Johan Sverkersson the elder

Johan Sverkersson (in Old Icelandic sources called Jón jarl Sørkvisson), who died between 1150 and 1153, was the eldest son of King Sverker the Elder of Sweden and his queen Ulfhild Håkansdotter. He had a role in the outbreak of a war between Sweden and Denmark in the 1150s.

Background and family

Johan was born in the early 1130s as the son of the recently elevated King Sverker and Queen Ulfhild, the former wife of King Niels of Denmark. Most probably he was the eldest son of the king, his junior siblings being Karl Sverkersson, Helena Sverkersdotter and Ingeborg Sverkersdotter. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, he was "a very valiant but not very courteous man". Preserved lists of donations to the Catholic Church indicate that he married a lady called Ragnhild, probably a relative of Guttorm who was jarl under the reign of Karl Sverkersson (1161-1167). According to a medieval genealogy Johan must have been the father of the two subsequent contenders for the Swedish throne, Kol and Burislev, and another man named Ubbe the Strong. This has been accepted by some historians, such as Adolf Schück, and Lars O. Lagerqvist and Nils Åberg. Some conclude from circumstantial evidence that Johan also had a son called Knut, born around 1152 and mentioned as late as the 1190s, and a daughter Cecilia, speculated to have been the consort to King Knut Eriksson. According to a seventeenth-century source, Johan might have had another son, called Alf, who died young and, like Burislev, was interred in Vreta Abbey. Johan is known in Icelandic sources as Jón jarl, and in Swedish genealogies as Johannes dux. Saxo mentions him without a title.

Some time later, in about 1152 or 1153, Prince Johan appeared at a Thing where he was killed by an enraged peasantry. He cannot have been much more than 20 years of age when he met his violent end. The incident might have been caused by his recent transgressions. As a result of the killing, a conflict arose between Sverker and his people. Sweyn III took advantage of the turmoil and intervened in the southern province Småland in 1153–54. The war was not a success, however. His full brother Karl Sverkersson became king in 1161. After Karl's violent death in 1167 at the hand of Knut Eriksson, Johan's young sons Kol and Burislev headed the party of the House of Sverker for a while but were also slain by Knut by 1172/73. Their brother Ubbe the Strong might be the same person as Ulf Jarl who flourished in the 1160s.