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
