Berengaria of Portugal () was a
Portuguese infanta, later
Queen consort of
Denmark. She was the fifth daughter of Portuguese
King Sancho I and
Dulce of Aragon. She married
Danish King Valdemar II and was the mother of Danish kings
Eric IV,
Abel and
Christopher I.
Family
Berengaria was the tenth of eleven children born to her parents. Her siblings included:
Theresa, Queen of Castile,
Sancha, Lady of Alenquer,
Constance,
Afonso II of Portugal,
Peter I of Urgell,
Ferdinand of Flanders,
Blanche, Lady of Guadalajara and
Matilda, Queen of Castile.
By the age of seventeen in 1212, Berengaria was an orphan, her father died in 1212 and her mother had died in 1198.
Her maternal grandparents were
Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, and his wife
Petronila of Aragon. Her paternal grandparents were
Afonso I of Portugal and
Maud of Savoy.
Berengaria was first cousin to the English queen
Berengaria of Navarre, wife of
Richard the Lion-hearted. Both of the Princess Berengarias were named after their grandfather Count
Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona.
Marriage
Old folk ballads says that on her deathbed,
Dagmar of Bohemia (Valdemar's first wife) begged the king to marry Kirsten, the daughter of Karl von Rise and not the "beautiful flower" Berengária. In other words she predicted Berengaria's sons' fight over the throne would bring trouble to Denmark.
Berengaria was introduced to King Valdemar through his sister,
Inegborg, the wife of King
Philip II of France, another of her cousins. Berengaria was the youngest daughter of King
Sancho I of Portugal.
Within seven years of marriage, the couple had four surviving children:
Unpopularity
Valdemar’s first wife,
Dagmar of Bohemia, had been immensely popular, blonde and with Nordic looks. Queen Berengaria was the opposite, dark-eyed, raven haired, yet a beauty in her own right. She was, however hard-hearted so that she was generally hated by Danes until her early death in 1221.
The Danes made up folk songs about the beautiful new queen and blamed her for the high taxes Valdemar levied, although the taxes went to his war efforts, not just to his Queen. The Danes still grieved over the kind-hearted Queen Dagmar, so that it wasn't easy for the new queen from Portugal to win the good-will of her husband's Danish subjects.
Death and Legacy
Queen Berengaria, after giving birth to three future kings, died in childbirth in 1221, in her 31st year. Queen Berengaria is buried in
St. Bendt's Church in
Ringsted,
Denmark, on one side of
Valdemar II, with Queen Dagmar buried on the other side of the King.
Valdemar's two queens play a prominent role in Danish ballads and myths - Dagmar as the soft, pious and popular ideal wife and Berengaria (Bengjerd) as the beautiful and haughty woman.
Ancestors
