The country shall be built by law. If there were no law in the country, then the one who could grasp most would have most. Therefore, the law should be made according to the needs of everyone, so that those who are peaceful and innocent may enjoy their peace and the evil and unjust may fear what is written in the law (…). The law should not be written for the particular benefit of any man, but according to the needs of everyone who lives in the country.
In contrast to the provincial laws, the written law has now become an authoritative text, and there is some idea of a public authority with the right to define the norms of society, but at this date it is still an open question to what extent cases were settled according to the letter of the law. The king’s authority to issue laws was disputed in the Middle Ages as well as among contemporary scholars. Early royal legislators, in Scandinavia as well as in the rest of Europe, often referred to an alleged old law or to general principles of justice to legitimate their decisions, as did Knud VI of Denmark and Håkon Håkonsson of Norway in their decrees about homicide.
This reasoning takes an even more explicit form in The King’s Mirror, where the author warns the king as the highest judge against adhering too rigidly to the letter of the law. Instead, he should judge according to “the holy laws,” namely God’s own laws as laid down in the Bible and Christian doctrine—the Old Testament holds a particular importance here, as most of the examples set up for the king are taken from this source. Although The King’s Mirror contains no explicit reference to the king as a legislator, its doctrine that the king’s duty is to do what is just regardless of the existing laws, lays the intellectual foundations for royal legislation. This idea was developed further by Håkon’s son Magnus in the Norwegian Code of the Realm, according to which the law in the final analysis is anchored in an absolute, objective justice—God’s own justice, which supersedes the articles of the written law.
However, there were limits to how far this idea could serve to justify the various solutions to practical problems laid down in royal or even ecclesiastical law codes. God could hardly be made responsible for the change from two to three months of military service or changes in the terms of land lease. As in the early period, a certain idea of positive law was a necessary element, only now the question of the authority behind this law was posed more explicitly. When King Magnus issued the National Law, he first presented his plans to the provincial assemblies (lagtings) to get permission to carry them out. Having composed the law-book, he presented it to the assemblies once more and had it formally promulgated by them in the years 1274–76 (as the lagtings met at approximately the same time in different parts of the country, the king could only be present at one of them each year). He was thus very diligent about seeking the consent of the people, but his actions seem to imply that in giving the king their consent the people had permanently delegated their legislative authority to him. In accordance with the exalted theory of The King’s Mirror, the king may well have claimed to be the supreme legislator, and he certainly regarded himself and the legal experts in his circle as vastly superior in wisdom and knowledge of the laws. Another section in the law alludes to the well-known passages in the Corpus iuris civilis, according to which the emperor is not subject to the law and his decisions have the force of law.
Although most medieval jurists interpreted these passages in a narrow sense and the exact meaning of the allusion to them in the Code of the Realm is not quite clear, there is no doubt that the Norwegian king claimed considerable authority as a legislator. This is expressed in another statement in the code, which declares that only a fool confines himself to the letter of the law, whereas the wise man considers the background and circumstances in order to apply the law in the best way. Thus, the law has to be administered by the king and his legal experts who, unlike ordinary people, are qualified to adjust it in different ways.
By contrast, there were greater restrictions on the king’s legislative power in Denmark and Sweden. In his 1282 charter, which became the model for later election charters, King Erik V Klipping had to promise not to change King Valdemar’s law. Consent to or even active participation in legislation became a frequent provision in the later election charters. It is also significant that no law for the whole of Denmark was issued until the king had become absolute (in 1660) and issued the Danish law of 1683. However, the kings issued a series of ordinances, which in practice came to have a similar status to that of laws. Sweden did get a national law in 1350, but it was to a greater extent than the Norwegian one an expression of aristocratic interests.
