Eldbjørg Haug

Queen Margaret (1353–1412) was the first female monarch of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Her title to the three Nordic kingdoms in 1387–1388 laid the political foundation for the Kalmar Union. Former research has alleged that Queen Margaret's accession to the crowns was irregular. Although Norway had hereditary succession, Her accession to the throne has been considered as an act of (illegal) election. On the basis of empirical data, this article argues that she inherited the Norwegian crown, and that all accessions were legitimate, legally warranted and founded on Margaret’s position as a widow in all three kingdoms. However, they were also based on political considerations. This process was driven by the councils and aristocracy in all kingdoms in accordance with the queen in order to avoid the house of Mecklenburg taking over the crowns.

... By Eldbjørg Haug. Fiskerettar i saltvatn som eigedomsobjekt - eit tilsvar til alan hutchinson (Page 273-280) By Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde. Per Landgren: Det aristoteliska historiebegreppet. ... By Ketil Zachariassen. Louise Nyholm Kallestrup: I pagt med Djævelen. ...

From 1263 – 1391, fifteen mendicants are mentioned as minor penitentiaries for the province Dacia in the Apostolic Penitentiary. Nine of them ended their careers as bishops in the Baltic and Scandinavia. The hypothesis in this article is that the Scandinavian papal penitentiaries were intermediates between a geographic periphery of Christendom and the papacy, and contributed to a further centralisation of the universal church. For this purpose it gives a comprehensive biography of the Scandinavian papal penitentiaries in context.

Ole Egil Eide criticises some of our conclusions in the book Utstein Kloster – og Klosteroys historie in Collegium Medievale vol.19: that Utstein Abbey was founded in the 1160s, not in the 1260s as has hitherto been assumed; that Utstein Abbey has a first building phase dating to c.1200, while most of the standing buildings were raised in the late 13th century; that the choir of the church is older than the nave. Eide defends Gerhard FischerA¢â‚¬â„¢s dating of the founding of the Abbey to the 1260s. Fischer excavated and restored the Abbey between 1937 and 1965, but published little on this work. His material has been examined, but is not yet concluded. Still, FischerA¢â‚¬â„¢s theories have been broadly accepted without further discussion. A¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šThere is no written evidence on the foundation of Utstein Abbey, but Asgaut SteinnesA¢â‚¬â„¢ retrogressive analysis of monastic properties in Rogaland shows that it shared its foundational properties with Halsnoy Abbey. Erling Skakke founded Halsnoy in connection with his son MagnusA¢â‚¬â„¢s coronation in 1164, according to Bergen Fundas. The logical conclusion of SteinnesA¢â‚¬â„¢ analysis is that both abbeys were founded at the same time by the same donor. This was an anomaly in FischerA¢â‚¬â„¢s theory, and to accommodate it Steinnes introduced an auxiliary hypothesis: St.OlavA¢â‚¬â„¢s Monastery in Stavanger had been founded as a convent for regular Augustinian canons at the same time as Halsnoy. When King Magnus IV founded Utstein, St. OlavA¢â‚¬â„¢s and its lands were united with the new convent. A¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šSteinnesA¢â‚¬â„¢ (and Fischer/EideA¢â‚¬â„¢s) conjecture is based on a wrong assumption, that St. OlavA¢â‚¬â„¢s was a convent for regular canons. Edvard Bull proved that it was a Benedictine monastery, and had a respected school in 1160. His assumed the monastery to be founded around 1130, well before Halsnoy. Moreover, neither is there evidence of Utstein being a royal manor as late as 1260, nor of King Magnus IV ever residing there. A¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šA¢â‚¬â€šFischer ignored the presence of the Romanesque baptismal font from 1150-75 in his writings. His material indicates a more complex building history, though. The oldest building phase shows a surprising resemblance with the oldest building phase at Halsnoy. The building chronology of the unusually shaped church, with its central tower dividing the choir and nave, is not fully explained yet. However, we find FischerA¢â‚¬â„¢s theory – that the tower base was the original choir – impossible to defend; we try to see the churchA¢â‚¬â„¢s development in light of its function as a monastic church.

