Editorial Introduction
In this interview, James Turner reflects on the worlds behind two of his recent books: Harald Hardrada: The Making of Europe and The Scottish Rebellion against Robert the Bruce: Exiles and Traitors. Though separated by time, geography, and political setting, both works explore a medieval world shaped by exile, ambition, fragile authority, and the restless movement of men who had lost power and hoped to recover it.
Turner’s answers move beyond the familiar names of Harald Hardrada and Robert the Bruce to examine the deeper structures of medieval life: kinship, lordship, dynastic claim, political loyalty, and the dangers of imposing modern national identities onto a very different past. He also discusses his commitment to writing history for a broad audience without flattening its complexity.
What emerges is a conversation about how medieval people understood power, belonging, and legitimacy, and why the past becomes more interesting when we allow it to remain strange.
The Interview
James Turner: Haha, I never actually noticed that thread before. Yes, I think exile and the fact that both parties were eventually able to return from it tells us a lot about the social structures they inhabited and the framework through which power was exercised during their respective periods.
Harald fleeing to Kyiv and the court of Yaroslav the Great would have seemed like a fairly natural choice. He was an ally and marital relation of Harald’s royal half-brother, Olaf II, and Olaf’s son, Magnus, was already sheltering there. What is interesting is that Harald and Magnus were not the only exiled princes Yaroslav gathered up. He also ended up hosting Edward and Edmund, the sons of King Edmund Ironsides of England and Andrew, a claimant to the Hungarian throne. Yaroslav evidently saw some potential value in keeping these exiles around, and he was right! It is no coincidence that Harald and Andrew both became kings of their respective homelands as well as Yaroslav’s sons-in-law.
I think the eleventh century is one of the great ages of the political comeback. For much of the century, power was fragile and not altogether easy to wield. The expense of raising an army and the careful negotiations required to do so meant that rulers’ recourse to military force was inconsistent. It required considerable time and effort to be brought to bear. This meant that even the mightiest rulers were potentially vulnerable to being caught off guard by a determined enemy. For instance, the family of Harald Hardrada’s opponent at Stamford Bridge, Harold Godwinson, were exiled from England by King Edward the Confessor in 1051, but their wealth and social credit were such that they were able to raise armies in both Ireland and Flanders and force the king to restore them the following year.
Likewise, the Disinherited, those Scottish nobles whose lands had been confiscated for their opposition to Robert the Bruce, almost all had either land or close relatives in northern England. These exiled families had formed a major part of the Scottish political establishment under Alexander III and John Balliol. In fact, the Bruces had largely built their power base upon allying with and licensing the regional rivals of these families. Their numerous connections to England and their relocation there in exile indicate the form and character of the status quo before the first War of Independence turned everything upside down.
Once in exile, the Disinherited formed a formidable faction within the politics of northern England. Having come to accept that the best hope for the restoration of their lands lay with an English victory, the group would violently lobby against any attempts to end the war. Alice Comyn, the exiled Countess of Buchan, and her husband, Henry de Beaumont, were closely allied with successive English royal regimes, only to betray each other and align with their enemies when they tried to make peace with Scotland. Recovery of their Scottish lands had become their moral and political compass.
James Turner: As for the second question, yes, I think you can see quite clearly how exile affected both groups when they eventually reclaimed power, however briefly in the case of the Disinherited. Harald spent a considerable time in the service of the Emperors of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. When he eventually became the sole king of Norway, it is clear that his religious sensibilities had been profoundly affected by his time in the east.
Harald put considerable effort into growing the Church infrastructure within Norway, but to do so, he recruited heavily from what would become the eastern Orthodox Church, something which brought him into conflict with the Archbishopric of Bremen, which had traditionally supervised the conversion of Scandinavia. His efforts at reforming the coinage and the maintenance of a considerable standing military force were probably also the result of Byzantine influence.
The same could be said of the Disinherited, although in their case the influences and factors introduced by their long exile were deeply counterproductive. The Disinherited sought to place Edward Balliol on the throne of Scotland simply because they required a king to reverse the circumstances of their exile and return their families’ lands to them. In fact, Edward had to be rescued from a French prison and an impending murder trial to lead the invasion of Scotland. He therefore did not really command the respect or loyalty of the Disinherited for whom he was a convenient figurehead.
This meant that when they finally got control over a large swathe of Scotland, the Disinherited all focused upon securing their own lands and more or less ceased to cooperate. Worse, they actively vied against one another. The group that invaded Scotland in 1332 were the sons and even grandsons of the original exiles. Most of them were closely related to one another. As a result, many of their claims to land in Scotland actually overlapped, leading to a degree of quite literal infighting, even as their remaining Bruce opponents began to wage a highly effective guerrilla war against them.
Sorry, that was rather a lot. In my defence, they were very good questions.
