House of Eric
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The House of Eric was one of the two noble families, dynasties, which rivalled for the kingship of Sweden between 1150 and 1220. The first king of this dynasty was Eric IX of Sweden whom the later world has dubbed as Saint Eric. The other dynasty was the House of Sverker.
The dynasty of St Eric favored the Varnhem monastery, and several of its members lay interred there.
The last king was Eric XI, the Lame and the Stutterer, who died 1250, apparently without children (though some later legends of some German families have attributed one or two daughters to him).
His nephew, the then underage son of his sister Ingeborg, was elected king Valdemar I of Sweden, under regency of his father Birger Jarl.
Almost all the subsequent kings of Sweden have been descendants of the Eric dynasty. Descent from this house was regarded such hard currency in medieval and early modern powergames that some aspirants (most notably, Charles VIII of Sweden) even fabricated a descent to show that also they would be heirs of Eric dynasty.
This biography of a member of a European royal house is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
