Johan Gregersson Malsta

• Son of Gregers Johansson (Malstaätten) and Margareta Birgersdotter (Sparre av Hjulsta och Ängsö)

The Swedish Diplomatarium's Main Catalog of Medieval Letters

SDHK no: 10898

• Dating: 1376 October 27
• Place of issue: Care eater

Issuer: Archbishop Birger in Uppsala and Kettil Johansson

Content

Birger (Gregersson), archbishop of Uppsala, and Kettil Johansson transfer in the presence of Nils Petersson, subaltern in Uppland, and Gisle Uddsson 20 1/2 markland and 3 penningland of land, which estate they legally inherited from Birger's and his late brother Johan Gregersson's father and mother, their late aunt Katarina Johansdotter and uncle Tomas (Johansson), bishop in Växjö. Hereby, Birger receives 7 öresland of land in "Hesleby" in (Bond-)Arnö parish, 1 öresland in Säby in the same parish, 17 öresland and 1 herbage land in Kunsta in Adelsö parish, 2 öresland in Malsta (in Malsta parish), 1 öresland in Lidö in Vätö parish, 21 öresland and 1 örtugland in Örby in Lagga parish, 4 1/2 öresland in Ängeby in Börje parish and 1/2 arable land in Bergby in Vallentuna parish. Kettil Johansson receives 2 acres of land in Upplunda in (Roslags-)Bro parish, 2 acres of land in Malsta (in Malsta parish), 1 öresland in Tälje in Frötuna parish, 4 öresland in Åkerö in the same parish, 1 öresland in Lidö (in Vätö parish), 17 öresland and 13 penninglands in Ekeby in Malsta parish, 12 öresland in Sund in (Roslags-)Bro parish, 1 /2 land in Marma in Lagga parish, 11 1/2 öresland and 6 penningland in Ängeby (in Börje parish), 1/2 land in Bergby (in Vallentuna parish) and 2 örtugland in Marjum in Söderby parish. Birger and Kettil Johansson each promise separately to never prevent the shift for the other party from now on. They further explain that two identical letters shall be drawn up on this parcel, one of which shall be kept by Birger, the other by Kettil. 1/2 land in Marma in Lagga parish, 11 1/2 öresland and 6 penningland in Ängeby (in Börje parish), 1/2 land in Bergby (in Vallentuna parish) and 2 örtugland in Marjum in Söderby parish. Birger and Kettil Johansson each promise separately to never prevent the shift for the other party from now on. They further explain that two identical letters shall be drawn up on this parcel, one of which shall be kept by Birger, the other by Kettil. 1/2 land in Marma in Lagga parish, 11 1/2 öresland and 6 penningland in Ängeby (in Börje parish), 1/2 land in Bergby (in Vallentuna parish) and 2 örtugland in Marjum in Söderby parish. Birger and Kettil Johansson each promise separately to never prevent the shift for the other party from now on. They further explain that two identical letters shall be drawn up on this parcel, one of which shall be kept by Birger, the other by Kettil.

The letter is sealed - like the other mentioned copy - by the knights Karl Ulfsson, lawman in Uppland, Arvid Gustavsson, lawman in Österland, further by (armsmen) Nils Petersson and Gisle Uddsson and by the issuers.

SEAL Seal: no. 1 missing from the seal strip remaining in the letter; no. 2 round of brown wax, diameter 2.9 cm (heraldic seal, see SMV I, p. 208 and variant of Kettil Johansson's seal in letter 1382 11/7, RPB no. 1741): + S Kettel (…) on (… ); no. 3 round of brown wax, damaged, diameter approx. 2.9 cm (heraldic seal, see SMV I, p. 118 and better preserved e.g. for letter 1374 8/9, DS no. 8639): + [S' K ]aroli ‧ W[lphs on militia]; No. 4 only minor fragments of brown wax; no. 5 missing from the seal strip remaining in the letter; No. 6 only seal bag of purple linen.

