From asset in war to asset in diplomacy: Orkney in the medieval realm of Norway

The island province of Orkney played a crucial role in Norway’s overseas expansion during the Early- and High-Middle Ages. Located just offshore from mainland Scotland, it provided a resort for westward-sailing fleets as well as a convenient springboard for military forays into Britain and down the Irish Sea. The establishment of a Norwegian-Scottish peace and the demarcation of fixed political boundaries in 1266 led to a revision of Orkney’s role in the Norwegian realm. From that point until the its pledging to the Scottish Crown in 1468, Norway depended on Orkney as a hub for diplomacy and foreign relations. This paper looks at how Orkney figured in Norwegian royal strategies in the west and presents key examples which show its transition from a tool of war to a forum for peace

The Earldom of Orkney, the Duchy of Schleswig and the Kalmar Union in 1434

In August 1434, Erik VII, king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, confirmed William Sinclair as earl of Orkney, thus ending a decade-long dispute over the hereditary nature of that island fief. Although surviving sources pertaining to Orkney tell us little about Erik VII’s motives, historians have traditionally pointed to circumstances in and around the isles to explain the king’s acknowledgement of William’s claims. In this article, it is argued that the events must be interpreted in light of a concurrent dispute over counts of Holstein’s hereditary claims to the duchy of Schleswig, which were vigorously denied by Erik VII. It can be concluded that the latter dispute influenced the debate over Orkney by making the hereditary enfeoffment of William Sinclair a strategic impossibility for Erik VII, who could not acknowledge one claim without opening the door for another. The king’s acquiescence of William’s claim in 1434, we contend, reflected changing conditions in Schleswig, where the king was forced to recognize the counts’ hereditary rights. The contribution offers a new take on Orkney’s late-medieval development and encourages that island principality’s inclusion in pan-Scandinavian events

Bonde og borgerkrig

Historians have traditionally treated peasant unrest in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Norway as part of a wider challenge to royal authority, as kings struggled to suppress political adversaries and rival claimants to the throne. This article seeks to shed greater light on this assumed correlation by analysing changing patterns of peasant mobilization. To do so, it proposes a terminological distinction between ‘peasant resistance’ (bondemotstand), when peasants allied with kings in opposition to those kings’ adversaries, and ‘peasant uprising’ (bondeopprør), when peasants acted alone against an established royal authority. Through analysis of four conflicts (1183; 1200; 1213; 1217), it reveals a shift from the former to the latter, and concludes that the gradual cessation of succession struggles in the thirteenth century increasingly limited peasants ability to forge alliances against oppressive rulers. Although peasants were not entirely isolated, alliances with outside partners became a secondary recourse

Bart Holterman: The Fish Lands. German trade with Iceland, Shetland and the Faroe Islands in the late 15th and 16th Century

Bart Holtermans bok, The Fish Lands. German trade with Iceland, Shetland and the Faroes in the 15th and 16th Century, handler om et lite utforsket kapittel av hanseatisk historie. I det femtende århundre begynte nordtyske, gjerne hanseatiske kjøpmenn å styre unna Bergen, som da var sentrumet for den nordatlantiske handelen, og drive direktehandel med Norges krones skattland Island, Færøyene og Hjaltland. Denne handelen undergravet Bergens stapel og svekket dermed øyenes gamle økonomiske og politiske bånd med Norge. Samtidig brakte den en viss materiell velstand til de insulære samfunnene, som takket være tilreisende kjøpmenn fra Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck og Oldenburg fikk mer direkte adgang til nye og rikholdige nordvesteuropeiske markeder. Men overraskende lite har blitt skrevet om den tyske skattlandshandelen. Det finnes riktignok noen enkeltstudier av tyske virksomheter i individuelle skattland, i første rekke Island. Inntil nylig har imidlertid ingen, i hvert fall ingen faghistoriker, våget å studere fenomenet fra et bredt, regionalt perspektiv. Heldigvis har Holterman gjort nettopp det i denne omfangsrike, velskrevne og fascinerende monografien

