6-464: The House of Estridsen was a dynasty that provided the kings of Denmark from 1047 to 1412. The dynasty is named after its ancestor Estrid Svendsdatter . The dynasty is sometimes called the Ulfinger , after Estrid's husband, Ulf Jarl . The dynasty also provided three medieval rulers of Sweden and one of Norway . Their family coat of arms became the coat of arms of Denmark and thereby influenced
12-772: The House of Knýtlinga , daughter of Sweyn Forkbeard and sister of Cnut the Great . Later genealogies (introduced by the Danish historian Jakob Langebek in the 18th century) trace the family from Jomsviking leader Styrbjörn the Strong , a scion of the Swedish royal family, who in turn is given a descent from legendary King Sigurd Hring , regarded as mythical by most modern historians (no actual sources mention such an ancestry). Reliable ancestry traces back no earlier than Ulf's own father,
18-569: The coat of arms of Tallinn and the coat of arms of Estonia . The Royal Court of Denmark does not differentiate between different royal houses among the early Danish kings, but uses the term "the descent of Gorm the Old " about all the pre- Oldenburg monarchs. The name of the Estridsen dynasty recalls their acquisition of the Danish crown through the marriage of Ulf the Earl to Estrid Svendsdatter of
24-559: The eldest son or brother of the previous king was usually elected) until 1660, when it became hereditary and absolutist . Until 1864 Denmark was also united in a personal union with the duchies of Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg (1815–1864), and in a political and personal union with the Duchy of Schleswig . The exact date of origin of the Kingdom of Denmark is not established, but names of Danish kings begins to emerge in foreign sources from
30-460: The obscure Thorgil Sprakling and grandfather Björn (in sources called Ursius ), the latter thus alternatively being identified as the above Styrbjörn by Langebek. The dynasty reached its peak with the Kalmar Union , when its members reigned as kings of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in personal union . The dynasty came to end in 1412 with the death of its last member Queen Margaret I . All of
36-627: The subsequent monarchs of Denmark are cognatic descendants of the House of Estridsen. List of Danish monarchs This is a list of Danish monarchs , that is, the kings and queen regnants of Denmark. This includes: The House of Oldenburg held the Danish Crown between 1448 and 1863, when it passed to the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg , a cadet branch of the same house, patrilineally descended from King Christian III of Denmark . The kingdom had been elective (although
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