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

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

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

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

[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

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

Foreigners in power. Rakkestad and the Orkneys 1424/25

Erik av Pommerns regjeringstid (1389–1442) var preget av øvrighetsmotstand i både Norge og de norrøne oversjøiske provinsene. Historikere har tradisjonelt betraktet bondeuroen på 1420- og 1430-tallet som en reaksjon på kongens bruk av utenlandske menn i lokalforvaltningen. To av de tidligste eksemplene stammer fra Rakkestad (Østfold) og Orknøyene i 1424/25. Antagonistene i begge tilfeller – Herman Molteke i Rakkestad og David Menzies på Orknøyene – hadde utenlandske røtter, og motstanden mot disse fremstilles ofte som bevis for den utbredte skepsisen til fremmede i forvaltningen blant norske og norrøne lokalsamfunn i senmiddelalderen. Men bare kildene fra Orknøyene inneholder eksplisitte klagemål vedrørende fremmede menn i forvaltningen. Denne artikkelen forklarer forskjellen gjennom systematisk sammenligning av klager, antagonister og aksjonister i de to tilfellene. Det hevdes at Orknøyene, en autonom provins med egen politisk-representativ talemyndighet, hadde autoriteten til å legge frem nye restriktive krav angående fremmede ombudsmenn i direkte samhandlinger med kronen. Rakkestad var derimot underlagt den intermediære autoriteten til det norske riksrådet, som representerte norske bønders interesser og brukte misnøyen som basis for sin politikk å begrense utlendingers tilgang til riket i senere tiår.The reign of King Eric III (1389–1442) was marred by conflicts between peasant communities and royal officials in both mainland Norway and the Norse overseas provinces. Scholars have traditionally explained popular unrest in the 1420s and 1430s as a direct reaction to the crown’s employment of foreign administrators. Two of the earliest and best-documented examples stem from the Eastern Norwegian community of Rakkestad (Østfold) and the island community of Orkney in 1424/25. The targets in both cases – Herman Molteke in Rakkestad and David Menzies in Orkney – had foreign origins, and historians have often treated peasants’ aversion to them as evidence for anti-foreign sentiment in the Norwegian realm in the late Middle Ages. However, sources from only one of the two cases – Orkney – include explicit grievances concerning foreigners in office. In this article, the author seeks to explain the discrepancy through a comparison of complaints, antagonists and activists in the two cases. It is argued that Orkney, an autonomous province with its own representative body, had sufficient agency to submit new immigration regulation proposals in direct negotiations with the crown. By contrast, Rakkestad was subject to the intermediary authority of the Norwegian council, which represented the interests of Norway’s peasantry and used complaints as a premise for new regulatory policies in later decades