Med utgangspunkt i erfaringer fra et arbeid om Utstein kloster som på det naermeste er ferdig, skal vi her drøfte noen historiske og metodiske spørsmål som kan synes banale. 1 Hvilke problemstillinger er interessante å ta opp om de norske middelalderklostrene, hvilke kilder står til rådighet og ikke minst, hva vet vi allerede? I Europa finnes det områder som kan karakteriseres som «monastiske regioner» fordi konsentrasjonen av klostre er stor. Klosteranleggene i Norge og det øvrige Norden er få og små sammenlignet med England og mange land på kontinentet. I lys av den store forskningsproduksjonen om klostervesenet som pågår ellers i Europa-og som for huma-nioras vedkommende skal formidles til en større leserkrets-kan man spørre seg om det er noe vits i å forske mer på de norske klostrene i middelalderen. Er ikke alt som kan sies om dem allerede sagt?-Nå er det likevel ikke slik. Det finnes klostre og kontemplativt liv innenfor mange samfunn og religioner. Et saertrekk ved utviklingen innen den vesteuropeiske kirke er likevel at man i løpet av en kort periode i høymiddelalderen får mange ulike typer reli-giøse ordenssamfunn. Dette står i kontrast til klostrene innen den greskortodokse kirke der man holdt seg til Benedikts regel. Det er vanskelig å forstå dette fenomenet som annet enn et svar på utfordringer som var saerpreget for Vest-Europa i denne tiden. Sett i et slikt perspektiv kan man si at etableringene av klostre i Norge er en funksjon av behov i det større samfunn, både kirkelig og verdslig. Den som vil forstå hvordan kristendommen slo rot i Norge, kan således ikke overse klostervesenet og den europeiske sammenheng det stod i. Klosterbrødrene var helt sentrale i formidlingen av fremmed tankegods. De hadde sitt internasjonale nettverk og holdt seg trolig informert om utviklingen ellers i Europa i en ganske annen utstrekning enn det sekulaere presteskap. Så svaert mange munker og nonner var det aldri, men klosterbevegelsen har trolig spilt en hovedrolle som kontaktpunkt mellom Norge og det kirkelige og kulturelle liv i det øvrige Europa i middelalderen. 2

Queen Margaret (1353–1412) was the first female monarch of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.  Her title to the three Nordic kingdoms in 1387–1388 laid the political foundation for the Kalmar Union. Former research has alleged that Queen Margaret's accession to the crowns was irregular. Although Norway had hereditary succession, Her accession to the throne has been considered as an act of (illegal) election. On the basis of empirical data, this article argues that she inherited the Norwegian crown, and that all accessions were legitimate, legally warranted and founded on Margaret’s position as a widow in all three kingdoms. However, they were also based on political considerations. This process was driven by the councils and aristocracy in all kingdoms in accordance with the queen in order to avoid the house of Mecklenburg taking over the crowns.

The article questions the annalistic notice of the coronation of King Magnus Eriksson as the joint king of Norway, Sweden and Scania in Stockholm in the summer of 1336. This is done through the reexaminations of records and narratives of the event. Although it was presumably a joint coronation, no Norwegians or Danes have been recorded as present at the event. A coronation was a sacral event, but the new archbishop of Lund stayed at home, even though he was the primate of Uppsala. At the same time, the Norwegian bishops were gathered at a provincial council. One narrative tells us that the king was crowned by
Bishop Engelbert of Dorpat, but another, more trustworthy source says that Archbishop Petrus Philippi of Uppsala was the coronator. Because the archbishop’s new cathedral in Uppsala was still under construction, the coronation took place in Stockholm. The article concludes that the coronation of 1336 was meant to be only for Sweden. When examining
the evidence from the available sources, the Icelandic annals Annales regii must be considered the most reliable source of information. It states that the Norwegian council of the realm consented to the coronation of their king in Stockholm. The annalistic notice of  joint coronation for Sweden, Norway and Scania was written as late as 1402–09. It is based
in Birgittine propaganda lamenting the Swedish loss of Scania and must therefore be considered unreliable. The article has rehabilitated Gustav Storm’s evidence of a separate Norwegian coronation of Magnus Eriksson in 1337, based in Annalbruddstykket from Skálholt and Erikskrönikan. An inventory from Båhus of 1346 supports a separate coronation in mentioning the Norwegian virga, the short sceptre, among the coronation gear. A dominant view of the Norwegian unions during the fourteenth century has been that Sweden, and later Denmark, was the dominant party and oppressed Norway. Two different coronations of Magnus Eriksson support the present view of the Norwegian-Swedish union as being composed of two equal parties with a common king. Moreover, the evidence supporting a separate Norwegian coronation is significant for giving a better understanding of the coronation of Erik of Pomerania in Kalmar in 1397.