Additional text On the back: 62 Littera ‧ dominj ‧ B irgeri ‧ archiepiscopi Vpsal e n sis super divisione ‧ pre[ di ]orum f inter ipsum et Katillu m Joans on facta, Hesleby g vj (Uppsala cathedral's box sign; see L. Sjödin in MRA 1939, p. 125) Drawing of Kettil Johansson's coat of arms (cf. SMV I, p. 208). Text on the seal strip to no. 6: (…) half ellopte markland oc t (…) g ortoghland jord ‧ (…) hær æpt er følghia ‧ j ‧ Wplund tw m a rkland jordh ‧ j Telghiom ‧ j ‧ Frøtuna sokn eet [%E2%80%A6] .

Malsta Family,by the Swedish Biographical Dictionary

The Malsta family, modern name (I think it was first used by BE Hildebrand) of a salvation family, whose seat for several generations was Malsta in Malsta parish in Uppland. Its distinctive coat of arms, a split shield with one field cut several times, was also carried by another Upland family. To the latter belonged the canon Magnus Bosson (d. 1289), who in Lund in 1285 was consecrated archbishop of Uppsala but died before he had time to receive the Pope's pallium, his brother Riksrådet Bengt Bosson (d. 1335 or 1336) and the latter's son Riksrådet Magnus Bengtsson ( d 1335). Considering the distinctive coat of arms, it is noteworthy that one of M's oldest members was called Gregers, which first name was also borne by Birger Earl's illegitimate son (d 1276), the progenitor of the so-called illegitimate Folkunga family (vol. 16). This man's weapon was also cut several times -but without cleavage - and he also had estates in Uppland. However, no kinship or even contact with these families has been proven. On the other hand, there is both an indication of kinship and repeated sealing contact between M and the Upland Sandbro family, which also has the names Gregers and Johan in common with M but carried a completely different coat of arms. Whether - and if so how - the two genera were fringed, however, has not been able to be investigated.

A Johan in Malsta appears as early as 1298 among the aunts - apparently saviors as well as priests and farmers - at one of the archbishop's purchases of property in Uppland and again in 1317 in a somewhat more savior-oriented circle of witnesses in a will to the Dominican monastery in Sigtuna.

His first name makes it likely that he was the father of Thomas Jonsson (d 1376 according to Engström 1932), whose connection to Malsta is marked both in his seal inscription and in papal registers; according to one of Saint Bridget's revelations, he was proud of his distinguished birth. He is said (Acta pontificum Sveciae, 1, p. 566; Brilioth 1915, p. 347) to have been a schoolmate with later archbishops Hemming Nilsson (bd 18) and Peter Thyrgilsson. A receipt shows that in 1325 he was a master and studied in Paris and, like Hemming Nilsson, lost property through Knut Porse's privateering. Thomas became kh in Skepptuna in Uppland in 1329, and in 1332 he received papal permission to combine this office and canonry in Uppsala with the canonry in Strängnäs without a prebend. 1334 –45 he disputed with the later domprovost in Västerås Matts Halstensson (vol. 22, p. 768) about a canonry in Uppsala. The dispute was ultimately settled to the latter's disadvantage. By then, however, Thomas had already taken a higher promotion elsewhere.

