Bjarne makes a settlement with Robert Bruce at Inverness
DN 19/481 · 29 okt. 1312 · Inverness
What the letter says
At Inverness on the Sunday before All Saints, 29 October 1312, King Håkon V's envoys, the baron Bjarne of Bjarkøy and the canon Ivar Olavsson, meet King Robert of Scotland in person to settle the wrongs between the kingdoms. Norway complains of Scottish wrongdoers who have raided Orkney and Shetland and captured the king's sysselmann (royal district officer) in Orkney, who had to ransom himself with the king's collected revenues. Robert says he knew nothing of this, but promises 600 marks sterling for the damage in Orkney, paid in St Magnus Church, while the damage in Shetland is to be investigated. The Scots complain that merchants from St Andrews were imprisoned in Norway and deprived of goods worth 600 pounds, and that the squire Patrick de Montealto was beaten and put in chains in Orkney. The envoys promise that the goods will be returned and Patrick's injury made good, and both sides swear to the settlement.
The letter in modern English
Be it remembered that in the year of the Lord 1312, on the Sunday next before the feast of All Saints [29 October], at Inverness in Scotland, the most serene prince the lord Håkon the Fifth, by the grace of God King of Norway, through Sir Bjarne of Bjarkøy, his baron, and Ivar Olavsson, canon of the churches of Bergen and Orkney, his proxies and special envoys, on the one side, and Robert, by the same grace King of Scots, in person, on the other side, met to treat in concord about certain wrongs and matters of discord that had arisen and been committed between the same kings, their kingdoms and the inhabitants of their kingdoms, in order to settle and remove them, put them right and amend them on both sides. On that day and at that place the proxies and envoys of the said lord King of Norway, in the name of the said king and of those of his men whom it concerned, asked amicably for satisfaction and amends for certain wrongs, damages and grievances inflicted and committed by certain wrongdoers of the kingdom of Scotland on the men of the said lord King of Norway and their goods within their own lands, namely Orkney and Shetland. This concerned both the invasion of Orkney and the capture of the noble man Sir «Bernier Peff'», knight, the said lord King of Norway's sysselmann [«senescallus»] appointed in those parts.
Original text
Memorandum quod anno domini millesimo ccco duodecimo die dominica proxima ante festum omnium sanctorum apud Jnuernys in Scocia serenissimus princeps dominus Haquinus quintus dei gracia rex Norwegie per dominum Bernerum de Berkereye baronem suum, et Juarum filium Oulaui ecclesiarum Bergensis et Orcadensis canonicum procuratores suos et nuncios speciales ex parte una et Robertus eadem gracia Scottorum rex personaliter ex altera conuenerunt ad tractandum concorditer super quibusdam iniuriis et
Background
Bjarne Erlingsson (c. 1248 to 1313) of Bjarkøy was by then an old man and one of the kingdom's most experienced diplomats, and this was probably one of his last great tasks. He died the following year. Orkney and Shetland belonged to Norway, and during the wars between Scotland and England after 1296 the islands were exposed to raids from the Scottish side. Robert Bruce had become King of Scots in 1306 and wanted peace with Norway, and the settlement is later called the Treaty of Inverness. A sysselmann was the king's officer in a district, and «fermiis» were probably taxes and dues he had collected, which he had to use to buy his freedom. The letter is a chirograph, written out twice on one sheet and cut apart, so that each king received his part with the other's seal.
People: Bjarne Erlingsson