Continue the Story in James Turner’s Books
James Turner: Oh, I’m glad that comes across. Yes, I think that’s very much one of my main purposes in writing. I’m sure there’s a more edifying or scholarly way of putting this, but I get very annoyed when people treat history like a football game. By which I mean you have a more or less predetermined team you support, come what may, and keep careful track of any points you think you’ve scored over other teams. I find a lot of people, even quite widely read ones with a genuine interest in history, filter it this way to one extent or another.
Yes, there was an England or a France in 1066 and one now. Yes, there are some points of continuity, but these are dwarfed by the differences. Language, social structure, cultural identity and material culture are all utterly different and alien. Medieval society was just fundamentally constructed on a different basis, supported and underpinned by distinct factors and sensibilities than it is today. The idea that you somehow have an affinity with whatever polity happened to occupy the same geographical location as you a thousand years ago is derived largely from nineteenth-century nationalism and relies on some very murky ideas about ancestry and the like.
Of course, that is not to say that what happened to people living within that polity isn’t fascinating. Quite the opposite, it is. It is just that any serious study of history is going to conclude that the process of how we got from there to here is so complex, so wide-ranging and global in nature that we are all the products of innumerable cultural exchanges and hybridisations. I think history belongs to all of us in equal measure and that you have to approach the past on its own terms. Anyway, I am probably preaching to the converted.
As far as how it is going, I am not entirely sure! Sometimes, it feels like rowing against the tide a bit. The projection of modern constructs and ways of doing things onto the past is, I think, a reflex that has to be consciously unlearned. People in the Middle Ages did it themselves, portraying Roman generals and dark age warlords as knights who they assumed broadly shared the same values as themselves and related to the surrounding polity in similar ways.
The initial impetus for the book that would become The Scottish Rebellion Against Robert the Bruce came from my reflecting upon how strange it was that our exposure to Scottish history at school began with Bannockburn, even though the kingdom had existed in some form for at least four hundred years prior to that. In the end, I think it’s because it gives a nice, easy answer to questions about Scottish identity. Academics obviously have a much more nuanced understanding of the situation, but I am not sure that it is filtered very far beyond what can seem like a closed system.
I think it’s a drum worth beating in any case.
James Turner: That is definitely true, although I would clarify that it’s not quite true in the same way for both the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries and that we need to be careful not to treat the Middle Ages as a monolith. Obviously, the terms that society functioned on and that interpersonal relationships were governed by changed significantly between the two periods. All the factors you mention remain very much in play, but the ratios are slightly different or uniquely caveated by other factors.
If I could turn the question around, I would say the single most important thing I want general readers to take away from my work pertains to how the modern rather than medieval world functions. I hope that by learning about and exploring a world constructed upon a fundamentally different basis than our own, my readership will reflect upon how our own society is neither natural nor inevitable. That this is not the only way for a society to work. I do not have any particularly profound thoughts about what, if anything, that alternative should be, but I think it’s a useful and rewarding thought to return to now and then.
James Turner: Robert Heinlein, the science fiction author, said that specialisation is for the insects. To be fair, though, I don’t think he had academic disciplines in mind. Actually, I was originally ensconced in Anglo-Norman studies, occasionally venturing out into the reign of the first Plantagenet king. My PhD and first book, The Royal Bastards of Twelfth-Century England: Blood and Power, were both firmly rooted in this transitory period. It is still the area I read the most about in between research for big projects. The range of those projects is really a consequence of my focus upon a general non-academic audience and a desire to make history as accessible as possible without sacrificing its nuance or complexities. In that sense, both books were relatively targeted,
I identified certain historical themes I wanted to explore and guide the audience through, and then a subject matter that would allow me to introduce them to the medieval period from the margins in. I guess I deliberately sought out subject matter that involved some degree of disruption to challenge readers’ notions of what ‘business as usual’ looked like in the medieval period.
A big part of that focus on general readers, in addition to the peeves I outlined above, is my own experience with Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia and Dyspraxia). I have had my fair share of incidents where I was faced with the fact that both our school system and academia, while usually well-meaning, weren’t necessarily built with the flexibility needed to meaningfully include everyone. As I said before, I believe history belongs to everyone and would like to make that a little easier in practice.
James Turner: Oh gosh, that’s a great question. I’m just going to rattle off a few. W. Mark Ormrod’s Edward III is a masterpiece of biography that weaves an enormous amount of information together. Reading that as an undergrad was a real ‘wow’ moment for me. William M. Aird’s biography of Robert Curthose is also fantastic and a great example of how to write a useful and revealing biography when faced with the problem of more limited sources.
David Crouch is a great place to start for anyone who wants to look into the Anglo-Norman period, specifically, or just to get a feel of how aristocratic power was constructed during this period. I’m also a big Robert Bartlett fan, and his Blood Royal is a really accessible beginner’s guide to royal monarchy for those new to the period, but still has some really significant insights for fellow medievalists. Judith Green is a great place to start with the Normans and does a fantastic job illustrating the geographic range of their influence.