Since in 1341 Thomas had been among the judges who acquitted Bishop Bo in Växjö of accusations of fornication and simony, this now frail bishop requested that Thomas be appointed his coadjutor. This request was probably granted, because in 1343 or 1344 he was chosen as Bo's successor as bishop. As such, he seems to have been more active in national politics than most medieval Växjö bishops. Thomas is the first of these to date a letter at Kronoberg, where the oldest part of the castle complex is considered to date from his time. Like King Magnus, he is said to have worked for Peter Thyrgilsson to become archbishop in 1351 (Brilioth 1915, p. 221), and he also acted as an agent for the papal tax collection commissioner Johannes Guilaberti. Later, Thomas was a member of the innermost circle of King Albrecht's advisers during the campaign to Finland in 1364–65. He visited Saint Bridget in Rome and accompanied her on her second pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Naples in 1369-70 (Engström 1935, p. 292). During this pilgrimage he suffered a kidney stone attack in Benevento and on the descent from Monte Gargano he fell from his horse and broke two ribs. In his last years, Thomas was one of the supervisors of the work on the construction of Birgitta's monastery in Vadstena. He seems to have paid little attention to his Småland diocese, and for long periods of time, especially during the 1360s, he cannot be proven to have stayed there, which has been interpreted (Larsson, p. 146) as meaning that he had to flee for its faithless salvation. One of Birgitta's revelations depicts him as hesitating in the choice between the broad and the narrow path. Thomas' brother Gregers Jonsson (d between 1325 and 1345), probably identical to the person with this name who appears together with Johan in Malsta in 1317, was probably married to a sister of the oldest known members of the Sparre family of Hjulsta and Ängsö. Sons of these spouses were Archbishop Birger Gregersson (bd 4) and Johan Gregersson (d between 1357 and 1368) at Malsta. The latter's wife was probably (Liljeholm) the sister of the marshal of the people Erik Kettilsson Puke, and the son, knight and district chief of Bråbo district in Östergötland Kettil Johansson (d between 1386 and 1395), is named in Drotsen Bo Jonsson's (Grip; vol. 5) will in 1384 as deputy for his maternal uncle as one of the executors of the will (Rosman). His coat of arms is one of the nine Swedish arms depicted in the Bergshammar coat of arms in the RA, the Gelre coat of arms in the Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels, and the Beaulaincourt-Bellenville Armory in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Its occurrence there has been compiled with that Kettil 1385- 86 together with King Albrekt and several of the owners of the other arms depicted in these manuscripts can be proven to have been in Mecklenburg, where the Swedish material for the arms books was then probably collected (Carlsson). Thanks to these pictures, it is known that one half of M's coat of arms was red and the other cut in white and blue. After the stay in Mecklenburg, Kettil has not been able to be identified in life, and M must have died out with him.

Sources

• This article is based in whole or in part on material from Nordisk familjebok , Malstaätten , 1904–1926.
• Malstaätten in Swedish Biographical Lexicon
• Original: Or. perg. RA 0101 images. Post-medieval transcripts: Brocman: II Misc. 22:40; B 15 fol. 274v, RA 0202 (misdated 17/10) Post-medieval regest/notice: B 22 p. 60, RA 0202; KB D 246 fol 9 (both with seal drawings); Note by Utter (after now lost original) in Genealogica 41, fol. 123v, RA; Margareta Grip's book, p. 286, Trolleholm's archive ("Dene archbishop Byregell and his brother that Kättel byte seg gos emelem effttr sin slehtt (F Catrina som uar the archbishop's father's sister). The archbishop fich Hussby ij Bone Arnö soken Kättell fich Malsta j Bro soken , Stage j michell Peder Carlsonz under lagman j Åplandz neruara j Nysettre den 27 otober 1376.") [Ebba Grip's handwriting. Possibly the publishers were the now lost Kättil Joansson's copy. Photocopy: Photo Riddarhuset's geneal. dept., dept. RA.
• Literature and Commentary, For information about a partial copy in Lars Eriksson Sparre's copy book B 15, fol. 274v, see comment on previous DS no. 9347.About the succession after Gregers Johansson (Malstaätten) and his wife and after his siblings bishop Tomas Johansson in Växjö and wife Katarina Johansdotter in Sund and for identification of the places see DMS, Uppland 1:5, p. 94 f. The day before (26/10 ) was also stipulated about the part of this inheritance that went to Birger Gregersson's niece Katarina Guttormsdotter after her mother Inga Gregersdotter (see previous no. 9347).On the Malstaätten see ÄSF I, p. 176 f.; on the family relationships see also KH Karlsson in Västergötland's Fornminnesförenings Tidskrift 2, booklet 8-9 (1908), p. 182 and DMS, aa, p. 95. Of the two letters issued, this is probably Birger Gregersson's copy, since the tergal signum for Uppsala Cathedral (see below) is attached to the document. Compare Birger Gregersson's and Kettil Johansson's exchange letter 1378 8/6 (RPB no. 1347). Regarding Österland, see comment to DS no. 9206. Cf. 1376 26/10 (Skokloster I Fol. vol. 215, no. 63).