Law, anger and mercy in Norwegian courts in the High Middle Ages - a podcast by The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800)

Prof. Hans Jacob Orning talks on “Once again I’m in trouble, as I have received the wrath of my master”. Law, anger and mercy in Norwegian courts in the High Middle Ages. Orning delivered this talk at the Emotions in the Courtroom symposium presented by The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100 - 1800) and the Centre for Mediaeval and Early Modern Law and Literature, University of St Andrews at St Andrews in May 2015.

In this paper he discussed the relationship between legal procedures, religious penitence and political power in high medieval Norway, using a court trial between the Orcadian Earl Harald Maddadsson and the Norwegian King Sverre Sigurdsson from 1195 as a point of departure. This trial was one out of several in which the king summons magnates to answer for accusations of treachery or disloyalty. These processes are interesting, because they show that the legal idiom is intertwined with religious associations in terms of supplication and penitence, as well as the granting of mercy. Moreover, the traditional way of solving conflicts through mediation and compromise shines through in the agents’ understanding of such trials. In my presentation, I will define and discuss these different ways of understanding conflict, at the same time as I will underline the interconnectedness of these conceptions, demonstrating that the courtroom is indeed filled with emotions.

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