The emergence of public justice, organized by the Church as well as the monarchy, was an important factor in political centralization and the emergence of an elite, for it created new officials and transferred economic resources and political power from the peasants to the upper classes. Should it then be regarded primarily as yet another means of exploiting the population, or was it a “service function”? Both points of view have had and have their adherents. Public justice clearly served the interests of the monarchy and the elite, who increased their power and profited from the fines paid by those convicted. From the point of view of the people, its main disadvantages derived from the corruption of royal officials and the fact that public justice was slow justice. In the case of Denmark, it has also been claimed that the new procedures, which would at first seem to us to represent progress, actually weakened the position of ordinary people. Whereas the old formal means of evidence gave a well-connected man in the local community a reasonable chance to acquit himself of an accusation by summoning his neighbors and relatives as co-jurors, the new juries, which could be bribed or manipulated by powerful landowners, made him dependent on an aristocratic patron. In the case of Norway, we have examples of abuses of the system, both from the sagas and from royal complaints, but we do not know how widespread they were. As for the advantages of public justice, it is important to note that the feuds were suppressed not primarily by prohibitions and punishment, but through alternative ways of resolving conflicts. The existence of public justice made it easier to settle legal questions, while at the same time making it possible to abstain from revenge without losing face. It is difficult, in fact, to know where to draw the line between exploitation and common interests. In any case, whether or not the evolution of public justice was consonant with the “objective” interests of the people, the reason for its progress must be sought in ideology more than in direct pressure from above, this in contrast to what happened in the field of military specialization. This is evident from the fact that not only royal but also ecclesiastical jurisdiction expanded during our period, and that the expansion of public justice took place mainly in periods of internal peace and stability.
Despite the fact that our knowledge of the earliest period is, as usual, limited, there can hardly be any doubt that considerable changes took place in the field of law and justice in Scandinavia from the twelfth century onwards. The oldest legal system can be reconstructed from provincial laws, at least in the field of procedure, while the extant laws must largely have been formulated at the time of writing and show the influence of the Church and the monarchy. We are dealing with a transition from a form of law and justice that regulated issues between equal parties according to formal rules, to public justice, exercised by the Church and the monarchy. This entailed an impartial judge operating above the parties and judging according to his own interpretation of written laws. These changes in law and justice are the clearest expression of how ideas about the right order of the world (discussed above) were applied in practice. Thus, the adaptation of common European law and jurisprudence, which began as early as in the twelfth century provincial laws and was greatly extended in the legislation from the second half of the thirteenth century, had far-reaching consequences. Viewed from an international perspective, the Scandinavian legal system may be regarded as a combination of the English and the Continental variants. As in England, the national legal tradition was largely retained, whereas the ex
istence of law codes as well as influence from Roman and canon law point to continental parallels. The combination of professional judges and popular representatives may also seem to represent a blending of the two traditions, although on this point there are so many different solutions in England as well as on the Continent that it is difficult to make an exact classification. What is clear, however, is that Scandinavia was deeply influenced by the legal revolution that was underway in contemporary Europe. Although the king’s growing authority and involvement in legal matters can be explained as a means to extend his power, parallel to what happened in many parts of the world, the particular form this development took as well as the parallel growth of ecclesiastical jurisdiction must be the result of European influence. The Scandinavian countries thus had the advantage of being exposed to influence from the center at a time when new legal and administrative forms were developing there.
War and the Preparation for War: From Leding to Professional Forces
In the mid-twentieth century, four big military camps were excavated in Denmark. They are usually referred to as trelleborgs, after the best-known of them, Trelleborg on Zealand. The others are Fyrkat and Aggersborg in northern Jutland and Nonnebakken outside present-day Odense on Funen. Their date was long a subject of controversy, but has now been fixed at around 980 through dendrochronology. Trelleborg has been dated in this way to 981, and although there is not sufficient wood to date the others, the similarities between them indicate that they are almost certainly contemporary. The camps are built in the shape of a circle, varying between 120 and 240 meters in diameter, and filled with houses, placed strictly symmetrically. The date as well as the character of the fortifications indicates that they were built in connection with Harald Bluetooth’s conquest, possibly as garrisons to control various parts of the country. They thus give substance to his boast of having conquered the whole of Denmark.
