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In this series of blog posts we will take a look at some women who have played an important role in Swedish history.

First off is Sweden’s first papally canonized saint: Saint Bridget/Birgitta of Sweden. Her importance in Swedish medieval history and Christian history can not be overlooked.

In this blogpost I will paint a portrait of a captivating woman by going through her life and work, including;

• Birgitta’s life and family
• Her years at Alvastra monastery
• The vision of a new religious order
• Birgitta’s canonization

Early life and family

Birgitta Birgersdotter was born around 1303 to Birger Persson and Ingeborg Bengtsdotter. Birger was a member of the Swedish Council of the Realm (a council that advised the king), a knight and lawman of Uppland. Ingeborg was a distant relative of the royal family. Birgitta’s family was simply put one of the wealthiest and most influential in Sweden.

It is said that Birgitta received her first divine revelations when she was just a young girl. These revelations would continue to come to her throughout her life.

When she was around 13, Birgitta was married to Ulf Gudmarsson. Ulf would eventually become the lawman of Närke as well as a member of the Council of the Realm. Ulf and Birgitta would live in Ulvåsa, Östergötland – not too far away from Vadstena.

The marriage between Ulf and Birgitta resulted in the birth of eight children – four sons and four daughters.

Birgitta with the royal couple

In 1335, King Magnus Eriksson married Blanche of Namur (a province in modern-day Belgium). Birgitta was chosen to be Blanche’s magistrata (teacher/mentor). As Blanche’s teacher, she gained insight into the young royal couple’s lifestyle. Birgitta thought that they spent too much time and money on lavish banquets and not enough time devoted to God. The royal couple had many palaces that they would travel to and live in at different times and Vadstena palace was one of these places. Birgitta became very familiar with the local geography of Vadstena.

Birgitta’s years at Alvastra monastery

During a pilgrimage that Birgitta and Ulf took to Santiago de Compostela in 1341-1342, Ulf became ill. On their way home they stopped at Alvastra monastery, where Ulf later died around 1344. After his death it is said that Birgitta took off her wedding ring and threw it away. She would henceforth dedicate her life to God. 

During her years at Alvastra monastery (ca. 1344-1349), Birgitta received a lot of revelations which she wrote down in Swedish (medieval Swedish). Her revelations number over 600, which makes her the most prolific writer in medieval Sweden.

Revelations in the middle ages were however not automatically from God- they could be from the Devil. This is where an important figure in Birgitta’s life came in- Mathias Ovidi (Mats Övidsson), sometimes called Mathias Lincopensis (Mathias from Linköping). He was one of Sweden’s greatest Christian theologians and second only to Birgitta in the quantity of published works in Sweden during the middle ages.

They met during her time in Alvastra, and Mathias’ authority as a theologian made him capable of discerning whether Birgitta’s visions came from God or Satan. Fortunately for Birgitta, her revelations were deemed to come from none other than God. Sometime before Ulf’s death, Mathias became Birgitta’s Confessor. Mathias died in the 1350’s.

At Alvastra she met two others of great importance. These two were Petrus Olavi- Prior of Alvastra monastery, and Petrus Olavi of Skänninge who would later become Birgitta’s Confessor. These two men would translate Birgitta’s visions from Swedish to Latin (the language of the Church).

Birgitta’s vision of a new religious order

At Alvastra she received a vision that she would create a new religious order: Ordo Sanctissimi Salvatoris, or “The Order of the Most Holy Savior”. For simplicity’s sake the order is often called the Bridgettine Order and its followers are known as Bridgettines. She also received a vision that she should travel to Rome and have her new order approved by the Pope.

