Former Project Leader at CAS has published New Book on Norwegian Medieval Kingship

A new book by former CAS project leader Hans Jacob Orning is adding fresh momentum to discussions about political authority and everyday life in the Middle Ages. Orning, who led the CAS project The Nordic ‘Civil Wars’ in the High Middle Ages in a Comparative Perspective in 2017/2018, published Myten om den gode kongen earlier this autumn.

The book appears in the wake of last year’s extensive celebrations of the 750th anniversary of Magnus VI’s Law of 1274. Those events sparked renewed interest in medieval governance, not least thanks to legal historian - and fellow former CAS project leader - Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde. Sunde led the project Social Governance Through Legislation in 2020/2021 and took a prominent role in shaping the public conversation around the Landslov. He also published the book Kongen, lova og landet, which presents Magnus Lagabøte as a remarkable medieval ruler: educated among Franciscan monks, committed to peace rather than war, and responsible for a law code that became foundational for Norwegian political and legal culture.

Orning’s book approaches the same period from a different angle. Instead of treating the years before the Landslov as chaotic or “pre-state”, he highlights the strength of local networks, negotiated peace, and shared expectations of reciprocity. The book argues that people in 13th-century Norway were far from defenceless without a strong monarch; they relied on alliances and social ties to settle disputes, and most conflicts were resolved without spiralling into violence. This, Orning suggests, created a society that was more orderly - and more predictable - than later narratives have assumed.

The contrast becomes clearer when the two books are read side by side. Sunde emphasises the transformative role of legislation and the political ambitions behind Magnus’s law reforms. Orning, meanwhile, directs attention to the social world in which the law emerged, arguing that the foundations of today’s legal culture lie as much in these older practices of conflict resolution as in the royal code itself.

A recent review in Forskerforum outlines these differing interpretations, placing them within the broader debate about how medieval societies managed authority and maintained order. For CAS, it is notable simply that two scholars who once led separate projects here - years apart and with distinct disciplinary approaches - now find themselves contributing to the same national discussion about medieval law, power, and historical interpretation.