Orning, SAGA AND SOCIETY

background image

This article was downloaded by: [Uniwersytet Warszawski]
On: 24 January 2014, At: 05:18
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Scandinavian Journal of History

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shis20

SAGA AND SOCIETY

Hans Jacob Orning

a

a

H

⊘gskulen i Volda , Volda, Norway E-mail:

Published online: 11 Nov 2008.

To cite this article: Hans Jacob Orning (2008) SAGA AND SOCIETY, Scandinavian Journal of History,
33:3, 289-299, DOI:

10.1080/03468750802133537

To link to this article:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468750802133537

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-

and-conditions

background image

DEBATE

SAGA AND SOCIETY

Knut Dørum has written a review of my doctoral thesis which deserves some
comments, partly because we disagree on concrete topics, but mainly because it
invites reflection upon the more general issue of the relationship between sagas and
society.

1

Dørum and I have earlier discussed the material basis of kingship in the

transition between high and late medieval Norway, which need not be repeated here.

2

My aim in this paper will rather be to situate our differing approaches to the kings’
sagas in the light of different theories of society and historiographical traditions. I will
start by commenting on methodological topics, before proceeding to broader
questions of the relation between sagas and society.

The sagas

How are we to use sagas as historical sources? A traditional division goes between
using sagas as ‘records’, i.e. as reliable historical descriptions of the past, on the one
hand, and as ‘relics’, i.e. as sources to the attitudes of the author and eventually his or
her environment and contemporary society, on the other hand. I have found this
distinction less useful for my purpose, because it operates with a premise that ‘facts’
(use as record) can and should be separated sharply from authorial ‘attitudes’ (use as
relic).

3

Furthermore, truth is, apart from being a goal which very often is beyond the

scope of saga studies, a less relevant concept when analysing political culture and not
factual history. Here, the issue is not to find out what did actually happen, but what
could

have happened.

4

Instead of separating between the sagas as records and relics,

my approach has been to separate between elements in the sagas which I consider
highly probable (a practical perspective), and elements which have a more ideological
character (an ideological perspective). The advantage with this division is that it
separates between what seems probable and improbable, without turning it into a
question of truth. The main task is to analyse the actions of the characters (the
practical perspective), and compare them to statements made about them (the
ideological perspective). Dørum is right in stressing the difficulty in separating
between the practical and the ideological perspective. However, he is wrong in
charging me with circular conclusions, on the grounds that my method ‘blocks the
possibilities of revealing changes in society’ (p. 193). My method gives pre-eminence
to actions on behalf of statements and formal institutions, but this is not equivalent to
a method which is unable to account for change. The central point is that it is not
sufficient that changes are recorded in speech. They must have had practical
consequences too!

Scandinavian Journal of History Vol. 33, No. 3. September 2008, pp. 289–299
ISSN 0346-8755 print/ISSN 1502-7716 online ß 2008 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/03468750802133537

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

The typical pattern in Sverris saga and Ha´konar saga is that great magnates were

repeatedly denounced in words for their disloyalty towards the king. However, very
few of these magnates were treated in accordance with this alleged denounciation
when it came to practice. To the contrary, they were mostly treated in a respectful
manner by the king. In Dørum’s view, it is highly understandable that Gregorius
Andresson was accused of behaving ‘suspiciously’ upon leaving for Denmark without
permission in 1237, as Gregorius’ father had been among Ha˚kon’s former enemies
and had previous connections to the Danish king. But Ha˚kon’s reaction tells a
different story. They show that he was quite willing to accept this as long as Gregorius
supported him. If Gregorius’ ‘suspicious’ actions had no consequences for him, can
we then properly call them normatively objectionable? If so-called disloyal behaviour
was not punished or had no visible consequences, it is in many ways misleading to
invoke a norm of loyalty.

