Battle of Fotevik 1134
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
About the battle
Battle of Fotevik (Danish: Slaget ved Fodevig) was fought between forces of King Niels of Denmark and his son Magnus Nielsen, against those of Erik Emune on 4 June 1134 at the bay of Fotevik in Skåne.
At his death, King Eric I of Denmark had two known sons who were candidates for succession to the throne, Canute Lavard and Erik Emune. Canute, as Eric's only legitimate son, had a particularly strong claim. When King Eric's younger brother Niels was selected instead, becoming King Niels, Canute was forced to flee. In January 1131 he was trapped in a forest near Ringsted in Zealand, and killed. Some sources consider it to have been a murder committed by Magnus Nielsen, while some attribute it to King Niels himself. The new king and his son soon found themselves in a civil war against Lavard's half-brother Eric Emune. The death of Canute Lavard had provoked a civil war that would last intermittently until 1157.
At the Battle of Fotevik, the forces of King Niels were taken by surprise by a contingent of German soldiers on horses. Cavalry attack on a large scale had previously only rarely been used in Scandinavia. Magnus Nielsen was slain, together with the six (possibly five) bishops and a large number of the priests accompanying the invading army.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Fotevik (revision 1366176514), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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