Valdemar II of Denmark

"Valdemar the Victorious" redirects here. For the novel by Bernhard Severin Ingemann, see Valdemar the Victorious (novel).

Valdemar II (1170–1241), called Valdemar the Conqueror or Valdemar the Victorious, was the King of Denmark from 1202 until 1241.

He was the second son of King Valdemar I and Sophia of Polotsk, a Varangian princess. In 1202, Valdemar II succeeded his childless elder brother Canute VI after serving him for years. He is counted among the greatest of Danish (medieval) kings. In 1204 he secured the recognition of Norway as kingdom. In the 1210s he began to expand the Danish influence in the crusade against the last remaining pagan tribes on the opposite shores of the Baltic Sea. His greatest achievement was the subjugation of northern Estonians after the decisive Battle of Lyndanisse which took place near Lyndanisse (Tallinn) on June 25, 1219. According to legend a red cloth with a white cross fell from the sky during the battle, and from this day on that symbol, called the Dannebrog, has been the Danish flag.

Denmark was at the height of its power but in 1223 Valdemar was captured by his vassal, the Count of Schwerin and was released in 1226 only at the condition of giving up most of his conquests in north Germany. In 1227 Valdemar invaded Northern Germany in an attempt to regain his lost territories but was disastrously defeated in the Battle of Bornhöved (July 22, 1227). This defeat marked the end of Danish domination of the southern Baltic sea, but Estonia was preserved. He spent the remainder of his life codifying the law which was completed shortly before his death - Code of Jutland (Jyske Lov, see also Codex Holmiensis).

By his brief first marriage to Margarethe of Bohemia, known also as Queen Dagmar, he had one son, Valdemar, whom he elevated as co-king, but who predeceased him. After Margaret's death he married again, this time with a Portuguese princess, Berengária, daughter of king Sancho I of Portugal. They had three sons, Eric IV of Denmark, Abel of Denmark, and Christopher I of Denmark, and one daughter, Sophie. His two queens play an outstanding role in Danish ballads and myths - Dagmar as the soft, pious and popular ideal wife and Berengária as the beautiful and haughty woman – but both versions are incapable of proof. Before his first marriage Valdemar had been engaged with Rixa of Bavaria, daughter of the Duke of Saxony. King Valdemar also had at least two bastard sons, Canute (Knud) whom he elevated as Duke of Reval (Estonia), Lolland, and Blekinge, born of a noblewoman Helena Guttormsdotter of Swedish birth and wife of an important Danish nobleman, and Nicolas (Niels) whom he elevated as Count of Halland.

Because of his position as ”the king of Dannebrog” and as a legislator Valdemar enjoys a central position of Danish history. To posterity the civil wars and dissolution that followed his death made him appear the last king of a golden age.