Eric of Pomerania makes Sigurd Jonsson drottsete
DN 16/106 · 3 Septbr. 1439 · Visborg
What the letter says
King Eric of Pomerania announces at Visborg on Gotland on 3 September 1439 that the Norwegian Council of the Realm and the common people have asked for a drottsete, and that they have proposed three men: Olav Håkonsson, Erlend Endridsson and Sigurd Jonsson. On the advice of the Norwegian councillors who are with him, the king chooses Sigurd Jonsson as drottsete over all Norway. Sigurd is to take the accounts of the king's bailiffs, send the king his revenues and govern by law and justice while the king is away. If the king dies, Sigurd is to serve the king's cousin Duke Bugislav of Pomerania in the same way, and everyone in Norway is to obey him.
The letter in modern English
We Eric, by the grace of God king of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Wends and the Goths and duke in Pomerania, announce and acknowledge with this our open letter to all who are now and who are to come, that our beloved council and good men of Norway, bishops, prelates, knights and squires, and the whole common community and people, have written to us and given us to understand that they wished to have a drottsete there in the realm, for the common good of us and the realm and for the realm's endurance. Therefore they have put before us three to choose from among our council and good men in Norway, namely Olav Håkonsson, Erlend Endridsson and Sigurd Jonsson, so that we should appoint one of them as drottsete, and they have urgently advised and humbly asked us to do so. Because we gladly see the common good of the realm and of the realm's inhabitants and their endurance, as we are bound to, we will gladly follow this.
Original text
Wij Erik med gudz nathe Norghes Danmarks Suerighes Wendes oc Godes koning oc hertugh [j] Pomern kungøre oc kennes med thette wort opne breff for alle the som nw ære oc kommende wurdhe at effter thet at wort [elske]lighe Radh oc godhe men aff Norghe Biscope prelate Riddere oc swene oc gantze mene menhet oc almughe haue oss til screuit oc ladit oss vndersta there begere at the wilde haue een drotzste ther j Rikit for thet mene wort oc Rikesins beste oc bestand sculd oc haue for thy lacht oss thre
Background
Sigurd Jonsson (c. 1390 to c. 1453) was the owner of Giske and Sudreim and a grandson of Sigurd Havtoresson through his mother. Eric of Pomerania had been king of the whole Kalmar Union, but in 1439 Danish and Swedish magnates renounced him, and he sat in the castle of Visborg on Gotland. Norway held on to him longer, and this letter shows that the king had to give in to the Norwegian Council of the Realm's demand for a drottsete (steward of the realm), a regent who could govern the country when the king was not there. Sigurd's great-grandfather Erling Vidkunsson of Giske and Bjarkøy had held the same office from 1323 to 1331/32, and with this appointment a descendant of his held it again, about a hundred years later. The bailiffs were the king's officials in the fiefs (len), and the drottsete was to receive their accounts.
People: Sigurd Jonsson