Osämja och fiendskap mellan kungar och stormän

Abstract

This article discusses different paradigms for analysis of conflicts between magnates and kings in the period c. 1250-1370 in Norway and Sweden. During the past few decades, the study of feuds and the idea of the survival of a feud culture into the Late Middle Ages or Early Modern period has been prevalent in scholarship on medieval Scandinavia. Here it is argued that conflicts between kings and magnates in the period under study were perceived as being of a different order than conflicts between individual or groups of magnates, both by kings and by magnates themselves. Magnates were protective of their right of resistance against unlawful kings, and increasingly presented themselves as protectors of the common good, and representatives of the community of the realm. Kings, meanwhile, began to label any (armed) resistance to their initiatives as treason, leaning on Roman law. These circumstances should make scholars wary of ignoring the constitutional and legal ramifications of aristocratic resistance.