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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 323: Scandinavia and Europe, c. 1050-1250, III: The Norwegian Civil Wars at Home and Abroad

Monday 9 July 2012, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Edward Carlsson Browne, Centre for Scandinavian Studies, University of Aberdeen
Moderator/Chair:Paul Gazzoli, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Paper 323-aBreaking the Rules of War: King Sverre and the Norwegian 'Civil Wars'
(Language: English)
Philip Walter Line, Independent Scholar, Helsinki
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Military History
Paper 323-bWhat Makes a Man a King?: Rules and the Norwegian Succession from the 11th to 13th Centuries
(Language: English)
Edward Carlsson Browne, Centre for Scandinavian Studies, University of Aberdeen
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Political Thought
Paper 323-cA 13th-Century Scandinavian Attack on Anglesey
(Language: English)
Owain Wyn Jones, School of History, Welsh History & Archaeology, Bangor University
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Scandinavian
Abstract

Norway's civil war era saw it change from a nation on the periphery of, and strongly differentiated from, Europe to a well-ordered polity that had adopted European norms and administrative mechanisms. The papers in this session analyse the period from three different angles. Philip Line focusses upon King Sverre and the military innovations which played a role in his rise to, and maintenance of, power. Edward Carlsson Browne surveys the entire period to shed light upon the extent to which there were any absolute rules of royal succession, or whether the system was fundamentally contextual. Owain Wyn Jones explores a peculiar passage in a Middle Welsh text which may shed light upon the terms of the 1208 truce between Baglar and Birkibeinar.