The Treaties of Paris of 22 and 23 October 1295: The End of a Nordic Political System or of the Significance of the Norwegian Alliance

The historiographical treatment of the Treaty of Paris, concluded on 22 and 23 October 1295 between the kingdoms of France, Scotland and Norway, has tended to relegate the Norwegian contribution to second place, privileging instead the Franco-Scottish agreement which established a durable alliance, the well-known ‘Old Alliance’. Taking this as our point of departure, we here attempt to reassess the Norwegian participation in the Treaty and to consider its potential significance for the French crown at the moment of its conclusion. In order to undertake this analysis, we need to re-establish the Treaty within its immediate temporal context and also within an economic and political space focussed upon the North Sea, where, throughout the thirteenth century, English kings had affirmed their hegemony. After setting out the events which brought about the conclusion of this Treaty as well as analysing the negotiations along with the compositon of the Scottish and Norwegian embassies, we aim to show that the military aid of the Norwegians, irrespective of the promised numbers of ships and of men upon which the analysis to date has tended to focus, rested above all upon its far greater pyschological impact.

In fact, whatever the actual number of ships, the Norwegian navy was perceived at the time as a battle-hardened and redoutable force to the extent that its very presence represented a threat to the English crown and its German allies. In addition, through the Treaty, the French king had managed to ally with his Norwegian counterpart, until then a traditional ally of the English crown, and thereby had positioned himself as arbiter between Norway and Scotland, a role traditionally held by the English kings. By such an act, the king of France had broken the hegemony over the economy and polity of the North Sea region exercised by the English sovereigns and one which they had carefully constructed throughout the thirteenth century. By so doing, the French monarch was able to present himself as the one and only rex pacificus, natural heir to St Louis, with all that such implied in terms of leadership in the political theatre of western Christendom.