When it comes to medieval Scottish history, I would always recommend anything by Richard Oram. I would also recommend Alice Taylor’s The Shape of the State in medieval Scotland: 1124-1290 and Katie Stevenson’s Power and Propaganda: Scotland 1306-1488. I thought both were really incisive and got to the heart of how Scotland was shaped and reshaped during their respective periods.
Out of Love for My Kin by Amy Livingstone is a case study of aristocratic families in the Loire Valley in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its great book and a great way to get to grips with the different social norms and structure of medieval society.
I’ve recently made it a rule to keep an eye on any project that involves Christian Raffensperger. How Medieval Europe was Ruled, which he edited, was a wall-to-wall hit, and I particularly admired its emphasis on approachability while pushing readers’ understanding of the subject in often quite bold new directions. Similarly, Steve Tibble is a little bit of a role model when it comes to reaching a general audience but maintaining an exceedingly high level of academic vigour. I particularly enjoyed his The Crusader Armies, which is really a snapshot of two or three interconnected cultures framed as military history.
James Turner: Thanks for asking! I’m currently working on a book about tracing the many ways the legends of King Arthur and his knights have been reinvented and reframed for explicitly political purposes across their long history. Edward I and Edward III had evoked the glory of lost Camelot as a way to court internal support for their wars of conquest. Henry Tudor and his heirs called upon the prophecies of Arthur to justify and strengthen their grip upon the throne. The establishment of nineteenth century Britian had fashioned the Arthurian legends into a mirror to reflect their own presumed moral excellence. Even the Kennedys get in on the act.
Then I’m thinking about returning to my Anglo-Norman roots with a biography of King Stephen. I’ve always found him to be a fascinatingly contradictory character. He’s ruthless enough to steal the throne from his cousin. Yet when his followers came to hang a young William Marshall after his father refused to surrender his castle to the king’s besieging army, they found the King had been teaching him to play chess and insisted on no harm to the child. He capitalised upon the misogynistic fears of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy to wrest the throne from Matilda, but then invested a huge amount of trust in his wife, to whom he delegated vice-regal authority. Also, any history of Stephen’s reign unavoidably becomes about his war with his Plantagenet relatives and the so-called “Anarchy”, which I think would make a fantastic ‘hook’ for new readers.
About the Author
Dr James Turner attended the University of Glasgow before undertaking his doctoral studies at Durham University. Deeply afraid of numbers and palaeography, his main research interests surround medieval aristocratic culture and identity as well as the idea of a global and interconnected Middle Ages. He lives and works near a beach in South Ayrshire and is a regular contributor to HistoryMedieval.com and Medivalist.net.
Books Discussed in this Interview
Harald Hardrada: The Making of Europe
by James Turner
Harald Hardrada: The Making of Europe follows one of the most extraordinary careers of the eleventh century: a Norwegian prince forced into exile, hardened in the courts and armies of Kyiv and Byzantium, and later returned to claim power in Scandinavia. Turner presents Harald not simply as the “last Viking” but as a ruler shaped by a wider European world of dynastic politics, military service, religious influence, and political comeback.
The Scottish Rebellion against Robert the Bruce: Exiles and Traitors
by James Turner
The Scottish Rebellion against Robert the Bruce: Exiles and Traitors examines the Disinherited, the Scottish nobles who lost their lands after opposing Robert the Bruce and later tried to overturn his settlement. Rather than telling a simple story of Scotland against England, Turner explores a fractured political landscape of family claims, lost estates, shifting loyalties, and men whose desire to recover what they had lost became the driving force of rebellion.
Together, the books reveal a medieval world where power was personal, borders were fluid, exile could become a political weapon, and identity was far more complex than later national myths suggest.
Interview conducted by Luciano Anastasi for HistoryMedieval.
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Luciano Anastasi
Luciano is the founder of the MedievalHistory platform and the LinkedIn History Enthusiasts Group, where he is dedicated to curating and sharing high-quality medieval history content. His goal is to engage scholars, teachers, students, and enthusiasts by fostering insightful discussions and promoting scholarly resources on topics from medieval warfare and religion to societal transformations and daily life in the Middle Ages.
Luciano is also an active book reviewer, focusing on academic publications related to medieval history. He recently collaborated with Yale University Press to review forthcoming medieval history titles, aiming to deepen educators' and researchers' understanding of the period. Alongside his history endeavors, he has over 40 years of experience in IT leadership roles across various industries, including the public sector, banking, insurance, airlines and consulting, and has contributed to United Nations projects.
With a Master of Arts in Business Process Management, Luciano combines his expertise in IT strategy and governance with his passion for medieval history. He leverages technology to bridge the academic community and the wider public, making historical scholarship more accessible through engaging online content.
