VALDEMAR I., king of Denmark (1131-1182), the son of Canute Lavard and the Russian princess Ingeborg, was born a week after his father's murder, and was brought up in the religious and relatively enlightened household of Asser Rig, whose sons Absalon and Esbjorn Snare, or "the Swift," were his playmates. On the death of King Eric Lam in 1147 Valdemar came forward as one of the three pretenders to the Danish crown, Jutland falling to his portion (compact of Roskilde [1157]). Narrowly escaping assassination, at a banquet a few days later, at the hands of his rival, King Sweyn III., he succeeded only with the utmost diffi culty in escaping to Jutland, but on Oct. 23 utterly routed Sweyn at the great battle of Grathe Heath, near Viborg, Sweyn perishing in his flight from the field.
Valdemar had no longer a competitor. He was the sole male survivor of the ancient royal line ; his valour and ability were universally recognized, and in Absalon, elected bishop of Roskilde in 1158, he possessed a minister of equal genius and patriotism. The first efforts of the new monarch were directed against the Wendish pirates who infested the Baltic and made not merely the political but even the commercial development of the Danish state impossible. What the Northmen were to the Western powers in the 8th and 9th the Wends were to the Scandinavian lands in the and 12th centuries. At the beginning of the reign of Valde mar the whole of the Danish eastern coast lay wasted and depopu lated. Arkona, the chief sanctuary, and Garz, the political capital of the Wends, in the island of Rilgen, were captured in 1169 by a great expedition under the command of Valdemar and Absalon; the hideous colossal idol of Ragievit was chopped into firewood for the Danish caldrons, and the Wends were christened at the point of the sword.
This triumph was only obtained, however, after a fierce struggle of ten years, in which the Danes were much hampered by the un certain and selfish co-operation of their German allies, chief among whom was Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, who appropriated the lion's share of the spoil. For at the begin ning of his reign Valdemar leaned largely upon the Germans and even went the length, against the advice of Absalon, of acknowl edging the overlordship of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the diet of Dole, 1162. Very different was Valdemar's second conference with Barbarossa, on the banks of the Eider, in 1182, when the two monarchs met as equals in the presence of their respective armies and a double marriage was arranged between two of Valdemar's daughters and two of the emperor's sons.
The only serious domestic trouble during Valdemar's reign was the rebellion of the Scanian provinces, which objected to the establishment of a strong monarchy inimical to local pretensions and disturbances, and especially to the heavy taxes and tithes necessary to support the new reign of law and order, The rising was ultimately suppressed by Absalon at the battle of Dysiaa, ii81. In the following year King Valdemar died.