The last provincial statute of the Nidaros church, dated 20 December 1436, is this paper’s point of departure. The aim is to show that Archbishop Aslak Bolt’s tenure (1428 – 1450) was the period of the greatest church freedom in the Norwegian church. However, around 1430, the province was about to disintegrate due to papal centralisation and illegal foreign trade in stockfish from Iceland and Northern Norway. The archbishop of Nidaros was favourably disposed towards the Council of Basle and responded quickly to its decree to summon provincial councils. The actual statute reacted to the murder of the bishop of Skálholt, the illegal English trade with Northern Norway and Iceland and issues of relevance to the Council of Basle. The provincial council should have finished their deliberation in August 1436 in Bergen, but the Norwegian uprising against Erik of Pomerania interrupted the meeting, which had to reconvene in Oslo where it issued their statute in midwinter. The decree concerning episcopal elections by the Council of Basle and its authorisation of the metropolitan and the chapter of Nidaros to elect and consecrate bishops to the insular bishoprics meant a reintegration of the province. The Norwegian church never had greater freedom than during Archbishop Aslak Bolt’s tenure.

The topic of this article is the conflict between church and kingdom over the Concordat of Tønsberg during the 1280s. While the issue has seemingly been exhausted previously, this analysis takes a new approach. Rather than analysing the conflict as taking place only in mainland Norway, this article addresses the conflict in the Icelandic General Assembly of 1281 over the adoption of Jónsbók. The narrative of Árna saga biskups presents the arguments of the church, which in this study are compared with Archbishop Jon's statute of 1280.
The Statute reflected the ideas of the Gregorian reform which in many ways had been declared as canon law. In this respect it should be considered as an ordinary legislative act for the church which transformed international church law to particular law.
However, the Statute emphasised the concordats, and in this respect it was a political utterance in the on-going conflict. Its references to God's laws, meaning the Holy Scriptures, are not in accordance with neither the Concordats of Tønsberg nor Bergen. On the one hand, it could neither be called a violation of the Concordat nor a defence. Nobody would oppose the Statute's reference to the Holy Scriptures, but the argument was too general to make it significant; 'Guðs lög' was a concept of political theology. On the other hand, the bishops had avoided to repeat their concession to royal jurisdiction from 1277 or explicitly to oppose Landsloven and Járnsiða by referring to the Scriptures.

The paper was presented at IMC Leeds, 9 July 2015. I maintain that the Provincial Statute of 1280, issued in Bergen on the same occasion as the coronation of Eirik Magnusson, is an ordinary ecclesiastical statute with all the formulas and language which we expect from such an act. It protected its privileged position which had been obtained in the twelfth century and in the Concordat of Tønsberg (1277). The lines can be drawn back to the Gregorian Reform which in Norway is evident from the foundation of the church province in 1152 to 1153. However, the Statute went further than the Concordat in its demand for jurisdiction and privilege of forum, thus ignoring the king's reservation in this agreement. The late medieval character of the Provincial Statute is particularly seen in its emphasis on excommunication as a penalty in political conflicts.
The manuscript of the paper, or a ppp can be obtained by sending an e-mail to me.