Neither is Dørum’s criticism of my results very consistent. While my main point

was that we can discover a gap between verbal utterances implying strong royal
demands, and practical behaviour attesting to a more pragmatic royal attitude, he
criticizes me for underestimating the suspiciousness of some men (like Gregorius
Andresson) and overestimating the suspiciousness of others (like Nikolas Arnesson).
But why this difference? I must admit I cannot find what premises Dørum builds this
critique on, apart from disagreeing with me.

5

The society

In Dørum’s opinion I have underestimated the state formation in Norway in
the high middle ages due to a limited selection of sources and themes.

6

Before

venturing further into this question, two short points should be made. First, some
of Dørum’s critical remarks obviously are made on wrong premises. It is simply not
correct that my thesis ‘rejects that there was a proper development of state in the
period’ (p. 191). In several places I specify that I do not reject that changes
occurred in the period, but that in my opinion the scope of change has been
overestimated (cf. ia. pp. 3 and 268). Moreover, I explicitly exclude formal
institutions as an object of study, arguing that my intention is to analyse the
‘mental’ aspect of the state formation process (p. 3). Second, Dørum’s eagerness to
oppose my views brings him into logical inconsistencies. On the one hand, he
accuses me of rejecting state formation in the high middle ages (p. 191). On the
other hand, my results are ‘not as sensational as they may seem at first sight’
(p. 194), as state formation allegedly was far from complete both before and after
the period I have investigated. Are my results novel but wrong, or right but
uncontroversial?

Dørum’s main explanation for my ‘biased’ interpretations is that my sources and

themes are too restricted. I would very much have liked to expand the range of
sources and themes, as Dørum suggests, and I cannot but admire the broad scope in
his own thesis.

7

However, expansion is not without costs. The choice is not simply

between more or less sources and themes, because broadening the source material and
themes may go at the expense of depth of analysis. I shall concentrate on one example
of this.

290

SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

‘A major factor that led to the Civil War was especially the absence of a central

power, a fact upon which few historians will disagree’, Dørum claims (p. 194).
Dørum is right that this has been a common explanation of the ‘civil wars’.
According to Knut Helle, ‘the old legal system lacked a real executing authority.
This vacuum was partly filled by the royal power during the high Middle Ages’.

8

Historians of an earlier generation used even stronger words about pre-state
society. Fredrik Paasche likened the civil wars to ‘arbitrary dominance’, which
demonstrated ‘the dangers inherent in the practice of blood vengeance’,

9

and to

Arne Odd Johnsen the end of the wars implied that ‘primitive human drives’ were
subjugated by means of the disciplinary force of the church – and in the next
instance the state.

10

The most remarkable thing about these explanations is not that they are

anachronistic (explaining something with reference to the absence of a factor) or
functionalistic (explaining something with reference to the benign consequences of
the introduction of a missing factor), but that they follow so closely upon the
version in the contemporary sources. When Ha˚kon Sverresson reached a settlement
with the church in 1202, the parties explained the need for reconciliation with
reference to contemporary conditions: ‘Now neither clerical nor common people
fear God or good men. Rather everyone lives as he wishes under lawless
conditions’.

11

Paasche, Johnsen and Helle cite long passages from this settlement,

not as one statement (out of several possible) about society, but as a reliable
description of it.

12

They are right that it certainly became an important and

powerful interpretation of the past. Konungs skuggsia´ devoted a whole section to the
disasters embarking upon a country left without a strong king,

13

and in the laws of

the second half of the 13th century the civil wars were routinely described as ‘a fog
of confusion’ from which the country had fortunately recovered by means of a
strong monarchy.

14

However, there are some serious problems with accepting these statements as

reality descriptions. First, they exaggerate the contrast between the allegedly chaotic
conditions under the civil wars, and the establishment of order in the subsequent
period. There is no doubt that there were numerous feuds and conflicts during the
civil wars, but how are we to interpret them? In a series of articles in Past and Present
in the 1990s the dominant view of the post-Carolingian period in France as a ‘feudal
anarchy’ in which order broke down, was criticized. Stephen White argued that this
idea rested on an anachronistic separation between public and private domains.
Instead of breakdown of order, he urged for a discussion of different types of social
orders, and instead of talking about ‘arbitrary violence’, he insisted on analysing such
acts of violence as part of feuds. In his opinion, violence and conflict did not negate
social order, but belonged to it and in many ways reinforced it, because feuds
constituted the main channel for political manouvering in a society without ‘courts
and constables’.

