Ingeborg of Norway

Ingeborg of Norway was a daughter of King Haakon V and became one of the most powerful women in early fourteenth-century Scandinavian politics. Born in 1301, she married the Swedish duke Erik Magnusson, whose rivalry with his brother King Birger drew the couple into the violent dynastic struggles of Sweden. Erik died after imprisonment in 1318, leaving Ingeborg with a young son, Magnus. When Haakon V died the following year, the child inherited Norway and was also elected king of Sweden.

Because Magnus was a minor, Ingeborg participated directly in regency government in both kingdoms and for a time exercised unusually visible political authority. She maintained her own advisers and pursued policies involving Denmark and the duchies held by her late husband, bringing her into conflict with other Swedish and Norwegian magnates. Her influence was gradually restricted, although she remained a major dynastic figure. She later married the Danish nobleman Knud Porse, Duke of Halland, and survived until 1361.

In Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, II: The Wife, Erling Vidkunsson, Ingeborg of Norway and Knud Porse stand behind the regency politics of the period, while Erlend joins a conspiracy associated with the king’s cousins Jon and Sigurd Havtoresson.