FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

The Realm of Norway and its dependencies was one of the most extensive polities in Europe in the Middle Ages. The Norwegian king's political dominance in the Norse World culminated in the two generations after c. 1270 when the kings established direct roy al rule over the peripheral provinces of the realm and integrated the dependencies into a common state. The tide turned by the end of the 14th century as a consequence of Norway's incorporation into a unified Scandinavia. From 1450 onwards the medieval No rwegian realm came apart and the dependencies were divided between Scotland, Sweden and Denmark. Since then the former Norse provinces have become parts of modern national states, consequently the historiography of the medieval Norwegian domination in the Norse world has been heavily influenced by the national perspective. We intend to analyze the Norwegian realm as a pre-national and multi-ethnic polity, focusing on the relationship between the king and his most distant lands and the character of royal r ule. We will concentrate on the century after 1270 when the kings of Norway strove to transform the relatively loose and amorphous Norwegian domination into some sort state. In addition, the relationship between Norway and the Norse communities has hardly been studied for this period. We plan to carry out a series of case studies, namely 'Communalism and feudalism', 'Women's interaction with local and central authorities', 'The economical foundations of royal administration', 'Communication between core a nd periphery', 'Legislation', 'Jemtland, an eastern skatland?', and 'Orkney and Shetland, political and ecclesiastical relations to Norway'. Our perspective is deliberately transnational, and our method is comparative as it is our ambition to catch the Ol d Norse realm in its geopolitical totality liberated from the national historiography, which since the 19th century has biased historical research in the field.