The Landslov of 1274 – Multiple Perspectives

The year 2024 marks the 750 years anniversary of the completion of King Magnus Lawmender’s Landslov in Bergen. This is celebrated as a national jubilee, in which this conference plays an important part.

The conference takes place in Bergen, an internationally oriented town and king’s seat in the 13th century, and the very place where the Landslov was compiled. The Håkon’s hall, the Rosenkrantz tower, and the Franciscans Olavs Church, three buildings of great importance for King Magnus, are still leaving their mark on Bergen.

The conference brings together historians, legal historians, archaeologists, philologists, and other scholars to discuss the Landslov from an interdisciplinary perspective.  

The conference will highlight three guiding themes:

• Governance
• Property and resource rights
• The social dimension of the law

Presentations in each of the themes will discuss aspects such as influences and comparative contexts, manifestation in the law and law and practice. The conference aims both to establish a state of the art on research on the Landslov across various disciplines and to discuss questions for future research.  

The first day of the conference will take place in the Håkon’s Hall, Norway’s first castle, and the hall where King Magnus married the Danish princess Ingeborg in 1261. The rest of the conference will be in The University Aula at the University of Bergen.  

We are pleased to announce our two keynote speakers:

• Erik Opsahl, professor in medieval history at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim: The Code of the Realm of 1274's political-institutional significance. 
• Helle Vogt, professor in legal history at the University of Copenhagen: Law and legislation in the 13th century, where does the Landslov fint in?

The programme will be announced later.