Encounters at the Water's Edge. Peace Meetings on Rivers, Bridges, and Islands in Medieval Scandinavia

• Main Author: Lebouteiller, Simon
• Other Authors: Equipe de recherche sur les littératures, les imaginaires et les sociétés (ERLIS), Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU), Université de Caen Normandie - UFR Langues vivantes étrangères (UNICAEN UFR LVE), Centre Michel de Boüard - Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales (CRAHAM), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Simon Lebouteiller, Louisa Taylor
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Histoire médiévale; Études nordiques; Scandinavie; Rituels; Diplomatie; Cultures politiques; Moyen Âge; Norvège; Islande; Danemark; Paix; Pacification; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04232604

International audience In this chapter, the author explores the material and symbolic settings of peace negotiations and highlights how the choice of meeting places could contribute to establishing the conditions within which agreements could be made. More specifically, he examines the particular case of conferences in Scandinavia that were held near water, especially on rivers, bridges, and islands. First, water landscapes were viewed as appropriate places to negotiate and conclude peace as they worked as barriers that limited confrontations while, at the same time, they allowed contacts between groups, for example, through messengers. As such, meetings in these locations facilitated the cessation of fighting and established more favourable conditions for truce and peace agreements. Likewise, these places were the scene of symbolic communication that demonstrated status. Mutual or unilateral movements of the protagonists, as well as their positioning by the water or on bridges, could express their power in relation to one another and thus helped to prefigure the content of the peace treaties that could eventually be concluded. Finally, the author suggests that the choice of water landscapes as meeting places was not only determined by material considerations but also stemmed from more general world views and mentalities that attributed particular meanings to water as a border and threshold.