15

This should make us equally cautious when the civil wars are

labelled ‘lawless conditions’.

Second, Ha˚kon Sverresson’s letter of settlement cited above does not offer a

disinterested or objective description, but is highly biased, as it was formulated by
adherents of a different type of social order, one based on the central leadership of
church and state. The best way of legitimizing an alternative social order was by
describing the opposite as intolerable. Several historians have argued that the

SAGA AND SOCIETY

291

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

alleged breakdown of order in post-Carolingian France was less a historical
phenomenon than it marked the introduction of a new vocabulary of ‘malae
consuetudines’ (evil customs), which formed part of a clerical attempt to legitimize
their own holdings in a period of weak central power.

16

In Norway, one of the first

ones to write about ‘evil customs’ which corrupted the old order, was the monk
Theodoricus writing in the late 12th century. This is the reason he gave why he
wanted to terminate his historical account of Norway with the death of king Sigurd
Magnusson in 1130:

It would be unworthy to recount to the posterity the memory of all the crimes,
homicides, false oaths and kin killings which occurred then. People dishonoured
sacred places, the contempt for God spread, monks and lay people were robbed,
women captured, and lots of other misdeeds cropped up which cannot be
accounted for here. All this floated together in a gutter after the death of king
Sigurd.

17

It is no surprise that clerics and royal counsellors described pre-state society in this
way. However, it is more surprising that modern historians have not taken a more
critical stance towards this normative tradition, as accepting such descriptions at face
value makes state formation emerge as a natural and inevitable process, either because
it was a viable solution for most people (Helle), or because it was a necessary remedy
to discipline their evil drives (Paasche, Johnsen). Knut Dørum is right in that few have
disagreed that ‘the absence of a central power’ was a cause for the civil wars, but he is
wrong in accepting it on those grounds. It is time to adopt a more critical attitude
towards this tradition of state apotheosis.

Sagas and society

In reply to Dørum’s criticism for using a restricted range of sources and themes,
I pointed to the potential costs of broadening the perspective. Dørum’s
ignorance of relevant international scholarly literature stands out as one such
cost.

18

Furthermore, he persists in his reluctance to state his position and

theoretical premises.

19

In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance what kind

of society one imagines the pre-state society to be, because it permeates the
hypotheses – and ultimately also the results – one ends up with. If pre-state
society is visioned as an ‘anarchy’ with endemic and arbitrary violence, it is not
difficult to argue why a state should be the better option for most people. But if
one considers that pre-state society was not chaotic, but functioned according to
its own norms, this development is not self-evident, and constitutes something
we need to explain.

Instead of elaborating these arguments at a general level, I will rather make an

attempt at showing how Dørum’s results in his doctoral thesis are dependent upon
premises which are not neutral, but which are grounded in the agrarian research
tradition. One of his main aims there is to investigate how Romerike – a region in the
Eastern inland part of Norway – was integrated in the Norwegian monarchy in the
high Middle Ages. In line with the agrarian historical school, the backbone of his

292

SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

argument revolves around names, size and geographical location of farms, but in
addition to this he uses diplomas and sagas more actively than has been usual. The
result is an overall picture of the Romerike region which is impressive and in many
ways unprecedented.

However, there are flaws in his analysis. Here I shall limit my objections to

discuss how Dørum uses the sagas to reconstruct farms belonging to the king. This
is an easy task with farms where information exists about royal ownership. But such
information is sparse, and Dørum wants to substantiate that other farms belonged to
the king. In order to do so he uses information from Ha´konar saga. For instance,
for the farms La˚ke, Berg, Fyri and Nes, later diplomas show that they had owners
other than the king,

20

but according to Ha´konar saga they were visited by Ha˚kon or

Skule in the 1220s or 1230s. Dørum choose to put decisive weight on this last
information:

The main proof for these farms being royal ‘veitsle’ farms is the fact that they
provided food and shelter to the king and the earl and their large retinues. It is
unthinkable that a private person could have supplied food, drink and beds for so
many guests at his own account, no matter how rich he must have been. It was
only royal farms or ‘veitsle’ farms which could be imposed duties on such a
scale.

