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Christina of Norway (Old Norse: Kristín Hákonardóttir, Norwegian: Kristina Hĺkonsdatter; Bergen, 1234 - Seville, 1262) was a Norwegian princess and Infanta of Castile. She was the daughter of King Haakon IV of Norway and Queen Margarita Skulesdatter. In the autumn of 1257 a huge Viking ship set sail from the port of Třnsberg near Oslo for Spain, landing in Normandy (France) and crossing into Spain. On board were high dignitaries of the Norwegian kingdom, headed by Bishop Peter of Hamar, nobles, ladies and a hundred or so knights, charged with caring for a valuable cargo: gold, silver, precious furs and other sumptuary goods, which constituted the trousseau and dowry of the ship's most exalted passenger, Princess Christina Olav, daughter of King Haakon IV Haakonson the Elder. Due to the Castilian and Norwegian alliances within the Holy Roman Empire, the princess was betrothed in 1257 to the prince Philip of Castile, brother of King Alfonso X of Castile, the Wise, because such a marriage was convenient for both Alfonso X and Haakon IV. First, because Alfonso X aspired to the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, and in this way he could attract the Norwegian King Haakon IV to his cause, and second, because the Nordic kingdoms wished to open up more and more to the rest of Europe and trade with it, and Haakon had embarked on an active policy of diplomacy and cultural ties with other countries. They celebrated Christmas Eve in Burgos in the company of the nuns of the monastery of Las Huelgas. They arrived in Valladolid, where the wise king was waiting, via Soria, where he fell ill in the area around the Laguna Negra, and Palencia, and after their marriage in the Collegiate Church of Santa María in Valladolid on 31 March 1258, the couple settled in Seville, where the prince was already living. She never recovered from the illness caused by the distance that separated her from her distant and longed-for country and contracted during the journey in Soria, and possibly caused the princess to succumb to melancholy, dying in 1262 in the capital of Seville without leaving any descendants. Her husband, who before her marriage had been abbot of the Collegiate Church of San Cosme y San Damián de Covarrubias until the age of 21 and later bishop of Seville, had his wife buried in the cloister of the Collegiate Church of Covarrubias in a Gothic tomb, made of carved stone with a ten-span arcade and an upper frieze of scrolls. Near the tomb today hangs a bell which, according to tradition, guarantees marriage to the girls who ring it; and outside, since 1978, an evocative bronze statue by the Norwegian artist Brit Sorensen has stood in Norway with a delicate statue of Christina, with a romantic air; in Covarrubias, in the gardens outside, in front of the doorway of the church, a monument, always with flowers, also commemorates her.
https://lacosmopolilla.com/la-prince...rubias-burgos/
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