This paper follows an approximately chronological approach with the focus on conflicts with and within the church. It starts by analysing four acts from the latter part of the 13th century that seemed to be relevant for the insular churches of the Nidaros province: The Treaty of Perth, the Concordat of Tønsberg, the Concord of Tautra, and the Settlement of Avaldsnes.
The conflict over the Concordat of Tønsberg was a conflict over the bishop’s potestas jurisdictionis and affected the entire province. When the Icelandic Code Jónsbók was adopted the bishop’s jurisdiction was neglected; the law speaker should preside in all cases. This aspect of the Concordat was addressed in the provincial statute of 1351, and the church probably kept the jurisdiction in ecclesiastical cases thereafter. In 1436, during the Council of Basle, a new provincial statute was issued. Also this statute referred to the Tønsberg Concordat, but this time connected to the tithe regulation.  They had never been used, so Archbishop Aslak Bolt in fact introduced a new demand in the disguise of an old agreement.
The election of bishops was of great interest to the king, the pope, the local aristocracy, and the clergy. The Concordat promised that no lay authority should interfere in the elections. Orkney was the only insular church that had a chapter. The Norse earls and the bishops used to be close, but the Scottish line of earls as of 1231 seems to have had less influence over the bishopric and the election process. The Concordat thus continued a development concerning the episcopal elections that already had started. The president of the Orkney chapter presumably was the archdeacon of Shetland, and this may have secured Norse bishops till c. 1400; the population of Shetland was more Norse than on Orkney.
Concerning the election of bishops to the other insular churches the Concord of Tautra was more important. The king guaranteed that the Nidaros chapter and the archbishop had the right to elect bishops to episcopal churches without a chapter. In the Settlement of Avaldsnes the king admitted the bishop of Skálholt the patronage over church trusts. Skálholt and Hólar could now have developed chapters; why that did not happen is still an enigma. A challenge for further research is a comparison of the church systems in the Norwegian commonwealth.
The Great Schism and Queen Margaret’s church politics changed this. From c. 1380 papal provision of bishops became the rule all over the province. Queen Margaret’s interests in the provisions can be followed in Orkney and Iceland. The bishops of the Faeroes were Franciscan friars for more than a century. Later it turns up that some of them had a career background in the papal curia, and this may have been the case also during Queen Margaret’s rule.
A new conflict on Iceland developed in the 1430s in which English bishops provided by the pope had interests in fisheries and illegal trade. King Erik had no part in their provision; his last Icelandic bishop was drowned in 1433. While the Council of Basle reached its peak, the king saw severe opposition to his regal policy and open revolt. The pope had deceived him, and the king could not rely on cooperation any more. Archbishop Aslak Bolt used the new situation to promote church freedom. On his initiative the Council of Basle renewed the Concord of Tautra to the benefit of the insular churches and an active Council of the Realm. When Archbishop Aslak died in 1450, a renewal of the Concordat of Tønsberg was on the agenda, and all conflicts with and within the church seemed to be settled.

The short encyclopedial biography on Vinald Henriksson is written for IEMA-online. Vinald was archbishop in the formative years of the Kalmar Union and took part in all important political meetings, with the exception of the meeting in Kalmar in 1397. The reason was that he already had crowned the minor Erik of Pomerania in Oslo, probably in 1392. Vinald was recruited as bishop from the royal chapel clergy of which he was the head from 1378.

The Rise of the City?
A critical investigation and new interpretation of the Stavanger Privilege and how it has been passed on.
The relationship between the King’s power, Stavanger’s bishop and diocese is the main theme for the paper. In 1530 King Frederik I renewed all the old rights and privileges of the bishop’s diocese in Stavanger. The King’s letter does not, however, say anything about what these rights and privileges were, and finding the extent of these is the point of departure of the paper.
Historians have devoted a lot of attention to the so-called Stavanger Privilege from King Håkon Håkonsson (1217–1263). It has been agreed that the King renewed an older letter of gift or privilege from Magnus Erlingsson (1164–1184) whereby he gave the town of Stavanger, with all its rights, to the bishop there, and that this is the first time Stavanger is referred to as a town during the medieval period. The general opinion has been that the charter was not renewed before 1450. In the context of national politics it is a fact that King Magnus is referred to as a frændi (relative). This is taken to indicate an expression of the Sverre dynasty’s final acknowledgement of Magnus Erlingsson as King
and a link to Håkon Håkonsson’s endeavours to be crowned. The dating of the diplomas is a controversial matter.
The Stavanger Privilege is written in Old Norse and has Håkon Håkonsson’s great seal attached to it. However, a diplomatic analysis shows that the preserved parchment (AM 26,1) cannot be original. The writing is very elegant, but the parchment has been irregularly trimmed. It is totally without margins and has remains of writing both at the top and under the plica. Nothing implies, however, that the Old Norse text in the document is forged. Nevertheless, it is striking that it changes between forms of expression, from the first person singular to the majestic «we» in plural. This indicates that Håkon Håkonsson gave his charter as a transumpt, but that something is now missing from the introduction and in the text that followed. The majestic plural is normal in royal letters from the thirteenth century, whilst the first person singular or a mixture of forms of singular and plural was used before c.1200. Large parts of the text in Magnus Erlingsson’s privilege letter can be reconstructed from the singular forms in Håkon Håkonsson’s Stavanger Privilege. All the letter’s formulae are translated from Latin to Norse implying that all of it was originally written in Latin. From the text one can also see that Magnus Erlingsson based his privilege on one that an earlier king with the name Magnus had written. There is a lot to suggest that this was the foundation charter for the Cathedral.
In the discussion about which king issued the charter that Magnus Erlingsson used as a basis for his own charter, it is argued that Magnus Berrføtt (1093–1103) could have given the first foundation charter to Stavanger Cathedral. This could have happened after Steigar-Tores revolt c.1095, connected to a translation of the St.Swithun reliquary that belonged to the Cathedral during the medieval period. It is suggested that Magnus Erlingsson’s and Håkon Håkonsson’s privilege renewals of the foundation occurred in 1164 and 1226 respectively. This corresponds with the remaining privilege renewals that both kings implemented at the beginning of their terms of office.
The paper repudiates that the Stavanger Privilege is «the earliest confirmed referral of Stavanger as a town in a document» and that there was no town here before 1425 when Erik of Pomerania gave the first town charter. On the contrary there is reason to believe the expression, bæen sjalvan Stafangr (the actual town of Stavanger) hints at Stavanger as a chief estate with subordinate farms, that is the entire estate of Stavanger Cathedral and that this reflects a property concept from the central Middle Ages.
The study has shown that the Stavanger Privilege was renewed several times after Håkon Håkonsson’s time, including amongst others, by Håkon V (1299–1319) and that the renewal by Frederik I in 1530 is the last one.
Why renew the Stavanger Privilege? This paper examines the charter renewals in connection with regal privileges, the royal vow that every king had to make in order to receive allegiance from his subjects, and the late medieval sovereign council’s constitution, where in order to be chosen, the kings had to make an oath to put the kingdom back in good order. At the same time the renewals gave the new dynasties of Sverre’s descendants and the House of Oldenburg greater legitimacy: through a gift or privilege the receiver plays an important role. A gift or privilege commands both legally and politically not only a one sided transferral of rights and legal benefits to the receiver. It also implies that the receiver accepts that the donor has the necessary authority to distribute gifts or privileges and thereby acknowledges the donor’s power and status. It is such facts that, when added together, build up the giver’s power and authority and shapes institutions.
At first sight this paper appears to offer a complete re-evaluation and new interpretation of the Stavanger Privilege and the earlier organisation of the church in the bishopric. In regard to the dating of the formation of the town, this is correct, but only as it applies to the prevailing synthesis; on most of the discussed issues  contributions from disciplines like diplomatics, building archaeology, legal history, liturgical history, hagiography, and art history of both an older and more recent date are taken into consideration. The older research is little known and partly neglected by historians. The new results definitively do not fit in with the old synthesis.

The article is based on a study of the Icelandic 'Lögmanns-annáll' as a part of my doctoral thesis (1996). The main corpus of the annals is written by Einar Haflidason. The fourth hand records Gaute Eiriksson's death in a notice for 1391 although he did not pass away before 1412. The fifth hand is younger than the fourth one, and the notices of the last two annalists must thus have been written after 1412. I further maintain that annals should be analysed in view of the last notices of the manuscript.

Brian Patrick McGuire har ergret seg over fremstillinger av middelalderhistorien som ikke erkjenner kristendommens betydning som fe-les verdigrunnlag og rammebetingelse. Dette vil bare bli verre, for dagens studenter mangler grunnleggende kjennskap til vår sivilisasjons kulturarv. Men nåvaerende samfunn kan ikke forstås med mindre vi kan visualisere fortiden. Når en ny undervisningsveiledning i det danske gymnaset så krever en gammeldags innføring både i dansk og internasjonal middelalder, ja, da blir det bok av det. Og det er blitt en personlig bok, der McGuire vil vise at middelalderen er dagsaktuell og angår oss. Han tar et religionshistorisk utgangspunkt i kirken, ikke som tradisjonell kirkehistorie, men som troens historie. Dette er et godt grep med stor utsagnskraft; det er en dynamisk utviklingsprosess som her presenteres.

