Johan Sverkersson the elder

John (modern Swedish: Johan Sverkersson den äldre; in Old Icelandic sources called Jón jarl Sørkvisson), who died between 1150 and 1153, was the eldest son of King Sverker I of Sweden of Sweden and his queen Ulvhild Håkansdotter. He had a role in the outbreak of a war between Sweden and Denmark in the 1150s.

Prince John was born in the early 1130s as the son of the recently elevated King Sverker I and Queen Ulfhild, the former wife of King Niels of Denmark. Most probably he was the eldest son of the king, his junior siblings being Karl Sverkersson, Helena Sverkersdotter and Ingeborg Sverkersdotter. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, he was "a very valiant but not very courteous man". Preserved lists of donations to the Catholic Church indicate that he married a lady called Ragnhild, probably a relative of Guttorm who was jarl under the reign of Karl Sverkersson (1161-1167). According to a medieval genealogy John must have been the father of the two subsequent contenders for the Swedish throne, Kol of Sweden and Burislev, and another man named Ubbe the Strong. This has been accepted by some historians, such as Adolf Schück, and Lars O. Lagerqvist and Nils Åberg. John also seems to have had a son called Knut, born around 1152, who died young and a daughter who is unnamed but may have been Cecilia Johansdotter of Sweden, consort to Canute I of Sweden. According to a seventeenth-century source, John might have had another son, called Alf, who died young and, like Burislev, was interred in Vreta Abbey. John is known in Icelandic sources as Jón jarl, and in Swedish genealogies as Johannes dux. Saxo mentions him without a title.

John's mother Ulfhild died before 1150 and Sverker I remarried with Richeza of Poland. According to Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish pretender Canute V, Richeza's son in a previous marriage, fled to the court of Sverker in 1150. Sverker received his stepson friendly at first, but Canute was soon forced to sell land that he owned in Sweden in order to maintain himself. Saxo alleges that John wrote a lampoon of Canute, where he teased him for being hapless in warfare and a coward. Canute took offence, bought some ships and provisions, and sailed over to Poland and later Germany before re-entering Denmark. (Later on, after John's demise, Canute became Sverker's son-in-law by marrying his daughter Helena of Sweden.)

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