In 1346, King Magnus Eriksson and Queen Blanche willed several of their royal estates in Östergötland and Västergötland to the Church. The royal palace in Vadstena was to be donated to a future monastery that would be located in Vadstena. In Magnus’ and Blanche’s initial will, they wrote that Vadstena palace would be granted to the Church and that a gravkyrka (a church where the royal couple and their descendants would be buried) should be constructed. Birgitta had at this time received her visions of a monastery in Vadstena. The problem was that her vision did not align with Magnus’ and Blanche’s, which caused a schism between them. Magnus’ and Blanche’s will was later approved by their son Håkan Magnusson in 1362. However, Håkan did not approve the construction of the gravkyrka. This paved the way for the eventual construction of Birgitta’s monastery and Abbey church. 

Birgitta in Rome- humanitarian and architect

Around 1349, Birgitta departed for Rome with the intention of gaining the Pope’s approval of her new order. Birgitta was not alone in her travels to Rome. She traveled with Petrus Olavi of Alvastra. Petrus Olavi of Skänninge would join them in Rome shortly after and one of Birgitta’s daughters, Katarina, joined them in 1350. The Papacy however, had for political reasons moved to Avignon in Southern France in 1309. It would take a long time for the Pope to return to Rome- until 1367. Pope Urban V was the first Pope in many years to return to Rome. When he did arrive in Rome, he met with Birgitta and eventually approved her order in 1370.

What did Birgitta do in Rome between 1349-1367?

• She pleaded to the Pope to return to Rome, which she believed was his rightful seat.
• She tried to broker a peace treaty between England and France who were at war.
• She helped people around Rome by giving alms and visiting people in hospitals.
• She visitited every church in Rome.
• She helped prostitutes out of their situation.
• She planned the foundations of her future monastery, religious order and Abbey church. Birgitta was in other words the chief architect of Vadstena Abbey church. 

When her order was approved she sent one of her followers to Vadstena to make sure construction began on her new monastery and church.

Birgitta’s final pilgrimages and death

In 1353 she undertook a pilgrimage to Assisi in Italy, the birthplace of Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) – founder of the Franciscan Order. She set off on another pilgrimage to various places in Southern Italy during the 1360’s. Undoubtedly her most important pilgrimage was to Jerusalem. She departed from Italy in November 1371 and reached Jerusalem in May 1372. She was now in her late 60’s, and this would be her last pilgrimage. She traveled to Jerusalem with a few people, among them the two Petrus Olavi and her daughter Katarina

During the summer of 1372, Birgitta and her retinue visited many of the pilgrim-  and holy sites around Jerusalem. During this time she received many visions, and this proved to be one of the most productive times in Birgitta’s life, in regards to written revelations. One of the most famous and important revelations from this time is when she witnessed the birth of Christ. She saw Mother Mary deliver Christ in a kneeling position rather than laying down. This vision impacted the artistic representation of the birth of Christ.

In the spring of 1373, Birgitta was back in Rome and on July 23^rd of that year she died, around 70 years old. Her daughter Katarina was with by her side when she died. Birgitta’s body was placed in a wooden coffin. This wodden coffin can be seen today at Sancta Birgitta Klostermuseum.

Birgitta’s body’s return to Vadstena

In December 1373, Birgitta’s body began its long procession back to Sweden. In total, there were around twenty people who were part of this funeral procession from Rome to Vadstena. The retinue made several stops along the way due to people wanting to pay their respects to Birgitta. They finally reached Vadstena on July 4^th 1374 and the coffin was placed in a wooden chapel. In 1381, her remains were moved from the coffin to a reliquary (an ornate box or container that functions as a shrine) where they are still said to be kept to this day. This reliquary can still be seen in Vadstena Klosterkyrka.

Birgitta’s canonization

Birgitta’s daughter Katarina would continue her mother’s work on the monastery and Abbey church and would also initiate a movement to canonize Birgitta. Katarina would be the first head of Birgitta’s monastery, although she never held the title of Abbess. Katarina died in 1381, and Birgitta’s canonization process would suffer because of this. It would take another powerful woman to convince the papacy to expedite the canonization of Birgitta – this was Queen Margaret I of the Kalmar Union. At last, on October 7^th 1391, Pope Boniface IX canonized Birgitta Birgersdotter, and she became Saint Birgitta, or Saint Bridget of Sweden.