21

Here Dørum makes several interesting leaps in order to arrive at his conclusion about
royal ownership. First, he makes provisioning of the king into a formal right, which
forms a precondition for a royal visit. Second, he argues that only royal servants had
sufficient resources to do this. Both these preconditions are at best dubious. Why
should we suppose that the king only visited royal farms on his journeys around
Norway? Second, what are the arguments for stating that only royal servants had the
means to support an army for a night? This presupposes that all prosperous farms in
Norway were owned by the king. Such assumptions cannot be considered more than
speculations, but they are the more telling about how Dørum conceives of this
society. High medieval Norway emerges as a society regulated by formal obligations
promulgated in the laws, and in which all magnates and peasants of any substance
were attached to the king.

As soon as Dørum has established royal ownership from one visit in the saga,

ownership is projected backwards in time:

We therefore must presume that the farm [ie. La˚ke] was confiscated by the king
during the unification period or during the civil wars, and later was given to one
or several magnates.

22

Thus, royal ownership in the 13th century is interpreted as synonymous with
confiscation during the unification period (10th and beginning of 11th century) or
during the civil wars. Recently, Anders Emanuelsson has questioned this idea of royal
confiscations on a vast scale during the unification period and civil wars in a thesis on
Bishop Eystein’s land register. Instead, he highlights the constant flow of estates and
other gifts to and from the king.

23

The reason for this is twofold. First, the king could

not possibly govern a large mass of estates without an administrative apparatus, which

SAGA AND SOCIETY

293

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

we do not find until the 12th and 13th centuries. In early medieval societies with little
money economy it was next to impossible to maintain control over large land holdings
without residing there at frequent intervals. Second, the in- and outflow of resources
was a result of the normative economy of the early middle ages, in which a king had to
be generous to the men he wanted support from. That meant giving feasts, favours
and gifts, including estates, on a lavish scale.

Dørum’s inclination towards attributing royal lands in the high Middle Ages to

confiscations during the unification period and civil wars is clearly a heritage from
the agrarian tradition. His active use of the sagas to reconstruct property relations is
novel, but it foremost serves to cement the picture that the agrarian tradition has
given of the property relations, and above all it serves to increase the role of the
royal power. This is reinforced by Dørum’s tendency to bolster the certainty of his
claims in the course of his argument. His analysis of the farm Fyri can serve as an
example of this. Dørum’s initial observation after stating that King Ha˚kon stayed
there one night in 1225 is that the first we know about its owners comes from late
14th century, when the farm was divided in a northern and a southern farm with
different owners. From this he concludes: ‘There is nothing that speaks against that
Northern and Southern Fyri has been former royal farms’.

24

After mentioning its

size and location, he arrives at the following conclusion four lines further down: ‘It
is very probable that Fyri was among the farms that the kings confiscated in the
11th century.

25

At the next page he states his general conclusion about Fyri, Berg

La˚ke and Nes (all of them being in the same situation: the only thing we know is
that Ha˚kon or Skule visited them once): ‘In my opinion there can be no doubt that
the above-mentioned farms on Romerike were part of a royal system of
‘‘veitsler’’’.

26

Is it legitimate to infer from one royal visit at a farm in the sagas that

he owned that farm and had done so for centuries, even when we know that it was
owned by others than the king later on?

However, Dørum’s tendency towards magnifying the king’s role in society also

applies to the criteria he builds his conclusions on. This is apparent in his discussion of
royal agents in the localities of Romerike, where his main aim is to find the proportion of
royal men among those who performed public duties.

