Violence, Conflict and Order in Medieval Norway

Abstract

ABSTRACT Juxtaposing violence and order sounds like a contradiction in terms. Our modern concept of violence is intrinsically linked to illegitimacy and the disruption of order. This concept is succinctly expressed in the definition of a state by Max Weber, as the instance that has a monopoly on the exercise of legitimate violence, thus making all forms of private violence illegitimate. However, the antithesis between violence and order goes much further back in time. According to the historian David Armitage, the Western notion of civil war builds closely upon Roman ideas of a breakdown of order – a theory which was promulgated in the early empire and served as an ideological justification of the Empire and a correspondingly harsh attack on the republic as a political system.