After Erik XIV and Karin Månsdotter had been driven from the throne, Erik’s brother Johan was proclaimed king in January 1569. In July of the same year, he and his wife Katarina were crowned king…
Even though there had been cases with people being convicted of witchcraft in Scandinavia throughout the Middle Ages, the hysteria didn’t reach the north until the 16th century. It started in Denmark, probably due to…
In the early Christendom, the consensus among the clergy was that witchcraft and sorcery didn’t exist in the sense that later became dominant – that meaning the connecting to Satan and devils. In the early…
In the first post about Karin Månsdotter, we learned how the bar maid was secretly married to the king, Erik XIV while pregnant with their second child. Let’s continue: As Karins stomach grew, so did…
When Gustav Vasa died on september 29 1560, the crown passed to his eldest son, Erik. To inherit the throne was something new in Sweden, where the king traditionally had been elected. To cement his…
In my last post I wrote about the archaeological evidence of women Viking warriors, so called shield maidens. Around 30 graves containing women buried as warriors have been found in Scandinavia, so – even though…
“There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating soldier’s skills; They put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not…
Research on women during Viking times has long been neglected. When the concept of the Viking Age and Vikings was coined in the 19th century, women were completely ignored, relegated to the home. The story…
When queen Margareta Leijonhufvud died the king, Gustav Vasa, was 55 years old. He had a chronic inflammation in one leg and the few teeth he had left were inflamed. He must have been in…
Only a year after the death of his first wife, Gustav Vasa remarried. Not to a foreign princess this time, but to a young woman from a prominent noble family – Margareta Leijonhufvud. Margareta was…