27

He criticizes Steinar Imsen and

other historians for having limited the definition of royal agents to those men who are
mentioned with royal titles or functions, and wants to expand the criteria beyond this:

We must suppose that persons who have served in public functions in at least
three cases, or in one or several important cases, very often had royal offices.
Similarly, there are reasons to assume that wealthy men with properties in several
districts belonged to the group of king’s men.

28

The most interesting about this list of criteria, is that it in reality rules out any other
alternatives than the one Dørum is eager to find: that the local elites were bound to
the king. It is tempting to turn his argument against me for using ‘a method which
effectively blocks for counter-arguments’ towards himself. The only possibility for not
being a royal agent in this survey is by occurring only in one or two minor case in the
diplomas. But then the person is also excluded from the local elite!

294

SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

Conclusion

My main point in discussing some points in Knut Dørum’s thesis has not been to
review it – that would require a consideration of far more themes than the ones I have
discussed. Rather, I wanted to shed light on our differing approaches to the sagas, and
how they are influenced by different theoretical and historiographical impulses. My
conclusion is not that one tradition is right and the other wrong. The discipline of
history has not (yet?) reached the stage where one paradigm rules the field. Instead,
several different traditions coexist, with their internal premises as well as edges
towards others traditions. In such a situation of plural paradigms it is decisive to be
conscious about one’s own premises. I willingly admit my intellectual debt to legal
anthropology, and I see the risk that this may ‘close’ my horizon towards rivalling
hypotheses. I nevertheless consider it more important that this makes me conscious of
my own presuppositions, and helps me put them on trial by exposing them to
alternative hypotheses. Knut Kjeldstadli formulates the importance of theoretical
reflection in this way:

The choice is not between using theory or not, but between relating actively to a
conscious theory, and to fall victim of one’s own ‘common sense-theory’, one’s
more or less unclearly formulated suppositions.

29

It is a pity that Dørum is not willing to acknowledge that he is working in an agrarian
tradition, as it makes him unattentive of the theoretical assumptions this tradition is
based on. In Dørum’s criticism of my work – on this and previous occasions – I get
the impression that the same points are repeated over and over again, so that the
dialogue does not really take us, or others, any further.

H

ANS

J

ACOB

O

RNING

Høgskulen i Volda

Volda, Norway

hjo@hivolda.no

ß 2008, Hans Jacob Orning

Notes

1

Dørum in Scandinavian Journal of History 33, No. 2 (2008), 191–94. Unfortunately,
his review is not based on my recently published book Unpredictability and Presence.
Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages

(Brill, 2008), but on my unpublished

dissertation from 2004.

2

Cf. debate in Historisk tidsskrift (Norsk) 3 2005, 1 2006, and 4 2006.

3

The division between using sources as records and relics is not as sharp on a
principal level as has often been claimed, cf. Carr, What is History?, 7–30; Fulsa˚s,
‘Kva er gale med det historiske sanningsomgrepet? Ein kritikk av kjeldekritikken’,
231–46.

4

Miller, Blood-Taking and Peace-Making, 46; Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri
Sturluson’s Heimskringla

, 239.

5

Dørum’s critique is also sometimes hard to understand. I allegedly want to
underline the friendship between Ha˚kon and Skule, but why have I then put too

SAGA AND SOCIETY

295

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

little importance on their equal power (p. 192)? And what does he mean by stating
that ‘The agreements between them may therefore be considered strategic choices,
although their choices were influenced by the culture of negotiations and
agreements of the period’ (p. 192)?

6

My results are most valid for the period 1177–1263, which I state (Orning, 2004,
3). However, with hindsight I realize that I could have made it even clearer that an
investigation of the period after 1263 would require a fuller investigation of the
normative sources from the late 13th century. Cf. Bagge’s opposition (‘Hans Jacob
Orning: Uforutsigbarhet og nærvær. En analyse av norske kongers maktutøvelse i
høymiddelalderen’, 84, 641–7). This is discussed more elaborately in Orning,
2008, 4–5.

