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Historical person
1316–1374
Magnus IV of Sweden was a king of Sweden and Norway who inherited both crowns as a child. His long reign involved regency government, legal reform, territorial disputes, noble opposition and eventual deposition in Sweden.
Magnus IV of Sweden also held the offices or ranks of Monarch of Sweden and Monarch of Norway. Magnus IV of Sweden belonged to the House of Bjelbo. Magnus IV of Sweden was born in Norway and died in Bømlo Municipality.
Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, II: The Wife is set in Norway during Magnus IV’s joint Scandinavian kingship and includes the king in the political world that begins to draw Erlend away from the management of Husaby. Magnus appears briefly and critically rather than as a protagonist, but his reign provides the real dynastic background to the noble factions and ambitions that disturb Kristin’s household.
Series
The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy follows a landowner’s daughter from childhood in Gudbrandsdalen through marriage, motherhood, bereavement and old age in fourteenth-century Norway. Kristin’s love for the charismatic Erlend Nikulausson overturns the marriage arranged by her father and binds her to a man whose political recklessness repeatedly threatens their…
All books in this series
