Erik IX den Hellige Sverkersson Sweden ^{1 2}

   Cause of his death was murder.

  General Notes:

Eric IX of Sweden (or Erik the Lawgiver or Eric the Saint. In Swedish he is simply known as Erik den helige which roughly equals Saint Eric) was a Swedish king between 1150 and 1160. Eric was an Upland lord, son of a lord Jedvard (Edward), due to which contemporary sources call him also Eric Jedvardson. He was a rival king, from 1150, to Sverker the Elder who had ascended the throne c 1130 and was murdered 1156, after which Eric was recognized in most or all provinces. Eric's reign ended when he was murdered in Uppsala. He's said to have been murdered by Emund Ulvbane, an assassin who was hired by people working for the Sverker dynasty, in order for them to regain the control of the kingdom, or alternatively by Magnus Henriksson, another claimant, who is said in some sources to have succeeded him briefly as king. People from Svealand recognized a miracle after Erik's death, since a fountain sprang from the earth where the king's head fell after being chopped off.

He would later be made a (regionally recognized) saint whose feast day is 18 May. The relic casket of Eric is on display in Uppsala cathedral (Uppsala domkyrka). The casket contains bones of a male, with traces of injury to the neck. Eric is the patron saint of Stockholm and depicted in the city's coat of arms. He had a nationalistic church policy. Sweden honored him as national (patron) saint, although Pope Alexander III forbade his cult 1172, when his son, king Knut Ericsson quarreled with the Swedish and Roman church. It was an important asset to Eric's family to have a saint in the ancestry. The pope used a pretext that Eric was a drunk who died as result of fight in a group of drunks.

Around 1155, he apparently made an expedition to Southwestern Finland, with an English-born cleric Henry (who became Finnish regional saint St Henry the Bishop. Later, this small and probably inconclusive expedition has been labeled as a crusade and as the start of the Swedish dominion of Finland, although history research has brought evidence that no permanent dominion or administration was built in Finland at that time.

In order to strengthen his position as king, Eric succeeded to marry Christina Bjornsdatter, a Danish noblewoman, a granddaughter of king Inge I of Sweden. Christina's father was the Danish royal son Björn Ironside Haraldsson and her mother was Catherine of Sweden, youngest daughter of King Inge.
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... Sweden in the 12th century consisted of Svealand and Götaland, which were united into a single kingdom during the first half of that century, while the provinces of Skåne, Halland, and Blekinge in the south belonged to Denmark; Bohuslän in the west, along with Jämtland and Härjedalen in the north, were part of Norway. About 1130 Sverker, a member of a magnate family from Östergötland, was acknowledged as king, and this province now became the political centre of Sweden. Sverker sided with the church and established several cloisters staffed by French monks; he was murdered about 1156. During the later years of Sverker's reign, a pretender named Erik Jedvardsson was proclaimed king in Svealand; little is known about Erik, but according to legend he undertook a crusade to Finland, died violently about 1160, and was later canonized as the patron saint of Sweden.
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Erikslekten var konger i Sverige fra 1156 til 1250 i konkurranse med Sverkerslekten (1134-1222). Stadige kamper medvirket til at begge slektene døde ut. Kongemakten gikk da til Folkungeslekten som var inngiftet i Erikslekten.
Kong Erik virket ivrig for å fremme kristendommen i Sverige. Han foretok også et korstog til Finland i 1156 og kristnet landet.
Erik ble overfalt og drept av Magnus Henriksson. Han ble begravet i Gamle Uppsala. Eriks levninger ble, trolig i juli 1273, overført til Uppsala, der St. Eriks skrin nå befinner seg bak høyalteret i domkirken.
Hans bilde er en del av Stockholms byvåpen.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Acceded: King of Sweden, 1156.

Erik married Christina Bjørnsdatter, daughter of Bjørn Haraldsson Jernside and Katarina Ingesdotter. (Christina Bjørnsdatter was born circa 1125.)