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1 - The Treaty of Perth: Union of the realm and the king’s law
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- By Erik Opsahl
- Edited by Andrew R. C. Simpson, University of Edinburgh, Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde, Universitetet i Oslo
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- Book:
- Comparative Perspectives in Scottish and Norwegian Legal History, Trade and Seafaring, 1200-1800
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 17 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2023, pp 35-62
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Summary
A: INTRODUCTION – THE NORWEGIAN-SCOTTISH STRUGGLE OVER THE ISLANDS IN THE WEST
Every king in medieval Europe wanted to expand their realm. Kings tried to subjugate or conquer new territories and ethnic groups beyond their original core territory. New territories gave kings increased incomes in taxes and other duties from the subjects, together with trading opportunities and potential strategic gains over rivals. In the Norwegian case, the core territory of the kingdom was united during the tenth and eleventh centuries. A king's space of action in “foreign policy” could be affected or decided by the existence of domestic and foreign rivals. The Norwegian kingdom had its interests to the west, towards the territories to which ethnic Norwegians had emigrated; to the north, towards the arctic regions where different ethnic groups lived; to the east where there were disputed border regions with Sweden; and to the south and the Danish border territories.
The Treaty of Perth initiated, or was part of a decisive phase in, what we can call state-building in Norway in the middle ages. This article will discuss this process from the end of the thirteenth century into the first decades of the fourteenth century and then the further development into the late middle ages. The process created a political framework around Norwegian society, this being the Norwegian kingdom with its laws and this became a major catalyst for the emergence of Norwegian identity through the centuries. The Norwegian kingdom, with its laws, became even more important in the fourteenth and especially the fifteenth century when Norway had entered the Scandinavian Kalmar Union (from 1397). Politics, concepts and symbols became important realities when Norway as a political unit came under political pressure from stronger union partners. In a situation like that, Norwegians from different social groups filled political images and symbols with content that meant something for them in their daily lives.
King Håkon IV Håkonsson's reign (1217–1263) was characterised by the final defeat of domestic rivals to the throne and a systematic strengthening of the royal administration in Norway. A new law of royal succession was decided in 1260. Here, an almost automatic hereditary kingship was established. The basic principles of the law were one king, legitimacy and primogeniture. The king also initiated in the same year a revision of the Law of Frostating, one of Norway's regional laws.
5 - What Did the Norwegians Drink?
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- By Erik Opsahl
- Edited by Viktória Gyönki, Andrea Maraschi
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- Book:
- Food Culture in Medieval Scandinavia
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 16 November 2022
- Print publication:
- 04 July 2022, pp 117-130
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Abstract
The chapter describes Norwegians’ drinking habits in the Middle Ages. The sources testify to a lot of drunkenness and subsequent fights and riots. However, Norwegians were hardly drunk all the time. Wine seems to have been relatively difficult to obtain. The domestic Norwegian beer had a weak alcohol content, and the good and stronger German beer had to be imported. The most common drink was milk, possibly a mixture of milk and water. Water also seems to have been a thirst quencher. Norwegian kings had taverns built around the country. The bottling and sale of beer was regulated. Drinking was a central part of social life. Queen Margrete advised King Erik to serve the Norwegians good German beer in 1405.
Keywords: Norway, Wine, Beer, Drunkenness, Milk, Tavern
In 1442, the German merchants in Oslo and Tønsberg complained bitterly to Lübeck and other Hanseatic towns about what they saw as a violation of their privileges by the Norwegian authorities. They mentioned by name the commanders of the royal castles at Tønsberg and Oslo, who belonged to Norway's aristocratic and political elite in the first half of the fifteenth century. As members of the Norwegian Council of the Realm and commanders of castles in towns where German merchants were trading, these two noblemen were leading proponents of a determined Norwegian policy that sought to reduce the German merchants’ dominant trading position. The aim of this policy was not to expel German merchants from Norway, but rather to reduce and limit their economic role.
According to the German merchants, the commander in Oslo, Sigurd Jonsson (Sørum) had declared that he would try with all his power and all his men to drive them out of Norway, even if it meant that he would have to drink water for the rest of his life. Sigurd Jonson's reference to drinking water alluded to the danger of good German beer disappearing from Norway along with the German merchants: Norwegians had come to prefer German beer to their own.
Drink for Survival, Pleasure, or Drunkenness?
People were thirsty in the Middle Ages. The food was salty due to preserving and most people carried out more heavy manual labour than they do today. Besides water and milk, the only other drinking alternatives in the Middle Ages were beer and wine.
1 - Introduction
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- By John Bryden, Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute in Oslo, Erik Opsahl, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Ottar Brox, University of Tromso and Senior Research Associate at NIBR (Norwegian Institute for Regional Research) in Oslo, Lesley Riddoch, Strathclyde University
- Edited by John Bryden, Professor, University of Aberdeen and Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute, Lesley Riddoch, Director, Nordic Horizons, Ottar Brox, Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research
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- Book:
- Northern Neighbours
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 05 August 2016
- Print publication:
- 23 March 2015, pp 1-26
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Summary
Hear me, Despot, I will be your bane, as long as I last. For Norway's law, in the peasant's hand shall smash your slaves’ bonds.
Henrik Wergeland – The Norwegian's Catechism, 1832INTRODUCTION
This book is a comparative study of the economic, social and political development of Norway and Scotland since about 1800. Our main question is about how the development of these two small countries at the north of Europe, whose histories were intertwined from about the year ad 795 when Norse raiders sacked Iona Monastery, and whose economic, social, cultural and political structures had certain similarities in the early and late medieval periods, nevertheless diverged sharply in economic, social, political and other ways from the eighteenth century on. In seeking to answer that question, we inevitably move closer towards an understanding of the political, social and economic conditions that make an ‘ alternative’ development possible. In this way we hope to inform debates about the future of Scotland after the referendum in Autumn 2014, as well as contribute to debates about present and future policy choices in Norway.
In this referendum, the Scottish electorate faced a choice of whether or not to vote for independence from the rest of the UK. In the political developments of the recent past that have led to this situation, there has been growing Scottish interest in Norway and the wider Nordic region, exemplified by Lesley Riddoch's lively ‘Nordic Horizons’ group. This interest has focused on issues such as education, land ownership, urban transport, green cities, elderly care, NATO, the management of North Sea oil and gas, local government, the welfare state and Nordic cooperation. The general tenor of the Nordic Horizon debates, as well as the White Paper on Scottish Independence produced by the Scottish Government in the Autumn of 2013, is that Norwegian – and wider Nordic – policies might offer some interesting ideas for Scotland should it become a nation-state again. Beyond that, some form of future alliance with the structures of Nordic and wider Scandinavian cooperation, in particular the Nordic Council of Ministers, is also under discussion. These issues, and in particular the perceptions around them, are further discussed by Hilson and Newby in Chapter 10.