Papers by Dillon R F Knackstedt
What can 178 entries commemorating St Bruno the Carthusian in a medieval scroll tell us about his... more What can 178 entries commemorating St Bruno the Carthusian in a medieval scroll tell us about his influence on the medieval church? This Storymap explores the world of St Bruno based on the mortuary roll the travelled across Europe following his death.
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EPOCH, 2021
The landslov of King Magnus the Lawmender of Norway (r.1263-1280) has recieved scarce attention o... more The landslov of King Magnus the Lawmender of Norway (r.1263-1280) has recieved scarce attention outside of Scandinavian academia. This article seeks the introduce the source to a larger audience while simultaneously offering some suggestions about how some of the changes made in the law book were based on contemporary Christian theology.
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Conference Presentations by Dillon R F Knackstedt
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies Graduate Student Conference, 2019
In this paper, I argue that there is a seriously under-studied theological side to Magnus the Law... more In this paper, I argue that there is a seriously under-studied theological side to Magnus the Lawmender's law-building project of the 1260-70s in Norway. By comparing many of the revisions made in Magnus' laws with the earlier law books of Norway and Iceland with the Christian theology of the new law and the old law, several parallels become clear. In particular, this has the potential to add renewed significance to Christian laws section of the landslov and the Jonsbok, a section that is normally treated as of relatively trivial importance.
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Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting, 2021
The historiographical tradition about King Magnus “the Lawmender” of Norway (who reigned from 126... more The historiographical tradition about King Magnus “the Lawmender” of Norway (who reigned from 1263-1280) has maintained roughly the same interpretation since 1878. This version of the story about the reign of Magnus asserts that the king was strong advocate for the centralization
of royal power in the thirteenth century: replacing the many laws and law books across the different regions of his kingdom, he arguably created Europe’s first unified national law code.
The topic of this paper is an entirely different story about the reign of King Magnus and his laws that I devised while researching the theological aspects of law in the Kingdom of Norway. I argue that Magnus neither valued centralization, nor did he desire to curtail the power of the church and interfere with church law. Rather, Magnus’ “mending” of the laws of Norway was an effort to reconcile the competing factions and regions of his kingdom into a peaceful coexistence guided by him, the bishops, and his network of lawyers and representatives.
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Drafts by Dillon R F Knackstedt
This thesis explains a new interpretation of the law books written during the reign of King Magnu... more This thesis explains a new interpretation of the law books written during the reign of King Magnus the Lawmender of Norway (1239-1280, crowned 1261, r.1263-1280). In the process it also teases out common themes in Norway’s early histories, Iceland’s early laws, and biblical exegesis and re-writes much of what is assumed about “church” and “state” in this era, beginning at Magnus’ coronation and ending with the fraught year following his death, 1281.
According to the new interpretation explored in these four chapters, the laws of Magnus the Lawmender were not an attempt at royal legitimization of the king’s exclusive right to legislate, an element in a protracted contest between the church and the Norwegian crown over jurisdiction over Christian law, or a project undertaken to centralize the state bureaucracy. Rather, the laws are the clearest representation of the king’s attempt to build a kingdom of “co-inherence” and charity, to replace injustice, discord between different classes of men, and problematic customs with a law based on universal and Christian principles. The landslov represents, first and foremost, an application of the tropological sense to the old laws of Norway and Iceland as part of an effort to enact Magnus’ self-understood role as the guardian of the peace and justice of the kingdom and to encourage a harmonious society of various classes of free men founded on the Christian faith and sacramental grace.
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Papers by Dillon R F Knackstedt
https://arcg.is/1HHvjX0
Conference Presentations by Dillon R F Knackstedt
of royal power in the thirteenth century: replacing the many laws and law books across the different regions of his kingdom, he arguably created Europe’s first unified national law code.
The topic of this paper is an entirely different story about the reign of King Magnus and his laws that I devised while researching the theological aspects of law in the Kingdom of Norway. I argue that Magnus neither valued centralization, nor did he desire to curtail the power of the church and interfere with church law. Rather, Magnus’ “mending” of the laws of Norway was an effort to reconcile the competing factions and regions of his kingdom into a peaceful coexistence guided by him, the bishops, and his network of lawyers and representatives.
Drafts by Dillon R F Knackstedt
According to the new interpretation explored in these four chapters, the laws of Magnus the Lawmender were not an attempt at royal legitimization of the king’s exclusive right to legislate, an element in a protracted contest between the church and the Norwegian crown over jurisdiction over Christian law, or a project undertaken to centralize the state bureaucracy. Rather, the laws are the clearest representation of the king’s attempt to build a kingdom of “co-inherence” and charity, to replace injustice, discord between different classes of men, and problematic customs with a law based on universal and Christian principles. The landslov represents, first and foremost, an application of the tropological sense to the old laws of Norway and Iceland as part of an effort to enact Magnus’ self-understood role as the guardian of the peace and justice of the kingdom and to encourage a harmonious society of various classes of free men founded on the Christian faith and sacramental grace.
https://arcg.is/1HHvjX0
of royal power in the thirteenth century: replacing the many laws and law books across the different regions of his kingdom, he arguably created Europe’s first unified national law code.
The topic of this paper is an entirely different story about the reign of King Magnus and his laws that I devised while researching the theological aspects of law in the Kingdom of Norway. I argue that Magnus neither valued centralization, nor did he desire to curtail the power of the church and interfere with church law. Rather, Magnus’ “mending” of the laws of Norway was an effort to reconcile the competing factions and regions of his kingdom into a peaceful coexistence guided by him, the bishops, and his network of lawyers and representatives.
According to the new interpretation explored in these four chapters, the laws of Magnus the Lawmender were not an attempt at royal legitimization of the king’s exclusive right to legislate, an element in a protracted contest between the church and the Norwegian crown over jurisdiction over Christian law, or a project undertaken to centralize the state bureaucracy. Rather, the laws are the clearest representation of the king’s attempt to build a kingdom of “co-inherence” and charity, to replace injustice, discord between different classes of men, and problematic customs with a law based on universal and Christian principles. The landslov represents, first and foremost, an application of the tropological sense to the old laws of Norway and Iceland as part of an effort to enact Magnus’ self-understood role as the guardian of the peace and justice of the kingdom and to encourage a harmonious society of various classes of free men founded on the Christian faith and sacramental grace.