Ingrid Svantepolksdotter (

floruit ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1350), was a Swedish noble and

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...

. She is foremost known for being the central figure in one of the famous incidents referred to as the

Maiden Abduction from Vreta The three abductions of maidens from the Vreta convent was a series of events that took place in Sweden in the 13th century. They became legendary and inspired many poems. Background The abduction of maidens for wives seems to have been an anc ...

, where she, like her mother before her, was abducted from

Vreta Abbey Vreta Abbey ( sv, Vreta kloster), in operation from the beginning of the 12th century to 1582, was the first nunnery in Sweden, initially Benedictine and later Cistercian, and one of the oldest in Scandinavia. It was located in the present-day m ...

by the man she later married. Later in life, she became an abbess at the very same abbey, in which position she served in 1323–1344. Ingrid was the daughter of

Svantepolk of Viby Svantepolk Knutsson (died ca. 1310) was a Swedish knight and councilor. He became a wealthy feudal lord in Östergötland. Biography His father was Knud Valdemarsen (ca. 1205-1260), Duke of Revelia, Blekinge and Lolland. His father was an ...

and Benedicta of Bjelbo and thereby niece of Queen Catherine of Sweden. She was engaged to the Danish noble David Torstensson, but placed in the Vreta Abbey as a child to be educated prior to marriage; her sister Catherine was also placed there, but in her case to join the order. In 1287, Ingrid was abducted by the Norwegian jarl Folke Algotsson, which became the third of the famous Maiden Abductions from Vreta, the two previous having been the abductions of her mother and maternal grandmother. Folke took her to Norway, where they married. Ingrid returned to Sweden after Folkes death in 1310. Before March 1322, she became a member of the Vreta Abbey, and in 1323, she succeeded her sister as its abbess. She abdicated in 1344, and is last mentioned in 1350, when she temporarily served as abbess between the death of the former abbess and before the election of the next.

References

*Agneta Conradi Mattsson: ''Riseberga kloster, Birger Brosa & Filipssönerna'', Vetenskapliga skrifter utgivna av Örebro läns museum 2, 1998, *

Dick Harrison Dick Walther Harrison (born 10 April 1966) is a Sweden, Swedish historian. He is currently a Professor of History at Lund University. His main areas of interest are the European Middle Ages, including the medical history of the period and the h ...

: ''Jarlens sekel - En berättelse om 1200-talets Sverige'', Ordfront, Stockholm, 2002, *Kristin Parikh: ''Kvinnoklostren på Östgötaslätten under medeltiden. Asketiskt ideal - politisk realitet'', Lund University Press, Lund, 1991 * {{authority control Swedish Roman Catholic abbesses 14th-century Swedish nobility 14th-century Swedish nuns