Denmark seems to have been a stable country during the kingship of Eric III Håkønssøn Lam, ruling from 1137, and some contemporary sources speak very highly of him.

The first Danish king who seems to have been strongly influenced by German culture, he had spent his early youth among German knights whose ideals have marked most of his later life.

Also his queen, Lutgard of Salzwedel, is a German.

The reasons for his abdication (the only one by a Danish king) are unknown; he enters a convent in 1146 and dies this same year, and the illness that has killed him may well have been the main reason.

At the abdication of Eric, Sweyn Grathe, the illegitimate son of Erik II Emune and a mistress, has been elected a king on the large island of Zealand (Sjaelland) but for the next years he will have to fight against his rival …