Notes |
- BIOGRAPHY
Katarina is actually not daughter of the King of Sweden, although non-Swedish chronicles mistakenly write so. The King Erik XI (d 1250), who reigned at the time of Katarina's birth, is known to been and remained childless.
When furstinnan Katarina is married from Sweden in c1258/59, the King on the throne (Valdemar) is so young that they belong to the same generation, and cannot be daughter and father. At the time of Katarina's wedding, Sweden's regent is Birger, the country's Jarl.
Katarina is concluded to be the daughter of the then 'de facto' ruler, the Regent in Sweden. Similar misconceptions about who is King and who is Jarl, are known to occur in foreign contexts in those early centuries.
The _Cronica Principum Saxonie_ mentions about the wife of Count Sigfrid: 'Katerinam filiam regis Suecie' is wife of 'Sifridum comitem'.
In about 1259, Katarina is married to Siegfried of Anhalt, one of the brothers who rule Anhalt lands in Austphalia. Siegfried seems to have held the castles of Zerbst, Cothen & Dessau. The Anhalt family is widely interested in having connections with Scandinavian kingdoms.
(On 3 February 1258, one of count Siegfried's elder brothers, Bernhard of Anhalt had married Sofie Abelsdatter of Denmark, a daughter of the Dowager Queen Mechtild Adolfsdatter. In 1261 Mechtild became the stepmother of Regent Birger's children, by marrying the Jarl Birger.)
Author: Sjöström
|