Officielt, praktisk, strategisk: slægtskabets former og funktioner i middelalderens danske elite

Official, practical, strategic: The forms and functions of kinship within the medieval Danish elite. For the ruling classes of medieval Denmark –just as for their contemporary counter-parts in wider Europe –bonds of kinship constituted a social asset and structuring capital of prime importance. The kindred, however, was never a permanent, objectively defined group. In this article I explore the complexities of kinship strategies and family consciousness by way of a case study of “Hviderne”, an aristocratic family network from Zealand that came to dominate the 12thand 13thcentury domestic power fieldin the kingdom of Denmark. Apply-ing Bourdieu’s twin notions of official and practical kinship to the empi-rical evidence relat-ing to “Hviderne”, I seek to outline an interpretive framework for understanding the fuzziness and fluidity of aristocratic family structurein the high Middle Ages.