The article questions the annalistic notice of the coronation of King Magnus Eriksson as the joint king of Norway, Sweden and Scania in Stockholm in the summer of 1336. This is done through the re-examinations of records and narratives of the event. Although it was presumably a joint coronation, no Norwegians or Danes have been recorded as present at the event. A coronation was a sacral event, but the new archbishop of Lund stayed at home, even though he was the primate of Uppsala. At the same time, the Norwegian bishops were gathered at a provincial council. One narrative tells us that the king was crowned by Bishop Engelbert of Dorpat, but another, more trustworthy source says that Archbishop Petrus Philippi of Uppsala was the coronator. Because the archbishop’s new cathedral in Uppsala was still under construction, the coronation took place in Stockholm. The article concludes that the coronation of 1336 was meant to be only for Sweden. When examining the evidence from the available sources, the Icelandic annals Annales regii must be considered the most reliable source of information. It states that the Norwegian council of the realm consented to the coronation of their king in Stockholm. The annalistic notice of a joint coronation for Sweden, Norway and Scania was written as late as 1402–09. It is based in Birgittine propaganda lamenting the Swedish loss of Scania and must therefore be considered unreliable. The article has rehabilitated Gustav Storm’s evidence of a separate Norwegian coronation of Magnus Eriksson in 1337, based in Annalbruddstykket from Skálholt and Erikskrönikan. An inventory from Båhus of 1346 supports a separate coronation in mentioning the Norwegian virga, the short sceptre, among the coronation gear. A dominant view of the Norwegian unions during the fourteenth century has been that Sweden, and later Denmark, was the dominant party and oppressed Norway. Two different coronations of Magnus Eriksson support the present view of the Norwegian-Swedish union as being composed of two equal parties with a common king. Moreover, the evidence supporting a separate Norwegian coronation is significant for giving a better understanding of the coronation of Erik of Pomerania in Kalmar in 1397.

The Act for the Protection of Neglected Children of 6 June 1896, in which Norway introduced statutory public child protection services with the authority to intervene in families in cases of parental neglect, is a well-known document in the history of European social assistance. The background, intentions and effects of the act through history are known from previous research, but without any examination of the parental rights perspective. This article discusses the relationship between parental rights and societal authority in social policy. In the Storting, critical questions were raised as to whether parental rights had been sufficiently safeguarded, about the criteria for intervention in the family institution and the qualities of alternative childcare institutions. This criticism was based on liberal values and a desire to protect families against unlawful coercion. The debate on parental rights did not influence the design of the act, but provides insight into the social elite’s notions of the relationship between children, parents and society at the turn of the century.

The Reformation implied the abolition of the cult of the saints, but to what extent were images thrown out of the churches in Norway? This question is studied here with Jämtland as a case in point. After having belonged ecclesiastically to Sweden for several hundred years, this province was transferred to the diocese of Trondheim in Norway in 1571. Norway was, at that time, part of the Danish conglomerate state. The author shows that in Jämtland the altar screens from the Catholic period on the high altars in the churches were, to a large extent, replaced by so-called catechism altarpieces towards the end of the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th. These altarpieces had no images of the saints, but, rather, quotations from the catechisms in Danish; occasionally other quotations from the Scriptures too, in addition to painted symbols or motifs according to Lutheran ideals (Figs. 1–2). In connection with the acquisition of these new altarpieces and other Protestant church fittings, some local vicars chose to throw out all images of the saints, considering them to be idols. Others were more tolerant and allowed them to remain in the churches. On the whole, the tolerance towards images of the saints was obviously lower in the Danish-Norwegian province of Jämtland than in the provinces east of Jämtland, which remained Swedish during the Reformation period. This transformation of the churches of Jämtland in the late Reformation period appears as largely forced through by people in positions of authority, without support from the populace. The author describes one case (Offerdal) where the images of the saints, after having been thrown out by the vicar from the parish church, were taken care of by some locals and placed in small, non-official chapels where they continued to be worshipped.

In 2017 the centenary of the Russian Revolution is being marked all over the world, and the author raises the question of how and to what extent Russian and western historians have changed their views on the revolution after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991). He contends that the most important change is that the discourse on the Russian Revolution has become less paradigmatic and that the part played by the Russian working class recently has been de-emphasized. Instead historians have opened up new social ‘rooms’: women, peasants, the ‘parliament of the street’, the Russian regions, as well as Russia as a multinational empire. The revolution has been stretched out both in time and space, becoming ever more multifaceted and diversified—socially, ethnically, geographically and culturally. On the one hand, historians have endeavoured to link the February and October revolutions and the subsequent civil war in Russia more closely together by introducing ‘the Great Russian Revolution’ as an overarching notion. On the other hand, they have moved in the opposite direction, arguing for the view that Russia during these years experienced many revolutions and many civil wars. The article also pays attention to Vladimir Putin’s history policy: The official, governmental part of the centenary of the Russian Revolution seems to be toned down. That does not mean that the Kremlin leadership considers the topic of revolution to be unimportant. It is, rather, an indication of the opposite.

The article is based on the many fatalities in Norway during the Easter vacation in 1967. It discusses how a safety discourse was developed and constituted by professionals in Norwegian friluftsliv (outdoor life) and mountaineering in the period 1967-74. A discourse and power-theoretical perspective is presented, explaining which actors sought to establish themselves as premier suppliers for the safety concept that became dominant and eventually legitimate. In the article, it is argued that from 1967 a dominant safety concept was established within professional-oriented friluftsliv in Norway that we call ‘fjellvett-linjen’, meaning ‘the mountain sense approach’. This way of thinking is characterized by a strong value orientation, and rather than emphasizing instrumental and rule-based measures that aim at ensuring the natural environment, it focuses rather on establishing generally binding norms for people to take responsibility for their own safety, selecting routes according to their abilities. The absence of direct and formal power exercised by the authorities allowed private actors within the field to set the agenda and be normative. Eventually, a symbolic and discursive power was established, which, by referring to the ideas of Norwegian climbing and friluftsliv traditions, was used to frame the comprehension and room of opportunity. The power of the key actors was largely legitimized through a traditional hegemony, legitimized through personal authority, referring to traditions and customs prescribing obedience to the generally binding standards of safety.