From a military point of view, the trelleborgs differ from the castles that were built some hundred years later in being large and probably low-slung. Although only the foundations have been preserved, they most probably had wooden palisades. They thus would have needed a large number of men to defend them properly. Despite being built to house an occupation force, the number of men needed to garrison them indicates a relatively modest difference between elite soldiers and the common population. The Danish conquest of England shortly afterwards points in the same direction. Although later English sources describe the elite character of Cnut’s army, it must have been the result of a large mobilization, for according to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it arrived from Denmark on 160 ships.
Figure 9. Trelleborg on Zealand. A camp with houses, surrounded by walls and palisades. As the drawing shows, it is built according to a very precise plan, with symmetrical buildings placed exactly in the center. Drawing by Poul Nørlund, from Nordiske Fortidsminder, vol. 4, fasc. 1 (Copenhagen, 1948), p. 24. Dept. of Special Collections, University of Bergen Library.
We do not know how this army was recruited and structured, but we have indications from Danish as well as Norwegian sources of a military organization based on districts, each recruiting the number of men necessary to man a ship, a system normally referred to as leding (No. leidang, ON leiðangr, Da. leding, Sw. ledung). It is first mentioned in Denmark in a charter dated 1085, but most scholars believe that it is older, possibly going back to the reign of Harald Bluetooth. The organization is described in detail for the first time around 1170 and then in the laws of the thirteenth century. The sagas attribute the foundation of the corresponding organization in Norway to King Håkon the Good (c. 930–960), which has also been accepted by most historians. The term is used in skaldic poetry from the tenth century, but we do not know if it refers there to this particular organization or just to a large fleet. However, there are detailed references to the leding in the laws of Gulating and Frostating, usually dated to the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The leding is also known from Sweden, but, as usual, the early sources from this country are too meager to give much information about it.
Already in the earliest laws, the leding has also become a tax. This transition most likely happened when kings realized that they could appropriate for other purposes the provisions provided for military expeditions. Local communities were obliged not only to muster men for the ship but also provisions for the expedition, which typically lasted two or three months. The king could get hold of these by mobilizing the leding for an expedition, but then dismissing the crew and keeping the provisions. This could then easily develop into a permanent tax. The Old Norse sagas dealing with the civil wars, notably the Sverris Saga, give numerous examples of the flexible use of the leding and of royal demands for tax rather than men; King Sverre in particular often relied on elite forces rather than mass mobilization, but he needed provisions for these forces. Nevertheless, the tax and the elite forces did not replace mass mobilization in Norway but were employed in addition to it. In the Code of the Realm (1274–77), the leding had become an annual tax, defined as half the amount due in case of a mobilization. Late-thirteenth-century sources also indicate that the king might demand the full amount every three years, which seems to correspond to a rule that, though never explicitly stated, may be inferred from the fact that the sagas rarely mention full mobilizations more often than every three years. By contrast, such a rule is explicitly mentioned in the Danish laws, with the difference that the period is every four years instead of three.
Denmark also differs from Norway in that the tax eventually replaced military service for the majority of the population, while a minority became fulltime elite warriors, with better training and heavy and expensive arms and armor, but exempt from paying the tax. In consequence, the taxes paid by the common people were many times higher in Denmark than in Norway. This change was already underway in 1170 and was fully implemented during the following period. The military class became herremænd (gentlemen), similar to knights in England and other countries, and developed into an aristocratic elite. A similar course of events took place in parts of Sweden.
An important reason for this development was the change from sea to land warfare. The use of heavy cavalry is mentioned for the first time in Denmark in the battle of Fodevig (1134), where King Erik Emune defeated his rival King Niels with a force of German knights. It seems to have come into regular use in the following period, and is frequently mentioned by Saxo. In his account of the conflicts in the mid-twelfth century, he explains King Knud’s defeat against his rival Sven by his ill-conceived order that his knights should fight on foot to prevent them from fleeing. They were easily defeated. He gives also a dramatic picture of his hero King Valdemar (1157–1182) fighting on horseback against Saxon knights in the service of his rival King Knud in order to prevent them from crossing a river. Valdemar splits his lance in an encounter with a Saxon knight, has four spears thrown against him at the same time and manages to hold onto his horse despite the fact that it is about to throw him off by bucking backwards.
