Geir Atle Ersland

born 1957, Dr. art 1994 and senior researcher at the Centre of Medieval Studies, University of Bergen from 2008. I have been in employment with the University of Bergen, both part- and full-time since 1989, research fellow at The Research Council of Norway from 1991-1994, advisor for higher education at the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research in 1995, senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Defence Studies 1997-98 and Associate professor at Volda University College 2002. I have done research on urban history, in particular medieval morphological and property history. I have also specialised in the history of the Hanseatic League and have extensive knowledge of the Hanseatic Archives with relevance to Norway. My third subject is medieval military history.

My main project at the CMS is Bishop Towns and Capital Cities in Medieval Scandinavia and is aimed to contribute to comparative analyses of urban development within a Nordic context. The project will focus on four major topics:

• The earliest urban development in Scandinavia coincides with two other major changes in the Nordic societies, the emergence of the Christian Religion and the establishment of royal power in the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Norway from 900-1200. I will try to compare the development and to uncover the links between Christianisation, royal centralisation and urbanisation within the kingdoms.
• In a European context the question of autonomous urban government as opposed to princely power is central in urban historiography. However, in Scandinavia this has not been in the forefront. In this respect I will look into the development of town councils, and especially the position of the bishop towns. A large part of my work in this field will concentrate on writing the medieval part of the new four volume project Stavanger bys historie (to be published 2012).
• Autonomous urban communities were an alternative to the power of kings and emperors in parts of medieval Europe. Both the church and the town councils developed along the lines of constitutionalism in the late medieval period. When modern democracy was in its making in the 19th century this was linked to the self government historians more or less advocated had its roots in the rural areas and peasant society. In my project I will focus on urban self governance as an alternative to the central rule of kings, and the town councils as the cradle of modern representative democracy.
• The emergence of royal power gave rise to an ever expanding bureaucracy. This meant a lesser mobile administration and that the kings spent most of their time in certain towns. On the other hand, modern history books often present the term capital also for the medieval kingdom as for the modern national state. The capital cities are to day the main hubs for the modern Scandinavian state, but to what extent can this be traced back to medieval times?

Selected publications

- Leidang - A military system from the Viking Ages to the Renaissance. Forthcoming 2008.

- Vestlandet og byane 1500 - 1800. I Vestlandets historie, band 2 s. 168 - 195. Bergen 2006.

- "Saa langt vtt vppa Siøen…" Utfylling og utbygging i Vågen i Bergen frå høgmellomalderen og til midten av 1600-talet. Niku tema 14. Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning. Oslo 2005.

- Urban tenure in Bergen during the 16th and 17th century. I Tore Iversen and John Ragnar. Myking (eds.) Land, Lords and Peasants. No. 52 Trondheimstudies in History. Trondheim 2005.

- Was the Kontor in Bergen a topographical closed entity? I Veröffentlichungen zur Geschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck. Herausgegeben vom Archive der Hansestadt. Reihe B Band 41. Lübeck 2005.

- Kvantitativ realisme - skips- og mannskapstal i norsk mellomalder. I Forsvarsmuseets småskrifter nr. 35, s. 146 - 162. Oslo 2005.

- Rikssamling og kongemakt. Del 1 av Norsk forsvarshistorie band 1, s. 13 - 154. Bergen 2000.

- Die Hanse-Archive aus Bergen. I Zeitschrift für Lübecker Geschichte und Altertumskunde. Lübeck 1998.

- The evolution of land rent in late medieval Bergen. I Finn-Einar Eliassen and Geir Atle Ersland (eds): Power, Profit and Urban Land. Leicester 1996.

- Kven eigde byen. Dr. art-avhandling Hist. inst. UiB 1994.

- Eit forsøk på rekonstruksjon av grunneigefordelinga i Bergen ved utgangen av seinmellomalderen. Hovedoppgåve i historie. UB våren 1989.

Publications registered in FRIDA