The Bridgettine Order

Birgitta was dead, but her work and legacy would live on through the Bridgettine Order. Birgitta’s monastery was a double monastery, in other words open for both monks and nuns. Her double monastery would be unique in that it would be run by an Abbess rather than an Abbott. Another unique feature was that there would always be a greater focus on the nuns than the monks. The monastery was officially inaugurated in 1384 and the first Abbess was Ingegärd Knutsdotter, a grandchild of Birgitta.

Birgitta’s legacy

An aspect of Birgitta’s life that is often unknown to most people is her role in Magnus Eriksson’s crusades against the Novgorod Republic in 1348. Almost everybody in Sweden has heard of Saint Birgitta. However, when I hold my guided tours at Sancta Birgitta Klostermuseum and talk about her active role in launching a crusade, people are genuinely surprised and sometimes visibly appalled.

Birgitta persuaded King Magnus that he should spread the true (Catholic) Christianity to the heretical (Orthodox) Christians in modern-day Western Russia. Magnus’ troops successfully conquered Nöteborg (a town and fortress just East of St. Petersburg) in 1348 and a Swedish garrison was stationed there . However, in 1349, the Russians laid siege to Nöteborg and reclaimed the fortress and town. There wasn’t much Magnus could do – many Swedish troops had died during the crusade and he had bigger problems to worry about… That same year, a ship drifted into a harbor in Bergen, Norway. The crew were dead, with black swollen boils on their bodies. The bubonic plague had reached Norway, and it would reach Sweden the following year.

Final thoughts

Birgitta was a complex person, deeply flawed and possessing virtuous as well as disreputable qualities. She had many supporters as well as critics during her lifetime, and that hasn’t changed in almost 600 years. If we look at how she was often described in the turn of the last century, she was presented as a pious and righteous messenger of God. In later years, a more nuanced portrait of Birgitta has gained traction. Personally, when I am guiding at Sancta Birgitta klostermuseum, I want to bring up all aspects about her life; her role as a mother, a wife, a widow, a teacher, a religious icon, a saint and most importantly according to me, how she was a as a person.

Birgitta criticized a lot of people during her life time, such as Magnus Eriksson, the Papacy and the Kings of England and France. The fact that she came from a priveliged family was probably one of the reasons why she could “get away with it”. Another possible reason for why she could criticize powerful men without any repurcusions was because of her connection to God. As stated earlier, her revelations were seen as legitimate, and speaking out against a messenger of God was perhaps not the wisest move.

No matter what one’s opinion is on Birgitta, I think everyone can agree that she was a very resourceful woman with a strong will and the determination to make things happen. She was a remarkable woman in the truest sense of the word as she;

• was married at 13
• was a mother of eight children
• was widowed at around 40
• was related to the royal family
• was a teacher for Queen Blanche
• helped organize a crusade against the Novgorod Republic
• criticized people with a lot of power
• met some of the most influential people of her time in Europe
• took pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem (the latter during her last year alive when she was old and frail)
• established a new religious order
• organized and designed Vadstena Abbey and its Abbey church
• became canonized

In 1999 Saint Bridget of Sweden was made one of Europe’s patron saints.

Sources

• Harrison, Dick. Nordiska korståg (2019). Historiska Media.
• Harrison, Dick. Heliga Birgitta (2021). Historiska Media.
• Nylund, Jan-Erik; Sigurdsson, Julia & Zachrisson, Sune. Vadstena klosterområde genom tusen år (2020). Birgittastiftelsen.
• Sigurdsson, Julia & Zachrisson, Sune. Aplagårdar och Klosterliljor: 800 år kring Vadstena klosters historia (2019). 2nd edition. Artos & Norma bokförlag.

All pictures, except where stated, are copyright Jeremy Hobbs