7

Dørum, Romerike og riksintegreringen. Integreringen av Romerike i det norske
rikskongedømmet i perioden ca. 1000–1350.

8

‘I den gamle rettsordningen hadde det manglet en virkelig utøvende myndighet.
Dette tomrommet kom kongemakten et stykke pa˚ vei til a˚ fylle i løpet av
høymiddelalderen.’ (Helle, Under kirke og kongemakt 1130–1319, 187), Cf. Helle,
Norge blir en stat

, 179.

9

Paasche, Kong Sverre, 109–10.

10

Johnsen: Fra ættesamfunn til statssamfunn, 100, 136. A notable exeption from this
line of thought is provided by Lunden (‘Det norske kongedømet i
høgmellomalderen (ca. 1150–1319). – Funksjon, makt, legitimitet’, 202–13).
This line of thought is not peculiar to Norwegian historians. In the French Annales
school the period between the Carolingan collapse in the 9th century and the
Capetian recovery from the 12th century has often been labelled a ‘feudal anarchy’
(Cf. Orning, 2008, 10–28).

11

‘Na˚ frykter verken lærde eller ulærde Gud eller gode menn. Snarere lever na˚
enhver som han lyster under lovløs ordning’. In Norske middelalderdokumenter, 76–7.

12

Cf. Paasche, 90–1; Johnsen, 91–2; Helle 1995, 70.

13

Konungs skuggsia´

.

14

ML II 3, H 1, F 1.

15

White, ‘The ‘‘Feudal Revolution’’’, 205–23. Cf. also articles by Timothy Reuter,
Dominic Barthelemy and Chris Wickham in Past and Present 1996–97. Cf. Orning
2008, 10–28.

16

Barthelemy, La mutation de l’an mille a-t-elle eu lieu?; White, ‘A crisis of fidelity in c.
1000?’, 27–49; Barton: Lordship in the County of Maine, c. 890–1160, 138–45.

17

Theodoricus munk: Historien om de gamle norske kongene

, 87.

18

Dørum cites no international literature in the review, and he shows no knowledge
of legal anthropological literature, even though we have debated this on several
occasions earlier. He only relates my research to Sverre Bagge, whom he wrongly
calls my ‘master’ (he was not my supervisor for my thesis and made a critical
opposition in HT 2005). Dagfinn Skre pointed at Dørum’s complete lack of
international references in the debates in Heimen (‘Eiendom og hierarki i det før- og
tidligstatlige norske samfunnet’, 132–3). Dørum’s concluding appeal in his last
debate with me (Dørum, 2006, 105), that ‘Fokuset ma˚ ogsa˚ rettes mot andre land
og riker’ thus stands out as an eminent, but probably unintended, irony, as he still
offers no international comparison.

19

Cf. Iversen, ‘Jordleie, patroner og klienter før høymiddelalderens leilendingevesen
i Norge’, 150 (‘selv om det meste av Dørums empiri ma˚ avvises, er det etter mitt
skjønn likevel hans manglende refleksjon over rammene, dvs. typen samfunn før

296

SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

rikssamlingen, som er mest a˚ beklage’). In Dørum 2006 (p. 104) he also refuses
being classified in the agrarian historical school after having used half the article to
sum up the results of that tradition (on pp. 94–101).

20

Dørum, 2004, 142–5. La˚ke and Berg have aristocratic owners, Fyri is split in
different parts, whereas Nes is in ecclesiastical ownership.

21

Dørum, 2004, 145 (‘Det viktigste holdepunktet for a˚ slutte at disse ga˚rdene har
vært kongsga˚rder og veitslega˚rder er det forhold at det her ble ytt forpleining og
sengeplass til konge og jarl og deres store følger. Det er utelukket at en
privatperson for egen regning kunne skaffe mat, drikke og senger til sa˚ mange
gjester, uansett hvor rik denne ma˚tte være. Det var bare kongsga˚rder eller
veitslega˚rder som kunne bli pa˚lagt oppgaver av et slikt omfang’). In addition,
Dørum interpret their size, central location, and for some of them their vicinity to
churches, as further indications of royal ownership. This is however only
speculation.

