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IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 235: The North in Transition, I: Opportunities and Conflicts in the Disputed Arctic in the Nordic Late Middle Ages

Monday 4 July 2022, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:'Creating the New North' Research Programme, Universitetet i Tromsø / Norges Arktiske Universitet
Organiser:Sigrun Høgetveit Berg, Institutt for historie og religionsvitenskap, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges Arktiske Universitetet
Moderator/Chair:John McNicol, Department of Archaeology, Conservation & History, UiT the Artic University of Norway
Paper 235-aEcclesiastical Incomes and Political Control in the Fishing Communities of Arctic Norway in the Late Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Richard Holt, Institutt for historie og religionsvitenskap, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges Arktiske Universitetet
Index terms: Administration, Ecclesiastical History, Economics - Rural, Geography and Settlement Studies
Paper 235-bNorthern Norway as a Border Area in the Middle Ages: Ethnicity, Economy, and the Expansion of the Medieval Norwegian Kingdom before 1400
(Language: English)
Astrid Mellem Johnsen, Institutt for arkeologi, historie, religionsvitenskap og teologi, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges Arktiske Universitet
Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 235-cSorcery Trials against the Arctic Sami: Cross-Border Legal Conflicts in the Nordic Late Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Rune Blix Hagen, Institutt for historie og religionsvitenskap, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges Arktiske Universitetet
Index terms: Law, Mentalities, Social History
Abstract

The first paper explores how stockfish exports provided opportunities that the vast archbishopric of Trondheim exploited effectively when northern Norway experienced the consequences of population decline in the later Middle Ages. An aspect of the region was that it was characterized by ethnic, religious, and economic heterogeneity - both an incentive and a challenge for the processes of incorporation into the Norwegian kingdom. The second paper takes as its focus different boundaries in an area lacking defined national borders. The late medieval Scandinavian kingdoms struggled for territorial control over the borderless Arctic north, through taxation, trade, and jurisdiction over the Sámi who lived there, and the third paper shows how pursuing sorcery charges against Sámi men was an issue that provoked border conflicts between the states.