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- Valdemar I den Store (Valdemar the Great) born January 14, 1131 in Schleswig. He was co-ruler with Svend III and Knud III in 1154, and sole King of Denmark from 1157 until his death in 1182. Married first time to Sofie (born circa 1140 in Novgorod) on October 23, 1157 in Viborg. Valdemar is also known to have had a mistress named Tove. He died of a fever-sickness (febersygdom) on May 12, 1182 in Vordingborg, and was buried in St. Bendt's Church, Ringsted.
He was the son of Canute Lavard, a chivalrous and popular Danish prince, who was the eldest son of Eric I of Denmark. His father was murdered days before his birth; his mother, Ingeborg, daughter of Mstislav I of Kiev, named him after her grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev. {Vladimir's father-in-law was King Harold Godwinson of England. Vladimir 's grandfather was Constantine Monomachus, Byzantine Emperor}.
As an heir to the throne, and with his rivals quickly gaining power, he was raised in the court of Asser Rig of Fjenneslev, together with Asser's sons, Absalon and Esbern Snare, who would become his trusted friends and ministers. When Valdemar was sixteen years old, King Erik III abdicated and a civil war erupted. The pretenders to the throne were: Sweyn III Grathe, son of Eric II Emune; Knud V, son of Prince Magnus who was the son of King Niels; and Valdemar himself (he was holding Jutland, at least southern Jutland, as his possession). The civil war lasted the better part of ten years.
In 1157 King Sweyn hosted a great banquet for Knud, Absalon and Valdemar during which he planned to dispose of all his rivals. King Knud was killed, but Absalon and Valdemar escaped. Valdemar returned to Jutland. Sweyn quickly launched an invasion, only to be defeated by Valdemar at Grathe Hede. He was killed during flight, supposedly by a group of peasants who stumbled upon him as he was fleeing from the battlefield. Valdemar, having outlived all his rival pretenders, became the sole King of Denmark.
In 1158 Absalon was elected Bishop of Roskilde, and Valdemar made him his chief friend and advisor. He reorganized and rebuilt war-torn Denmark. At Absalon's instigation he declared war upon the Wends who were raiding the Danish coasts. They inhabited Pomerania and the island of R?gen in the Baltic Sea. In 1168 the Wendish capital, Arkona, was taken, and the Wends became Christians and subject to Danish suzerainty. Danish influence reached into Pomerania. Valdemar's reign saw the rise of Denmark, which reached its zenith under his second son Valdemar.
Valdemar married Sofja (aka Sofia, Sophia) of Minsk (c.1140-1198), half-sister of Canute V of Denmark and daughter of Dowager Queen Rikissa of Sweden from her marriage with Volodar of Polotsk (aka Vladimir or Volodar Glebovich of the Rurikids, died 1167), ruling Prince of Principality of Minsk. They had the following children:
1. King Canute VI of Denmark (1163-1202).
2. King Valdemar II of Denmark (1170-1241).
3. Sophie (1159-1208), married Siegfried III, Count of Orlam?nde.
4. Margareta and Maria, nuns at Roskilde.
5. Rikissa of Denmark (died 1220), married King Eric X of Sweden.
6. Helen (died 1233), married William of L?neburg.
7. Ingeborg (1175-1236), married King Philip II of France.
Sofja was born daughter of Richiza of Poland, the Dowager Queen of Sweden, from her marriage with a man called "Valador, King in Poloni Lands". Several speculations have been put forward as to exactly who her father was, but his identity is still uncertain; he is guessed to have been Prince Volodar of Minsk and/or Prince Vladimir of Halicz. She was half-sister of Canute V of Denmark. She was engaged in 1154 and married in 1157 to Valdemar. She is described as beautiful but mean in the legends, where she murdered Valdemar's mistress Tove and injured his sister Kirsten, but this is not confirmed. The widowed Sofja was married for the second time circa 1183 to Count (Landgreve) Ludwig of Th?ringen (aka Louis III of Thuringia), but she was very quickly divorced and sent back to Denmark. Sofja died on May 5, 1198, and was buried beside Valdemar in Ringsted.
Their Ingeborg was married to Philip II Augustus of France on August 15, 1193 after the death of Philip's first wife Isabelle of Hainaut (d. 1190). Stephan of Dornik described her as "very kind, young of age but old of wisdom." On the day after his marriage to Ingeborg, King Philip changed his mind, and attempted to send her back to Denmark. Outraged, Ingeborg fled to a convent in Soissons, from where she protested to Pope Celestine III. However, the council of Compi?gne acceded to Philip's wish for a separation on November 5, 1193.
Pope Celestine defended the Queen, but was able to do little for her. Indeed, Philip asked Pope Celestine III for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation. Philip had not reckoned with Ingeborg, however; she insisted that the marriage had been consummated, and that she was his wife and the rightful Queen of France. The Franco-Danish churchman William of Paris intervened in the case of Philip Augustus who was attempting to repudiate Ingeborg. The genealogy of the Danish kings which William drew up on this occasion to disprove the alleged impediment of consanguinity and two books of his letters, some of which deal with this affair, have come down to us.
Philip married Agnes of Meran, a German heiress, in June 1196. In 1199, however, he was forced to send Agnes away, and to take Ingeborg back as his wife. His response was to lock Ingeborg away in the chateau of Etampes. Locked up in a tower, Ingeborg was a prisoner. Food was irregular and sometimes insufficient. No one was allowed to visit her. Only once were two Danish chaplains allowed to visit her. Philip, meanwhile, brought Agnes back, and continued to live with her, producing a second child, a son. For these offences, Philip was excommunicated in 1200, and the kingdom was placed under an interdict.
Philip reconciled with Ingeborg in 1213, not out of altruism but because he wished to press his claims to the throne of the Kingdom of England through his ties to the Danish crown. After this time, Ingeborg spent most of her time in a priory of Saint-Jean-de-l'Ile, which she had founded. It was close to Corbeil, in an island of the Essonne. She survived her husband by more than 14 years.
This database researched and compiled by Norman Lee Madsen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 21 July 2015.
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1131 - 1182 (51 år)
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