Conveners
S63. MIDDLE AGES 1. VIKING AGE AND MEDIEVAL MONETISATION – SCANDINAVIAN AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
- Jon Anders Risvaag (NTNU University Museum)
S63. MIDDLE AGES 1. VIKING AGE AND MEDIEVAL MONETISATION – SCANDINAVIAN AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
- Svein Gullbekk (Museum of Cultural History / University of Oslo)
Description
Org.: Svein Gullbekk, Jon Anders Risvaag, chairs: Svein Gullbekk, Jon Anders Risvaag
Viking Age and Medieval Monetisation – Scandinavian and theoretical perspectives
In recent years there has been an increased scientific interest in research on monetisation processes and the related beginning of coinage economies in various European regions of the Middle Ages. These more recent research approaches are by no means limited to the subjects of numismatics and monetary history but draw important impulses from the economic, social and cultural-historical areas as well as archeology and financial history.
Monetisation developed as a term in Scandinavian numismatics in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has since then been a key concept in studies of medieval monetary issues there. In these discussions new terms and related concepts have been coined and adapted for medieval contexts nationally, regionally and locally such as ‘Monetarität’, ‘monetary economies’, ‘money economies’, ‘monetary regimes’ and so forth. Monetisation is per se a process describing the use and adaption of coins and monetary means of exchange. How the term is to be used in interpretationof medieval monetary realities has been debated for decades among Scandinavian scholars.
This session is closely related to the one proposed by Dr. Johannes Hartner (Vienna) and Professor Rory Naismith (Cambridge), who also list eight contributors on the subject of medieval monetization with emphasis on the Continent and The British Isles.
We - S.H. Gullbekk and J.A. Risvaag - would like to tie up with their excellent efforts and suggest two additional sessions with emphasis on Scandinavia and theoretical perspectives for wider discussions on "monetisation" from a Scandinavian and theoretical perspectives.
The idea of monetization has had a long and successful standing in Scandinavian scholarship. It has been a successful concept for studying the development of medieval economies and the introduction of coinage. At the same time, the significance of towns, merchants and other specialists in monetization has barely been touched upon and discussed. According to Aristotle money is a precondition...
In Viking-Age Scandinavia, traditional economic practices, using foreign coins and silver primarily as bullion, started evolving into monetary markets around the year 1000. The process was slow and uneven, but it is clear that it unfolded in a mutual understanding between the neighbouring countries. Initially, the first Scandinavian coinages were all imitative, gradually developing into local...
The popular image of the medieval peasant is that he or she did not use coins. Nevertheless, written sources show that rents and taxes were paid by the common people in cash, alongside payments made in kind. Finds from rural church floors show that they had coins in the church. But what about everyday life? Until a generation ago, not much evidence was available, but now metal detector finds...
The term monetization has been the subject of repeated discussions in recent decades in the fields of Scandinavian numismatics, archeology and history. Its very broad definition has often been a cause of concern. In my recently completed Ph.D. dissertation, Coin and power, the monetization of Denmark 1074-1241, I have carried out my analyses based on the notion of monetization as a process...
The first Norwegian coins were issued since the middle of the 11th century. Around 1100 the coins were gradually reduced in size, until they became the smallest bracteates in Medieval Europe. These bracteates were anonymous, making attribution to an issuer difficult. The output of coinage shows that the bracteates, if in circulation, could have been accessible to a large part of the...
The 12th century sees the beginning of the Swedish colonisation towards the east which ultimately caused the area of present-day Finland an integral part of the Swedish kingdom and Christian world. The process of monetisation was essential for the economic colonisation of the territory referred to in Swedish as Österlanden (Easternlands). Today coins are the most tangible evidence for the...
During the last decades the term 'monetisation' has increasingly been used in Scandinavian studies on coinage, money and its use, and economy in the Middle Ages. And yet, the term remains somewhat obscure, its definition largely idiosyncratic . In this paper I explore the question of 'when was monetisation achieved?'. The answer to the question may differ considerably depending on the...
