Borgerkrigen i Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum

Abstract

This article investigates the Danish civil war, 1131-1157, as it is presented by Saxo Grammaticus in the chronicle Gesta Danorum. In the article I argue that the civil war resembles the feud in practical concerns. Thus, unrestrained emotions play a pivotal role in the escalation of conflict. However, and in contrast to the feud, the Saxo's civil war differs in scope and objectives. Since the source of the conflict is the throne and hence the fate of the entirety of the Danish realm, it is a conflict wholly different from the feud. Rather, in the Gesta Danorum, the civil war is to be seen and interpreted as a variant of the civil war as it was waged in the Roman Republic. Such an imperial conception of the Danish kingdom renders the civil war as different from the feud as well as the conventional war between kingdoms and peoples.