From the publisher's blurb:
This book encompasses the results of the transnational project ‘The Realm of Norway and its dependencies as a political system c. 1270–1400’, financed by the Research Council of Norway. Known in Norwegian historiography as ‘Norgesveldet’, the realm consisted of the mainland Norwegian kingdom and a range of island communities at Scotland’s northern and western seaboards, as well as the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland. Within this national historiographic tradition, ʽNorgesveldet’ is often portrayed as a kind of Norwegian empire.

The aim of this project has been to elucidate the relationship between Norwegian kingship and the Crown’s ‘tributary lands’ in the west and the ways in which kingship influenced socio-political developments at the margins of the realm. The Scandinavian frontiers, which were never fully integrated into Norway during the Middle Ages, have also figured into this project.

We have chosen to focus our attention on the period after c. 1260, when the Norwegian monarchy was reconstituted as a state-like institution encompassing all the king’s lands and dominions. The axial themes of this book are the degree to which the kingship succeeded in its enterprises and the ways in which the state development process transpired in the tributary lands and frontier provinces.

Working from the contention that ‘Norgesveldet’ never developed as a Norwegian empire, we have elected to refer to ‘The Realm of Norway and its dependencies’ as the Norwegian king’s ‘insular realm’. In doing so, we challenge the Norwegian national tradition. This is natural not only because we as twenty-first century observers have distanced ourselves from the national paradigms of the nineteenth century, but also because the communities at the margins of the realm were later enveloped in other kingdoms and developing states in the British Isles and Scandinavia. Because these communities constitute elements of other national projects, our research has led us to look beyond Norwegian historiography and to address other national historiographic traditions as well. This project could not have been achieved without collaboration between historians, philologists and geographers from Scandinavia, Great Britain and Germany.

