Executions and Political Murders in Medieval Scandinavia

What is it about?

In thirteenth-century Sweden, kings began referring to Roman law and its concept of treason to legitimize their use of political violence in executing rebellious magnates. Kings implemented a strategy of executions to deter powerful noblemen from challenging the king’s position. Public executions and political murders of noblemen in the Scandinavian kingdoms during the Middle Ages, suggest that these events were closely connected to larger political and legal developments. However, parallel to this, narratives surrounding these executions imply resistance to those trends and justification of such resistance using different models of defiance. The author of a verse chronicle in Old Swedish from around 1320, Erikskrönikan (The Chronicle of Duke Erik), attempted to demonstrate the injustice of royal executions and the validity of resistance to unjust kings by siding with the executed rebels or magnates who fell from grace. Essentially, the chronicler condemns the ruling factions’ abuse of political power by portraying these executions as nothing more than illicit and illegal political murders.

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Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash