In thirteenth-century Sweden, kings began referring to Roman law and its concept of treason to legitimize their use of political violence in executing magnates who rebelled against them or otherwise became their political enemies. Kings implemented a strategy of executions to deter powerful noblemen from reaching too high and challenging the king’s position, or from encroaching on monarchical authority. Public executions and political murders of noblemen in the Scandinavian kingdoms (Sweden and Norway) during the Middle Ages, particularly in the context of civil wars and rebellions, suggest that these events were closely connected to larger political and legal developments in the Scandinavian realms. These were the consolidation of monarchical authority, the centralization and institutionalization of the monarchy in close collaboration with the Church, and the introduction of new legal stipulations. However, parallel to this, narratives surrounding these executions imply resistance to those trends and justification of such resistance using different models of defiance. The author of a verse chronicle in Old Swedish from around 1320, Erikskrönikan (The Chronicle of Duke Erik), attempted to demonstrate the injustice of royal executions and the validity of resistance to unjust kings by siding with the executed rebels or magnates who fell from grace. The chronicler criticizes royal abuse of power and legitimates the concept of resistance by engaging with the notion of rebel martyrs and creating sympathy for the defeated party. Essentially, the chronicler condemns the ruling factions’ abuse of political power by portraying these executions as nothing more than illicit and illegal political murders.