Introduction: Languages of Power and Elite Legitimisation on the Periphery, Poland and Norway, 1000–1300

Abstract

In this introduction, we argue that the key to understanding the means and dynamics of political order in the peripheral polities during the era of Europeanization (1000–1300) lies in exploring the practices of (self-)legitimisation by the peripheral elites in Poland and Norway. The article proposes a novel agenda-setting theoretical and methodological framework for how medievalists can study elite legitimation and relations between core European and peripheral polities from a comparative perspective. This introduction launches this agenda in five steps. First, it outlines the key conceptual tools for studying the elites and the languages of power they used as means of symbolically legitimising themselves. Second, it re-assesses Robert J. Bartlett’s thesis of diffuse Europeanization to argue how a comparative focus on the peripheral elites and their languages of power can give a new perspective on this research topic. Third, it lays out the methodological tenets of an experimental comparative framework for elite legitimation on the peripheries. Fourth, it fleshes out these postulations in connection to our two contrasting cases and contexts, Polish and Norwegian. Finally, it presents the specific comparative case studies in this special issue.