A research community with deep roots
The Middle Ages are central and constitutive for the history of Bergen, Western Norway and Norway. The university and museum sector in Bergen make up a large and diverse research community within medieval studies.
Medieval research at UiB goes all the way back to the founding of Bergen Museum in 1825. From 2002 to 2012 the university hosted a Centre of Excellence in medieval studies, which put Bergen on the international map. Today the research continues in research groups across the Faculty of Humanities and the University Museum.
Themes we work on
The research spans widely: legal history and law books, Old Norse philology and manuscripts, medieval archaeology and material culture, church art and architecture, urban and urbanization history, and the history of religion. Ongoing projects examine, among other things, how medieval law was renewed in the early modern period, and the circulation of St Birgitta of Sweden's revelations in medieval England.
For journalists and media
Do you have a question about the Middle Ages? Feel free to ask a UiB researcher. The research community covers a broad field: archaeology, philology (Latin and Old Norse), history and cultural history, art history, literature, music and legal history. Find the right expert for your story in the list of researchers below.
Historical overview
Bergen has a long tradition of medieval research, going all the way back to the founding of Bergen Museum in 1825, with its own collections of medieval material culture.
Medieval research stood out early on at UiB
When the University of Bergen was established in 1946, it was based on the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Faculty of History and Philosophy, and the Faculty of Medicine. Medieval philology stood out early on as a strong field, and the university appointed its own professor of Old Norse in 1953.
From the late 1950s, Norwegian medieval history became a separate field within the newly established Department of History. A few years later, in 1970, the University received a professorship specifically in medieval Latin, the only one of its kind in the country.
In the 1970s, medieval archaeology became its own field, with a focus on urban archaeology after the excavations at Bryggen received international attention. The archaeology subject received a professorship in medieval archaeology in 1994.
The strength of the medieval research communities becomes visible
Interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration characterized medieval research, with contributions from both the humanities and natural sciences, as well as from the teaching and museum sectors. In the last decades of the 20th century, the "Medieval Forum at the University of Bergen" contributed to this collaboration, among other things.
The strength of the medieval research communities in Bergen became evident when parts of the research communities at the Department of Nordic Studies and the Department of History succeeded in the first national competition for status as a Centre of Excellence for the period 2003–12. The Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) succeeded in attracting external research communities, had a high and varied publication output, and produced a long series of doctoral theses.
The Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) has formally concluded as a Centre of Excellence, but medieval research remains a priority area at the University of Bergen. At the Faculty of Humanities, the research was continued in various research groups. These research groups form part of a larger community at UiB where research and teaching is carried out within medieval subjects. This includes fields such as history, archaeology, philology, art history and literature.
Cross-disciplinary research collaboration a hallmark
In addition, the material and architectural culture of the Middle Ages is central to the work of the collections and research at the University Museum of Bergen. Here there is a rich collection of church art from the Middle Ages and the post-Reformation period, and academic expertise in medieval art and culture. The University Museum has the scholarly and management responsibility for collections of medieval archaeological material from Western Norway, and the museum has broad expertise in medieval archaeology.
The Faculty of Law has expertise related to the legal history of the Middle Ages, and the plan for a ten-year project on Magnus Lagabøte's Code of the Realm is particularly relevant. Cross-faculty and cross-disciplinary research collaboration is a consistent and desired hallmark of current research.