Double Records: Officializing Dispute Settlement in Twelfth-Century Denmark

Around 1170, Archbishop Eskil of the Danish metropolitan see of Lund was embroiled in a property dispute with Florentius, canon of the cathedral chapter. After considering the issue bilaterally with the archbishop, Florentius resolved to renounce his claim, and at a gathering of prominent ecclesiastics and laity, he subsequently granted the disputed property to Eskil’s monastic foundation in Esrum. This otherwise trivial case from Lund stands out among the few recorded legal conflicts from high medieval Denmark because it happens to be documented in two different, not entirely congruent contemporary accounts: a sealed charter issued in Florentius’s name, and an open letter of proclamation by Archbishop Eskil. The existence of two parallel records, both addressing the same settlement, but one representing each party, allows for explorations of the officializing strategies employed by litigants to frame disputing processes and their public representation. What constituted the substance of the controversy, according to the canon’s charter and the archbishop’s proclamation respectively? How and on what basis was the dispute settled? And how can we understand the partly conflicting representations of the process as efforts to bolster micropolitical interests and claims to social power and judicial authority?