Henrik Wergeland and the struggle for his honour : honour, violence and legal expression : its historical development from premodern to modern rationalised law

Abstract

The following thesis will examine the defamation cases with which Henrik Wergeland was involved for seventeen years, until 1845. A considerable part of the peasant-community of Eidsvold felt that their integrity and self esteem repeatedly had been violated by one local civil servant. Wergeland was able to voice articulately the concerns of the peasant-community. Henrik Wergeland is preoccupied with honour and at the same time, as a Rousseauist he believes in the education and civilization of society and the masses. His life is in itself a good illustration of the ambiguity of modernity, which demonstrates the gap between the rhetoric of enlightenment and the interests of the power elites of the time. In the context of the Wergeland case, this essay will examine how the conception of honour and defamation changed from premodern to modern time, in particular at the Ting. Originally honour was the social glue that kept the peasant commune together, and cases regarding honour were frequent at the Ting. I will show how legal actions against defamatory imputations would gradually adopt a new role. While initially it was an active institution of conflict settlement in local communities, focus seems to have been changed. We will now examine closely one particular case of defamation, the Wergeland case.