Law, Ritual, and Punishment: The Consequences of Making War Against the King in High Medieval England and Norway

This article uses a comparative approach to investigate the extent to which contemporary ideas regarding kingship influenced how monarchs in high medieval Europe dealt with those who took up arms against them before such behaviour became explicitly proscribed in legal texts. It compares two high medieval kingdoms in which there was some divergence in contemporary ideas regarding the position of kings and how they were expected to rule, namely Norway and England. This article argues that contemporary perceptions of the authority and power invested in kings, both individually and as a category, affected their ability to punish those who took up arms against them in a consistent manner. A monarch’s authority and power might therefore to some extent be understood in terms of their ability to punish rebellious opponents.