Hilde Andrea Nysether

Academic interests

Scandinavia and Iceland in the Early Medieval and High Medieval Ages 

Political culture

Personal relationships and social networks

Conflict and dispute

The royal power and the church

Civil war and internal strife

State formation

Background

• Master's degree in educational studies and history, University of Oslo (2007-2013)
• Bachelor in history (2011)

PhD project

I'm associated with the prosject 'The Nordic ‘Civil Wars’ in the High Middle Ages from a cross-disciplinary and comparative perspective'. My contribution to this project will be a study of the importance of networks during the internal strife in Norway c. 1130-1227, and on Iceland, c. 1220-1263. The preliminary title for the work in progress is 'Beggja vinir ok frændr – overlapping social networks as n stabilizing factor during the Nordic 'civil wars'-period'.

By discussing the Norwegian and the Icelandic social elite's network of friends and kinsmen, I wish to show the importance of the overlapping social Networks limiting the losses in the conflicts, avoid escalation or fully avoid conflicts. I will focus especially on conflict solvement and the granting of mercy (grið).

In parallel to this, I work with the "blurred line of enmity" in the conflicts. I base my work on the hypothesis that this line was very shifting and unclear, thus creating room for the networks to be activated, while the other way around, the overlapping networks between the parties also contributed to uphold this "blurred line".

My central hypothesis is that network overlaps functioned as an important factor to stabilize and reduce conflicts in the societies, and therefore contributed to relatively low destructiveness for the citizens, despite a general increase in conflict levels.