Description
Book SynopsisIn Scandinavia the study of disputes is still a relatively new topic: The papers offered here discuss how conflicts were handled in Scandinavian societies in the Middle Ages before the emergence of strong centralized states. What strategies did people use to contest power, property, rights, honour, and other kinds of material or symbolic assets? Seven essays by Scandinavian scholars are supplemented by contributions from Stephen White, John Hudson and Gerd Althoff, to provide a new baseline for discussing both the strategies pursued in the political game and those used to settle local disputes. Using practice and process as key analytical concepts, these authors explore formal law and litigation in conjunction with non-formal legal proceedings such as out-of-court mediation, rituals, emotional posturing, and feuding. Their insights place the Northern medieval world in a European context of dispute studies. With introductory sections on social structure, sources materials, and the historiography of Scandinavian dispute studies. Contributors are Gerd Althoff, Catharina Andersson, Kim Esmark, Lars Ivar Hansen, Lars Hermanson, John Hudson, Auður G. Magnúsdóttir, Hans Jacob Orning, Helle Vogt and Stephen D. White.
Table of ContentsList of Contributors ... vii List of Kings ... ix General Maps ... xiii General Introduction ... 1 . . Kim Esmark and Hans Jacob Orning Part One: Power politics: Kingship, Coercion, and Conflict Introduction to Part One ... 31 . . Hans Jacob Orning Conflict and Social (dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160 ... 45 . . Hans Jacob Orning Kingship, Women and Politics in Morkinskinna ... 83 . . Auður Magnúsdóttir How to Legitimate Rebellion and Condemn Usurpation of the . Crown: Discourses of Fidelity and Treason in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus ... 107 . . Lars Hermanson Part two: Local disputes: Property, Justice, and Social Transaction Introduction to Part Two ... 143 . . Helle Vogt and Kim Esmark The Power to Judge: Jurisdiction in Property Conflicts in Thirteenth-Century Denmark ... 161 . . Helle Vogt Disputing Property in Zealand: The Records of the Soro Donation Book ... 181 . . Kim Esmark Gifts and Society in Fourteenth Century Sweden ... 219 . . Catharina Andersson The Field of Property Devolution in Norway During the Late Middle Ages: Inheritance Settlements, Marriage . Contracts and Legal Disputes ... 247 . . Lars Ivar Hansen Part three: Comparative perspectives The Feelings in the Feud: The Emotional Turn in the Study of Medieval Vengeance ... 281 . . Stephen D. White The Rules of Conflict Among the Warrior Aristocracy of the High Middle Ages ... 313 . . Gerd Althoff Legal History and the History of Disputes ... 333 . . John Hudson Bibliography ... 343 General Index ... 361 Index of Names ... 365 Index of Places ... 370