On the 21st of January 1458 King Christian I confirmed the Tønsberg settlement (ON: sættargerð). The confirmation took place in a Nordic Council Meeting at Skara in Sweden. On the 9th of August 1277 King Magnus IV lawmender and archbishop Jon Raude had accepted the Settlement. However, shortly after King Magnus’ death the so-called baron government of the minor King Eirik unilaterally revoked the agreement. The church was seriously concerned.
The Tønsberg settlement played a crucial role in the relationship between the monarchy and the church from its annulment until it was confirmed; during the 14th and first half of the 15th C. the Settlement continued to represent a latent conflict.
The Tønsberg settlement was a concordat, an agreement between the monarchy and the church. The Settlement had, however, a predecessor. In the summer of 1273 King Magnus and archbishop Jon agreed to the ‘Bergen concordat’. The actual wording of these two agreements shows that the parties are sovereign in their respective domains, enjoying a relationship based on equality. But the Bergen concordat was subject to approval by the pope. One could thus well maintain that the Bergen concordat was based on a theory that holds that the concordat is a papal privilege. And the papal approval did not occur. The Tønsberg settlement was different in this respect. The parties are portrayed as equals, as in the Bergen concordat, but the Settlement was not subject to approval by any outside power. The signatories were to settle any conflicts themselves. The Settlement is based on contractual theory, seeing the concordat as a contract between the church and the state, and without an external court of appeal.
The Settlement defines the borderline between the authority and jurisdiction of the monarchy and church. It does not actually introduce any significant changes in privileges that had previously been accorded to the church. However, the church has not lagged behind the developments of the monarchy during the reign of King Håkon Håkonsson. The active legislation of Magnus the lawmender also meant that it was necessary for the church to define its own rights and demands.
The background to both the Bergen concordat and the Tønsberg settlement was that archbishop Jon Raude demanded the right to draw up a new church law (ON kristinn réttr) for the judicial district of Frosta, roughly corresponding with the archdiocese of Nidaros, something that Magnus Lawmender accepted. However, the King was unable to accept the result. It is not clear whether the surviving version of Jon’s church law is the one that was first rejected, or if the oldest manuscript dating from the early 14th Century is a revision prepared on basis of the Settlement.
Further regulations concerning the tithes were added to the Settlement, greatly extending the sources from which tithes could be collected, among them trade and income from rent. This extension primarily hit the secular aristocracy, though according to the regulations the tithes were to be paid “in full”. Thus it was no longer possible for the peasants to deduct their expenses associated with harvesting and processing cereal crops.
Eirik Magnusson was crowned and anointed in 1280, shortly after the death of Magnus the lawmender, and as a part of the crowning ceremony, swore an oath to respect the Settlement. He was, however, still a minor and his guardians were all secular men of distinction. A powerful anti-clerical reaction arose, the new regulations concerning the tithes were cancelled, the settlement was disregarded, and the older church law was re-imposed. The government of barons based its decisions on ultra-royalist views and considered the Settlement as a royal privilege restricted solely to the period of Magnus the lawmender (the legal theory).
The church could not reconcile itself with such a policy, and both the Settlement of 1277 and the ecclesiastical legislation remained disputed in the following years. From 1280 to 1351, a number of provincial statutes have been preserved. Even if this represents internal ecclesiastical legislation, it is clearly stated that those who violated the canonical privileges and the rights of the church, were to be banned ipso facto. Yet the church was unable to mount a powerful struggle, the vacancy at the archbishop’s see was partly responsible and an internal conflict between the new archbishop and the Nidaros chapter resulted in continuous unrest from the early 1290s and well into the 14th Century. Archbishop Jon’s successor, Jørund, became the king’s vassal. 
The monarchy on its side did not benefit from a lasting conflict with the church, and the question of church legislation was particularly problematic. Jon’s church law was to apply to the entire archbishop’s diocese. It was not until the 1370s that King Håkon VI formulated a new church law for East Norway and there is reason to believe that this legislation also came to apply to West Norway.
The granting of papal privileges to Norwegian chapels in 1308 and the introduction of papal provisions to the bishoprics from about 1350 rendered several of the clauses in the Tønsberg settlement obsolete. The Avignon Popes (1305–78) were more concerned with taxing local church provinces for their own purposes than with strengthening the authority of each archbishop. Queen Margaret (1353 – 1412), the widow queen, from 1380 became the de facto Norwegian regent during the Great Schism. The most distinguished feature of her church policy was her active diplomacy towards the Roman Pope in order to have her most loyal supporters appointed bishops. In other ways, however, the Norwegian church was to enjoy a large degree of domestic autonomy during the rule of Queen Margaret, and its jurisdiction was strengthened. 
The Basel Council led to a breach in the diplomatic contacts between the pope and the royal authorities. During his archiepiscopate, archbishop Aslak Bolt (1428–50) in many cases referred to the Settlement, and in the last Norwegian provincial statutes of 1436 there are numerous references to the regulation of tithes and the financial privileges of the church.
When King Christopher died in 1448 a struggle for the Norwegian crown ensued. One group, the so-called “Danish faction” wanted to have a common king with Denmark, Christian of Oldenburg, while a “Swedish faction” preferred the Swedish magnate Karl Knutsson Bonde, who was elected Swedish king in 1449, and king of Norway too. Initially, Christian prevailed and was chartered in Norway. But, subsequently, Karl Knutsson Bonde too was elected king of Norway; he swore to respect the Settlement in his charter. Karl was even crowned and anointed by the old archbishop and as far as we know is the first to have had this ceremony in Nidaros. After Karl had to give up his Norwegian crown, Christian I was crowned and anointed in Nidaros, and his coronation oath can be interpreted to confirm that he too would maintain the Settlement. After his coronation, Christian renewed a number of the church privileges, though the Tønsberg settlement was not among them.
A conflict erupted over who was to assume the position of archbishop after the death of Aslak Bolt. Henrik Kalteisen received the papal provision, but the King preferred the swindler Marcellus. Archbishop Henrik based his arguments in the conflict with the King and his candidate on the Settlement, using the concordat in other contexts as well.
The struggle over the archbishop’s see and other anti-ecclesiastical measures during the first years of the reign of Christian I was resolved in 1458 when the King finally confirmed the Settlement. This ratification may have been modelled on the Pragmatic Sanction in Bourges (1438), and one might therefore maintain that the concordat was based on legal theory from then on. However, the church developed a very strong political position in Norway with the archbishop as head of the National Council. In addition, the kings from then on had to issue a coronation charter to be elected, and from 1483 they also had to be crowned and anointed in Nidaros in order to get access to their royal territory. Thus it was no longer a major issue that a new King had to confirm the Settlement, even though both King Hans and King Christian II did so respectively in 1483 and 1514.