Ingegerd Knutsdotter

Who was Ingegerd Knutsdotter?

Ingegerd Knutsdotter was a Swedish nun and noble, the first official abbess of the Bridgettine Abbey of Vadstena in 1385/88–1403.

Ingegerd Knutsdotter was the daughter of Märtha Ulfsdotter and Knut Algotsson, and the maternal grandchild of Saint Bridget of Sweden. She was inducted into the Vadstena Abbey in 1374 at the age of eighteen, the same year as the body of Bridget was returned to Sweden. In 1385, she became abbess, although the abbey was still not officially recognized. On 18 May 1388, after the Vadstena Abbey was officially recognized by the Pope, she was ordained as its first official abbess.

During her tenure, she received the Union Queen Margaret when the monarch claimed to have had a vision, kissed the hands of all the members of the convent and was ordained as a lay sister. In 1400 the city of Vadstena was granted city rights by Queen Margaret on Ingegerd's request.

Ingegerd was accused for forgery of the convent's documents, for embezzlement of the convent's property, and for having brought the abbey to disrepute by breaking the vow of chastity. It was a great scandal, as she was related to Saint Bridget. Ingegerd was accused of having "consorted too intimately" with both worldly men as well as men of the church. She embezzled from the taxes to the Pope and gave it to her relative, Bishop Canute of Linköping, who cooperated with her in draining the Abbey's assets by accepting her forged seals as genuine. She was to have persuaded the monk Lucas Jacobi to break his vows and let him enter the female section of the abbey, where he destroyed the Letter of Privilege of the Vadstena Abbey by the Pope, and prevented six monks from being ordained to priesthood because they had refused to broke their vows. The Abbey complained to Queen Margaret, but without result, as Ingegerd enjoyed great status as the granddaughter of Saint Bridget.