journeys through the country could arrive at a farm and demand that those who lived there keep them with food, drink and a roof over their heads until the party decided to leave. This had also been done by previous kings, and of course, it could completely drain a smaller farm of their resources.

As part of his work on legislation in the country, the king was itinerant. This certainly did not start or end with Magnus Eriksson. The king had to go on a journey to get an overview of his kingdom. The king could be present at trials and other legal proceedings and make the final judgment. Not infrequently, it was about someone having already received a sentence early on and now appealing this to the Majesty. We know that Magnus Eriksson was diligent thanks to the fact that both letters from his travels have been preserved; where we can see that he was constantly on a travelling court during 1347 when, with a break of a few days in each place, he visited 26 locations in Sweden, Finland and Norway. There is also a large amount of judgment letters preserved.
However, 55 years after his election, King Magnus did not find himself aboard a sinking ship in the Bömmelfjord mainly because of his legislation.

King Magnus would, for a large part of his reign, be on a collision course with a contemporary woman whose name is not unlikely to be more familiar to a more significant number of people: St. Bridget of Sweden.
Often, she used her so-called revelations to accuse and attack King Magnus and Queen Blanka. At first, they were mostly gentle admonitions, but over time, when it became clear that the king was not going to follow all of them, they became increasingly hateful.

Birgitta Birgersdotter was not just anyone even before she became a ”saint”; she belonged to the absolute elite in Sweden at the time, and as the daughter of Uppland’s lawman and married to a man with the same position over Närke, she was, to say the least, involved in Magnus’ legislation. Many of her revelations dealt with the importance of maintaining the old legislation, greatly favouring her class. In fact, what, alternately, Jesus and the Virgin Mary wanted her to convey usually coincided with the interests of Birgitta and those around her.

One of the apparitions suggested that Brigitta should find a monastic order and that the king should support it. That was the beginning of Vadstena monastery, which in no way made Birgitta more benevolent, and once she moved to Rome after her husband’s death, her prophecies became increasingly fierce. Not only did she accuse both Magnus and Queen Blanche of having a sexual relationship with Magnus’ closest man, Algot Bengtsson, but when their son Erik died, Birgitta claimed that Blanche had murdered him.

In 1347, something began in Italy that neither Magnus nor any other regent could rule over: the Black Death. After avoiding the Balkans, the Netherlands, and Bohemia, the dreaded plague reached Scandinavia. Although none of Magnus Eriksson’s detractors used the plague to accuse him, his legacy has largely come to be marked by it.

It began with the arrival of a ship in Bergen; it is said to have been adrift without a crew, and from this, the plague spread, first within Norway and then further afield. It is not known how many people died during the Black Death in Sweden. Thanks to the fact that the country was sparsely populated, the spread of infection should have been slower than in more densely populated countries, but despite that, there are assumptions that between 225,000 and 50,000 people died of the disease.

The Black Death is estimated to have reached Sweden in 1350. Still, in an undated letter believed to be from 1349, King Magnus calls on the inhabitants of the Linköping Diocese where he writes about the outbreak in Norway and that he fears the same thing will happen to Sweden ”for the sake of all our misdeeds”. The explanation for the people of the time was that the infection was a punishment from God, and Magnus called on the entire population of Sweden every Friday to humbly come barefoot to church, hear mass in divine invocation and donate a penny or less which would then be distributed among the poor.

But Birgitta Birgersdotter and the plague only began Magnus Eriksson’s problems. The son Erik rises against him, partly because in 1351, he had to borrow the money collected for the papacy and then could not pay it back in time. Erik and several prominent men are dissatisfied with this, his policies and not least the benefits he showered on Bengt Algotsson, who became Duke of Finland and Halland. In 1356, Magnus was forced to give up a large part of the country and power over the same to Erik.

However, Erik dies suddenly in 1359, something that Birgitta came from her home in Rome to accuse Blanche of. Magnus regains power over the kingdom, and the treaty he concluded with Valdemar Atterdag to regain the crown is set aside. Valdemar considers himself deceived and reclaims Skåne and ravages both Öland and Gotland.
Magnus had concluded a treaty with the Hanseatic cities to fight Valdemar but refused to sign it when the conditions for Sweden were too harsh. In the hope of peace and to regain Skåne, Magnus’s son Håkan marries Valdemar’s daughter Margareta, who will later become the sole queen of Scandinavia. Håkan takes power over the country but later rules together with Magnus.

The nobles turned to Albreckt of Mecklenburg and offered the crown to his son, Albrecht the Younger, who was also Magnus’ nephew. After being welcomed to Stockholm and elected king at the Mora Stones, Magnus was captured in connection with the battle at Gataskogen in 1365. He was held captive until 1371 when he was released for ransom.

After losing his kingdom, Magnus spends much time in Norway, where his son Håkan has become king and rules with Margareta. In the autumn of 1374, Magnus borrowed the ship Mariabollen from the Icelandic bishop. He was probably going to Tönsberg to celebrate Christmas when a storm hit them on the Bömmelfjord. When it becomes clear that the ship will sink, Magnus jumps overboard but is pulled back up by his servants. They take him ashore, and there on the beach, Magnus takes his last breath, aged 58.

.Sources:

I Kung Magnus Tid – Michael Nordberg

Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon – Kjell Kumlien

Riksarkivet

Images: Public Domain