About the group
The objectives of this research group is investigations into the nature of money looking at money and its use, perceptions of money, values and standards, and how money was used in rituals and as legitimation of power in Viking and medieval societies.
Projects
WP1: Human Sacrifice and Values
The NFR project (FRIPRO) Human Sacrifice and Values (2018-2022, Principal Investigators (PI) Rane Willerslev and Svein H. Gullbekk) are working with the following research topics:
The Economy of Sacrifice: Christ, Coins and the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, S. H. Gullbekk and M.Wangsgaard Jürgensen, in: Human Sacrifice and Value. Revisiting the Limits of Sacred Violence, edited by Matthew Walsh, Sean O’Neill, Marianne Moen, Svein H. Gullbekk, Routledge [forthcoming]
Measuring trust: Attitudes towards money in eleventh century Norway, S. H. Gullbekk, Sean O’Neill og Matthew J. Walsh (work in progress)
Cash on legs – Cattle as currency and pecunial sacrifices, S. H. Gullbekk, M. J. Walsh and M. Moen, in: Control. A Story about Animal/Human Domestication, edited by Gro B. Ween and Michael Lundblad [Oslo: Pax forlag, in press]
Standardization of ritual offerings: The Eucharist, human sacrifice and monetization, S. H. Gullbekk, M.J. Walsh and M. Moen, in: Medieval standardization in the North, edited by L.C. Engh, H.-J. Orning og S.H. Gullbekk, [Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming]
WP2: Monetisation in medieval Northern Europe
Doctoral Research Fellow Mika Boros, Monetisation at the frontiers of medieval Europe. The introduction of local coinage outside the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Supervisors S. H. Gullbekk, Hans Jacob Orning and Mateusz Bogucki, from 1 September 2021.
Workshop, 16-17 March 2022, Oslo: And then there was coin - Beginnings of coinage in medieval Europe with empasis on Comparative perspectives on money and its use and monetization in Austria, Poland and Norway in the 11th and 12th century, with Mika Boros.
International Numismatic Congress (INC), Warzaw 11-16 Sept 2022, Organizer of session: Viking Age and Medieval Monetisation – Scandinavian and theoretical perspectives, S.H.Gullbekk, J.A.Risvaag, J.C.Moesgaard, N.M.Burström, F.Ehrensten, L.E. Ramberg, C.Kilger, M.Paulsen, G.Ingvardsen.
WP3: Comparative studies of numismatics and monetary history
In the project 'Symbolic Resources and Political Structures on the Periphery: Legitimization of the Elites in Poland and Norway, c. 1000-1300' S.H.Gullbekk and M.Bogucki collaborates on the contribution "Language of Power through Coinage in 11th-12th century Poland and Norway", a comparative research study.
Doctoral Research Fellow Mika Boros is conducting a study in which comparative methods will be central in analyzes of the early development of coinage and the use of coinage in Austria, Poland and Norway.
Religion and Money in the Middle Ages – Routledge series
The series explores the connections between two of the most dominant aspects of medieval society and culture: religion and money. Both are ubiquitous throughout the Middle Ages, and both are expressed through a wide variety of media, from the textual to the material. In this light, the series recognises the importance of multi-disciplinary perspectives, and welcomes joint as well as individual authorship and editorship.
- Vol. 1: G.E.M. Gasper and S.H. Gullbekk, Money and the Church in Northern Europe 1000-1200: Practice, Morality and Thought, Farnham: Ashgate 2015.
- Vol. 2: Nanouschka Myrberg Burström and Gitte Tarnow Ingvardson (eds.), Divina Moneta: coin finds in religious contexts, New York – Oxford; Routledge 2017
- Vol. 3: S.H. Gullbekk, C. Kilger, H. Roland and S. Kristensen, (eds.), Coins in Churches. Archaeology, Money and Religious Devotion in Medieval Northern Europe, London and New York: Routledge 2021 ISBN 9780367557065
- Vol. 4: Lucia Travaini, The Thirty Pieces of Silver. Coin-relics in medieval and modern Europe, Routledge 2022, 308 pp. ISBN 9780367688028
Series editor: S.H. Gullbekk
Completed Research Project
NFR FRIPRO: ‘Religion and Money: Economy of Salvation in the Middle Ages’ PI: S.H.Gullbekk (2013-2017)