Europe was in the Middle Ages characterized by conflict, and the vast majority of societies underwent periods of war. Civil wars can therefore be linked to both state development and to its opposite: chaos.

As part of the CAS project The Nordic ‘Civil Wars’ in the High Middle Ages in a Comparative Perspective, professor Hans Jacob Orning and professor Jón Viðar Sigurðsson from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo (UiO) is tackling questions regarding the violence and chaos of wars in the Middle Ages:

How destructive were they, to what extent did they disrupt the state of ‘peace’, and how were they settled? How should we use the terms to describe the situation, and can they be clearly distinguished from each other? Are there crucial differences between conflicts of the High and Late Middle Ages, and between different regions of the Nordic countries?

From 23 - 24 April, a two-day conference will be hosted at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to discuss the different types of conflict and the role of conflict in Medieval Scandinavia.

The conference will be held in Norwegian or other Nordic languages.