This book - inspired by historians like Fredric Cheyette, Stephen White and William Miller - applies a legal anthropological framework to Norwegian history. At the same time, it focuses on what happens when pre-state conflict patterns encounters a more stable royal power in the high middle ages. The author demonstrates how in the 12th and 13th century the king under strong clerical influence is depicted as just and omnipresent. However, a detailed survey of the king's conflicts shows that he to a substantial degree based his dominion on unpredictability and presence. The results presented in...

In 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...