A similar development took place in Sweden from the late twelfth century onwards. The formal expression of the new order in this country came in the Alsnö stadga (the Statute of Alsnö), probably drafted in 1280, which is usually regarded as a kind of “constitution” for the Swedish aristocracy, confirming the principle of specialized military service on horseback in return for privileges. It would seem logical that land warfare and heavy cavalry would be more suitable to conditions in Sweden, where a larger percentage of settlements were inland, than in Denmark, the whole of which is within easy reach of the coast. The change nevertheless occurred first and to a greater extent in Denmark, and the explanation must be sought in the importance of Northern Germany in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Danish foreign policy. Although the Danes were also engaged in conquests in the Baltic area, which required crossing the sea, most of the fighting there took place ashore, and ships were mainly used for transport. According to Saxo, King Erik II Emune (1134–1137) was the first
who transported horses on ships, and whether this is true or not, it is certainly the case that the Danes fought on horseback on their expeditions in the Baltic area.
Figure 10. The king (with a crown on his helmet) as knight on horseback, on a seal belonging to Eirik Magnusson (1280–299). This is the reverse of the seal; the obverse depicts the king in majesty on his throne. Drawing by Abraham Kall, from Norske mynter og sigiller (Christiania, 1815). Dept. of Special Collections, University of Bergen Library.
In contrast to Denmark, sea warfare was still important in Norway, which explains the continued existence of the leding there. This applies to the civil wars of the twelfth century as well as to the foreign policy of the thirteenth. During the former, the fleet was used to a great extent, both to fight great battles at sea and for quick raids against enemy strongholds. Indeed most of the decisive battles of this period were fought at sea, including the most famous of them, Sverre’s victory over Magnus Erlingsson at Fimreite in Sognefjorden in 1184, when King Magnus and sixteen of the greatest magnates of the country were killed. An exercise of sea power was the best, and in some cases the only way to maintain control over a country where most of the population lived along the coast. This applies particularly to western Norway, where the country’s largest town, Bergen, was situated. Traveling on land in this area meant almost constantly crossing mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, and fjords. Avoiding the latter meant traveling through barren country across mountains up to around 1500–2000 meters (5,000 to 6,500 feet) above sea level.
Later, in 1263, Sverre’s grandson King Håkon Håkonsson used the fleet to defend Norwegian possessions off the coast of Scotland. The immediate impression one gets of this expedition is that of a fight between a whale and an elephant: the Norwegians on ships along the coast of Scotland, the Scots following on land to prevent the enemy from getting ashore. Only one episode involved active fighting: some Norwegian ships were thrown ashore by a heavy sea at Largs and came under attack from the Scots until the Norwegians managed to launch the ships again and get away. The expedition was a failure and might be regarded as evidence that the Norwegian form of sea warfare had become obsolete. Actually, however, a similar strategy was used with considerable success against Denmark in the 1250s and 1290s, partly as a power demonstration—which clearly had been the intention in Scotland—partly for raiding expeditions ashore, where Denmark had now become vulnerable because of its neglect of sea warfare in the preceding period. Denmark, with its low-lying coast and dense population, was also more exposed to raids from the sea than was Scotland. A treaty with France in 1295 is evidence of the reputation of the Norwegian fleet. According to this treaty, the king of Norway was to assist King Philip IV of France with three hundred ships and fifty thousand men for four months per year in return for a payment of thirty thousand pounds sterling. The size of this force is clearly unrealistic, and the treaty was probably intended as a credible threat against England in the on-going war between France and Scotland on the one hand and England on the other, rather than an actual mobilization. Still, the memory of the expedition of 1263 must have convinced Philip that his money was well spent.
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