Abstract
Queen Agnes of Denmark was widowed on November 22,1286. On this date her husband, King Erik V, was assassinated after having spent the day hunting on the Danish peninsula of Jutland, near the town of Viborg. According to contemporary accounts, the king had retired for the evening and was lying in his bedchamber. The attackers struck under cloak of darkness. After the deed, the assailants melted away into the countryside and were never apprehended, although six months later an inquiry held by the Danish royal council found several leading men of the realm—who were almost certainly innocent of the deed—responsible for the king’s death. These men were banished from Denmark.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
There is much speculation as to motives for the murder and the identity of the perpetrators. For a review in English of the scholarship see William Layher, Queen Eufemia’s Legacy: Middle Low German Literary Culture, Royal Patronage, and the First Old Swedish Epic (1301) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University (diss.), 1999). A Danish perspective on the material is found in Jens E. Olesen, “Kongemord og fredloshedsdom,” inMarsken rider igen. Om mordet på Erik Klipping, Rum elands sänge ogmarsk Stig-viserne, ed. Jens E. Olesen et al., Mindre Skrifter udgivet af Laboratorium for folkespr0-gligMiddelalderlitteratur (Odense: Odense Universitet, 1990). See also Hugo Yrwing, Kungamordet i Finderup. Nordiska förvecklingar under senare delen av Erik Klippings regering, vol. 45, Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund (Lund 1954). In the late 1990s a Danish TV program on famous unsolved crimes dedicated an entire episode to the murder of Erik V in 1286.
Friedrich Maurer, ed. Die Lieder Walthers von der Vogelweide I. Die religiösen und die politischen Lieder, fourth edition, vol. 43, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1974), 20.
Georg Holz, Jenaer Liederhandschrift. Getreuer Abdruck des Textes, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Leipzig: C.L. Hirschfeld, 1901), 95V. See also Brunner and Wachinger, eds., Repertorium der Sangsprüche und Meisterlieder des 12. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, 4: 345.
See the entry under triuwe in Otfried Ehrismann, Ehre und Mut, Aventiure und Minne: höfische Wortgeschichten aus dem Mittelalter (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1995), 211–15.
On medieval poetry in Denmark see David W. Colbert, “The Middle Ages,” in History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H. Rossel (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with The American Scandinavian Foundation, 1992).
“Manuscripts clearly reflect the growth of dialectical divergences in Norden, but we cannot yet speak of distinct national languages… only ‘traditions.’ ” Einar Haugen, The Scandinavian Languages: An Introduction to their History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 189.
Carol Clover, “Skaldic Sensibility,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 93 (1978): 64
John Lindow, “Riddles, Kennings, and the Complexity of Skaldic Poetry,” Scandinavian Studies 47 (1975).
Bettina Elpers, Regieren, Erziehen, Bewahren. Mütterliche Regentschaften im Hochmittelalter (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2003), 4–13.
John Carmi Parsons, “Of Queens, Courts and Books: Reflections on the Literary Patronage of Thirteenth-Century Plantagenet Queens,” in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996). For a collection of sources detailing medieval female literary patronage, chiefly from a German angle, see Bumke, “Die Rolle der Frau im höfischen Literaturbetrieb.”
Reinhold Schröder, “Dâvon sing ich ü diz liet. Rumelands strofer i anledning af Erik Klippings død,” in Marsken rider igen. Om mordet på Erik Klipping, Rumelands sange og marsk Stig-viserne, ed. Jens E. Olesen et al., Mindre Skrifter udgivet af Laboratorium for folkesproglig Middelalderlitteratur (Odense: Odense Universitet, 1990), 49–50.
Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter. Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1979), 229
Vibeke Winge, Dänische Deutsche—deutsche Dänen: Geschichte der deutschen Sprache in Dänemark 1300–1800, vol. I, Sprachgeschichte (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1992), 36.
See Hugo Moser, “Die hochmittelalterliche deutsche ‘Spruchdichtung’ als übernationale und nationale Erscheinung,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 76 (1957).
Copyright information
© 2010 William Layher
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Layher, W. (2010). “You Danes Must Do as I Say …”: Queen Agnes and the Regicide of 1286. In: Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230113022_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230113022_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28927-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11302-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)