Matilda of Holstein

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Matilda of Holstein
Queen consort of Denmark
Tenure 1250–1252
Coronation 1 November 1250
Spouse Abel of Denmark
Birger Jarl
Issue
Valdemar III, Duke of Schleswig
Eric I, Duke of Schleswig
Abel, Lord of Langeland
Father Adolf IV, Count of Holstein
Mother Heilwig of Lippe
Born 1220/25
Died 1288
Kiel
Burial Varnhem Abbey
Religion Roman Catholicism

Matilda of Holstein or Mechthild (1220 or 1225 1288 in Kiel) was a Danish queen consort, married to King Abel of Denmark and later to Birger Jarl, Regent of Sweden.

Life

Matilda was the daughter of Adolf IV, Count of Holstein, and Heilwig of Lippe. In 25 April 1237 she was married to Abel of Denmark in Schleswig. When Abel became king in 1250, she was crowned with him in Roskilde on 1 November.

When Abel died in 1252, she was forced to leave Denmark and enter a convent. She managed to get her son Valdemar released from the captivity of the archbishop of Cologne and fought for the inheritance of her children in the Duchy of Schleswig. In 1260, she pawned the areas Eider and Schlei in southern Denmark to her brothers. She made a pact with Jacob Erlandsen, archbishop of Lund, and then broke her vows of the convent by marrying the Swedish regent Birger Jarl in 1261. After the death of Birger in 1266, she moved to Kiel.

In 1288, shortly before her death, she gave up Eider and Schlei to her brothers. She was unpopular in Denmark, where she was called the daughter of the Devil and accused of destroying letters from the Pope and emperor to King Valdemar II.

Issue

Queen Matilda bore her first husband three sons and a daughter:

Ancestry

References

  • Dansk Biografisk Lexikon, volume 11, pp. 205–206, Copenhagen 1897
  • Annales Stadenses 1237–1241, MGH SS XVI, sida 363–367
Matilda of Holstein
Born: 1220s Died: 1288
Danish royalty
Preceded by
Jutta of Saxony
Queen consort of Denmark
1250–1252
Succeeded by
Margaret Sambiria
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