22

Dørum, 2004, 143 (‘Vi ma˚ derfor anta at ga˚rden ble konfiskert av kongen i
rikssamlingstiden eller i borgerkrigstiden, for siden a˚ bli utlagt til e´n eller flere
stormenn’). Cf. almost similarly on the farm Berg, 186.

23

Emanuelsson, Kyrkojorden och dess ursprung. Oslo biskopsdo¨me perioden ca 1000–ca
1400

, 209.

24

‘Det er ingenting i veien for at ba˚de Nordre og Søndre Fyri har vært tidligere
krongods’ (Dørum, 2004, 144).

25

‘Det er svært sannsynlig at Fyri var blant de ga˚rdene som kongemakten pa˚ 1000-
tallet la under seg’ (Dørum, 2004, 144).

26

‘Etter min oppfatning kan det ikke herske tvil om at de ovenfor nevnte
romeriksga˚rdene inngikk i et kongelig veitslesystem’ (Dørum, 2004, 145, cf. also
149).

27

Dørum, 2004, 308, public duties i.e. as witnesses, issuers, guarantors or judges in
connection with cases which has been preserved in diplomas.

28

Dørum, 2004, 310–1 (‘Vi ma˚ ogsa˚ kunne anta at personer som har utført
offentlighetsfunksjoner i minst tre saker, eller i e´n eller flere viktige saker, svært
ofte har hatt ombud hos kongen. Likeledes er det grunn til a˚ anta at godsrike
personer med eiendommer i flere distrikter har tilhørt gruppen av kongsmenn’).
Cf. his stated premise(!) on p. 310: ‘Som hovedregel ma˚ vi ga˚ ut fra at alle
stormenn og mange storbønder pa˚ begynnelsen av 1300-tallet sto i kongstjeneste’.

29

Kjeldstadli, Fortida er ikke hva den en gang var, 128 (‘Valget sta˚r ikke mellom a˚
anvende en teori eller a˚ la være, men mellom a˚ forholde seg aktivt til en bevisst
teori og a˚ overlate seg selv til sin ‘hverdagsteori’ (Jarle Simensen), sine mer eller
mindre uklart formulerte antakelser’).

References

Bagge, Sverre. Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1991.

———. ‘Hans Jacob Orning: Uforutsigbarhet og nærvær. En analyse av norske kongers

maktutøvelse i høymiddelalderen’. Historisk tidsskrift (Norsk) 85, no. 3 (2006):
641–647.

Barthe´lemy, Dominic. La mutation de l’an mille a-t-elle eu lieu? Paris: Fayard, 1997.

SAGA AND SOCIETY

297

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

Barton, Richard E. Lordship in the County of Maine, c. 890–1160. Woodbridge: Boydell

Press, 2004.

Carr, E.H. What is History? London: Macmillan, 1990. First published 1961.
Dørum, Knut. Romerike og riksintegreringen. Integreringen av Romerike i det norske

rikskongedømmet i perioden ca. 1000–1350

. Oslo: Dr.philos-avhandling i historie,

2004.

———. ‘Materiell basis og den antropologiske vendingen’. Historisk tidsskrift (Norsk) 85,

no. 1 (2006): 87–105.

———. ‘Book Review: Uforutsigbarhet og nærvær. En analyse av norske kongers

maktutøvelse i høymiddelalderen’. Scandinavian Journal of History 33, no. 2 (2008):
191–194.

Emanuelsson, Anders. Kyrkojorden och dess ursprung. Oslo biskopsdo¨me perioden ca 1000–ca

1400

. Go¨teborg: Avhandlingar fra˚n Historiska institutionen, Go¨teborgs Universitet

44, 2005.

Frostatingslova.

Eds. and trans. J.R. Hagland and J. Sandnes, Oslo: Samlaget, 1994.

Fulsa˚s, Narve. ‘Kva er gale med det historiske sanningsomgrepet? Ein kritikk av

kjeldekritikken’. Historisk Tidsskrift (Norsk) 80, no. 2 (2001): 231–46.