Bonde og borgerkrig - Lokalkonflikter og de norske innbyrdesstridene

Published version available at: http://ojs.novus.no/index.php/CM/article/view/1764 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Historians have traditionally treated peasant unrest in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Norway as part of a wider challenge to royal authority, as kings struggled to suppress political adversaries and rival claimants to the throne. This article seeks to shed greater light on this assumed correlation by analysing changing patterns of peasant mobilization. To do so, it proposes a terminological distinction between ‘peasant resistance’ (bondemotstand), when peasants allied with kings in opposition to those kings’ adversaries, and ‘peasant uprising’ (bondeopprør), when peasants acted alone against an established royal authority. Through analysis of four conflicts (1183; 1200; 1213; 1217), it reveals a shift from the former to the latter, and concludes that the gradual cessation of succession struggles in the thirteenth century increasingly limited peasants ability to forge alliances against oppressive rulers. Although peasants were not entirely isolated, alliances with outside partners became a secondary recourse

Traversing the Inner Seas: Contacts and Continuity in and around Scotland, the Hebrides, and the North of Ireland

Throughout the medieval period, the ‘Inner Seas’ linking Scotland, the Hebrides, and the north of Ireland represented a confluence and crucible of identity. The region’s myriad islands served as stepping stones in a maritime network across which people, property, and perceptions travelled freely and purposefully. Encompassing three main themes, ten authors, and a multitude of interdisciplinary insights, this peer-reviewed volume represents some of the foremost research from the most recent residential conferences of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies, exploring the turbulent history and legacy of this interconnected seascape as both centre and periphery

Preface to Vicki A. Hild's Henry Sinclair Casebook

Source at https://orkneyheritagesociety.org.uk/product/henry-sinclair-casebook

Fogder på Færøyene ca. 1520–1556

Et sentralt spørsmål i forskning om norsk lensvesen er når og hvorvidt stedlige lensforvaltere, fogder, ble omvandlet fra lensherretjenere til kongelige embetsmenn. Selv om det har vært noe debatt om akkurat når prosessen ble sluttført, er historikere stort sett enige om at den begynte først etter reformasjonen og skjøt fart mot slutten av 1500-tallet. Spørsmålet er likeså relevant for studiet av forvaltningen av Færøyene, et norsk kongelig skattland og len, på 1500-tallet. Mens noen mener at fogden var lensherrens private tjener, hevder andre at han var kongens direkte underordnede ombudsmann. Denne artikkelen drøfter disse ulike oppfatningene. Fokuset ligger på det tidlige 1500-tallet, da lensforhold på Færøyene var i forandring. Det hevdes at kongen gjorde tydelige inngrep i færøysk forvaltning, og at fogder var «kongelige majestets fogder» tidligere enn deres motparter i Norge

Die Kontroverse um die Färöer ca. 1524–1536

Source at https://www.hansischergeschichtsverein.de/hansische-geschichtsblaetterz.This article examines the efforts of Norway’s council of the realm to rescind the governing offices and trading rights of Hamburg merchants in the Faroes between the mid-1520s and mid-1530s. The limited body of prior research on the subject focuses on the commercial aims of opposing parties, treating their dispute as part of the long-standing conflict over the western Norwegian town of Bergen’s status as the staple market in North Atlantic trade. While the redirection of Faroese trade from Bergen to Hamburg was a motive, it is argued that the council and its allies were at least equally concerned by the loss of public revenues, including taxes, land rents and penal fines, which Hamburgers withheld as feudal benefices and as remuneration for service to the kings of Denmark and Norway. This was part of a broader dispute about the authority of monarchs, who ruled the Norwegian realm from Denmark, to grant offices and trading rights in the Norwegian tributaries without conciliar sanction

[Book review] Frontiers for Peace in the Medieval North. The Norwegian-ScottishFrontier c. 1260–1470

Ian Peter Grohse, Frontiers for Peace in the Medieval North. The Norwegian-Scottish Frontier c. 1260–1470, Leiden: Brill 2017, ISBN 978-90-04-34253-8, 297 pp.</p