The House of Eric (Swedish: Erikska ätten) was one of the two clans, which were rivals for the kingship of Sweden between 1150 and 1220. The first king from the clan of the Erics who had won the power struggle against the Sverkers was Eric IX of Sweden whom the later world has dubbed Saint Eric. During this period, the individual provinces of the realm still had a high degree of independence, as is indicated by the Swedish provincial laws of the 13th century.
The clan of St Eric favored the Varnhem Abbey, and several of its members lay interred there.
Foremother of the dynasty was Eric IX's wife Christina Björnsdatter, whom legends claim to have been the maternal granddaughter of king Inge I of Sweden.
The female first name Catherine seems to have been favored within the Erik dynasty.
In 1226, two branches of the dynasty came into conflict: Canute the Tall, allegedly the adult heir of Filip, younger son of Eric IX, deposed the underage Eric XI, the Lisp and Lame (läspe och halte), who resumed the kingship only in 1234, and died in 1250. Conflict continued between the royal, senior branch and Canute's two sons until the latter were executed in 1248 and 1251.
Eric XI was the last king of the agnatic line of this dynasty and he died apparently without surviving children (though some romantic genealogies, and later research influenced by them, have attributed one or two daughters to him; those ladies were more likely daughters of his sister and Birger jarl).
Eric XI's nephew, the then underage son of his sister Ingeborg, was elected king Valdemar I of Sweden, under the regency of his father Birger Jarl.
Almost all the subsequent kings of Sweden have been descendants of the House of Eric. Descent from this house was regarded as such hard currency in medieval and early modern power games that some aspirants (most notably Charles VIII of Sweden) even fabricated a descent (see Tofta) to show that they too were heirs of the House of Erik.
Famous quotes containing the words house of, house and/or eric:
“You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it—low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion—and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Mark, 3:25.
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)