Helle, Knut. Norge blir en stat. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1974. First published 1965.
———. Under kirke og kongemakt 1130–1319. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1995.

Hirdloven til Norges konge og hans ha˚ndgangne menn.

Ed. and trans. S. Imsen. Oslo:

Riksarkivet, 2000.

Iversen, Tore. ‘Jordleie, patroner og klienter før høymiddelalderens leilendingevesen i

Norge’. Heimen 33 (1996): 147–156.

Johnsen, Arne Odd. Fra ættesamfunn til statssamfunn. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1948.
Kjeldstadli, Knut. Fortida er ikke hva den en gang var. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997. First

published 1992.

Konungs, skuggsia´. Ed. L. Holm-Olsen. Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1983. First published

1945.

Lunden, Ka˚re. ‘Det norske kongedømet i høgmellomalderen (ca. 1150–1319) –

Funksjon, makt, legitimitet’. In Norske historikere i utvalg IV, ed. C. Krag, 202–13.
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1983. First published 1978.

Magnus Lagabøters Landslov.

Ed. and trans. A. Taranger. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1962.

First published 1915.

Miller, William Ian. Blood-Taking and Peace-Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1990.

Norske middelalderdokumenter.

Ed. and trans. S. Bagge, S. H. Smedsdal and K. Helle. Bergen:

Universitetsforlaget, 1973.

Orning, Hans Jacob. Uforutsigbarhet og nærvær. En analyse av norske kongers maktutøvelse i

høymiddelalderen

. Oslo: Dr.art.-avhandling i historie, 2004.

———.

‘Den

materielle

basis

for

den

norske

kongemaktens

utvikling

i

høymiddelalderen’. Historisk tidsskrift (Norsk) 84, no. 3 (2005): 455–469.

———. ‘Kongemaktens lokale maktgrunnlag i middelalderen’. Historisk tidsskrift (Norsk)

85, no. 4 (2006): 675–686.

———. Unpredictability and Presence. Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages. Leiden:

Brill, 2008.

Paasche, Fredrik. Kong Sverre. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1966. First published 1920.
Skre, Dagfinn. ‘Eiendom og hierarki i det før- og tidligstatlige norske samfunnet’. Heimen

36, no. 2 (1999): 123–137.

298

SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014

background image

Theodoricus munk: Historien om de gamle norske kongene.

Trans. A. Salvesen. Oslo: Th. Dahls

kulturbibliotek, 1969.

White, Stephen D. ‘The ‘‘Feudal Revolution’’’. Past and Present 152 (1996): 205–23.
———. ‘A Crisis of Fidelity in c. 1000?’. In Building Legitimacy: Political Discourses and

Forms of Legitimacy in Medieval Societies

, ed. I. Alfonso, 27–49. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

SAGA AND SOCIETY

299

Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:18 24 January 2014


Wyszukiwarka

Podobne podstrony:
Art, Literature and Society from55 1970
Relationship?tween Problems in?ucation and Society
Aristotle A Comprehensive View on Nature and Society
state and society, ANG
Gronlie, Kristni Saga and medieval conversion history
Case study Strategy and Society, Porter&Kramer
Matuchniak Krasuska, Anna Culture and Society (2015)
Barry Cunliffe, Money and society in pre Roman Britain
war and society in the eastern mediterranean7 to 15 cent
Science and society vaccines and public health, PUBLIC HEALTH 128 (2O14) 686 692
Hamer, Grettis saga and the iudicium dei
Ecumeny and Law 2015 Vol 3 Welfare of the Child Welfare of Family Church and Society
Peter Martin Sounds and society
Journalism, Ethics and Society David Berry
Civil Society and Political Theory in the Work of Luhmann
Racism and the Ku Klux Klan A Threat to American Society
Serial Killers and Illogical Societal?ceptance of these Cr
Brain Facts A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System The Society for Neuroscience

więcej podobnych podstron