Previous research dealing with power relations in twelfth century Denmark has extensively interpreted political history from an institutional perspective derived from the power relationships of the High Middle Ages, i.e., the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It tends to read this interpretation back into the power constellations of twelfth century society, presenting a picture of a power structure characterized by tensions between three separate power poles: the king, the Church and a third reactionary element constituted in one way or the other by a secular aristocracy. It has been taken for granted that political power was concentrated in the dominant »institutions« of power: the monarchy and the church.

The present study emphasizes, on the contrary, that the preconditions for the acquisition and exercise of power in the Danish realm of the early twelfth century were significantly different from those of the institutionalized power structures of the High Middle Ages. A closer analysis of the distribution of power in the twelfth century and the resources on which the exercise of power was based discloses a more complex picture of the power structure of the time, where it is not at all evident that power lay in the hands of the king and the church. What emerges, instead, is the picture of a society dominated by a broad range of rulers belonging to a collective elite, where access to a significant position of power was dependent on various personal ties and alliances.

The study, which concentrates primarily on the reign of King Niels, 1104-34, reassesses certain statements regarding power distribution in sources such as The Roskilde Chronicle and Saxo's Gesta Danorum. Of crucial significance is an analysis of the titled political actors of the period. The role attributed to them in previous research as mere royal representatives with positions of power delegated by the king is called into question, and they are portrayed, instead, as possessing a personal power base and ties of kinship as a precondition for the acquisition of their titles. The article shows that the very concept of royal power is problematic, thereby allowing an alternative picture of twelfth century Danish society in which political power is not concentrated in institutions, but spread throughout a diversified and intertwining social network of collective power.

Translated by Michael Wolfe