 Because he was minor when his father died, until about 1226 his lands were under the regency of his mother Miroslawa from the Pomerelian Samborides dynasty.At first still a Danish fief, the Pomeranian lands fell back to the Holy Roman Empire after the victory of several North-German princes at the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved.Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstufen in 1231 put the Duchy of Pomerania under the suzerainty of the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg, disregarding the tenure of the Griffin dynasty, and thereby fueling the long-term Brandenburg–Pomeranian conflict.