The Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) is a Norwegian Centre for Excellence established for a ten year period in 2003. The CMS aims at tracing some fundamental features of the formation of Western Christendom by looking at this area from the periphery, i.e. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Our approach is to study cultural transmission and interaction by comparison between centre and periphery as well as within the latter. The overriding theoretical framework is determined by recent developments in the historical, literary, and social sciences where a tight linking of cultural and religious expressions with social behaviour is emphasised through analyses of discourse, power and social praxis. The CMS’s research programme is divided into four major projects, dealing respectively with (1) The Arrival of Writing, (2) Religion between Unity and Variety, (3) State Formation and Political Culture, and (4) Construction of the Past.

The Arrival of Writing

The project aims at contributing to the study of oral cultures mainly in the Nordic countries, the interaction with the later written culture, the development of centres of writing, as well as the mutual influence between the oral and written culture as parallel cultures. More in detail, the research in the period 2007-2012 will focus on the following subfields:
- Administrative literacy, with a particular emphasis on comparisons between the centre and the periphery on the one hand, and the vernacularisation of the administrative culture in the later Middle Ages one the other.
- Oral art forms, Eddic and skaldic poetry and the oral basis of medieval written literature, accentuating the international theoretical discussion of these questions. So far the relationship between oral and written has mostly been studied in connection with the transmission from oral to written culture. In our research we will, in addition, pay more attention to the oral and written as parallel and interacting channels in a given society.
- The relationship between Latin and the vernacular as part of the process of the vernacularisation of the written word. 
- Identifying scribal centres, with an emphasis on their form and function. Knowledge about scribal centres and their production provides a good basis for comparison between different regions within the Nordic periphery, as well as between them and the rest of Europe. The liturgical fragments in public collections hold a great potential for the study of early Norwegian book culture.
- The relationship between the written culture introduced in the periphery and local oral traditions as well as the differences between various oral cultures. Regarding the interaction between the oral and the written culture and the consequences of literacy, the Later Middle Ages will be an interesting period to study.

Religion between Unity and Variety

In the period, 2007-2012, the Christianisation of the North and the East, the penetration of Christian mentality into laws, state-building and popular culture, the development of cults and rites, the organisation of religious life, and the relationship between the papacy and religious practices in the European partes, will be the basic research fields. These include:
- One major part of the Christianization project was completed in 2007, dealing with the Christianization of Scandinavia and eastern / central Europe (Christianization and the rise of Christian monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200, ed. N. Berend).  More detailed and extended examination will now be in focus, more based on archaeological sources. One main aim is to reveal local diversities and similarities in the religious change process as testified by archaeological findings by comparative, interdisciplinary research.
- A comparative project with focus on the gradual penetration of Christianity in the period after the Christianisation with particular emphasis on religious devotional literature and practices connected to cult.
- The project on local churches and the Papal Curia, which so far has mostly been carried out by exploiting the penitentiary texts, has during the working process opened new doors into related fields. The relations between local churches and the Papacy as witnessed by the penitentiary texts represent only one of many aspects interwoven into a wider setting of connecting lines between the ecclesiastical periphery and centre. Others include: (1) Violence and killing in late medieval Europe – in particular such acts executed against or by the clergy. (2) Different matters pertaining to marriage practices. (3) The development of Canon Law regulations and the relation between these and the national and local law codes.
- The Scandinavian archbishops and provincial councils and their relations to the Curia and the national authorities.
- An emphasis on academic preaching/sermons and guilds and fraternities.

State Formation and Political Culture

In the period 2003-2007, the emphasis of the project state formation and political culture was, first, on the relationship between the Carolingian Empire and Scandinavia and the rise of the three Scandinavian kingdoms in the tenth and eleventh centuries. During this period, we have achieved a deeper understanding of this process in Scandinavia, notably Norway, and will continue with further comparative studies involving East Central Europe. In addition, we shall deal more systematically with the high- and later Middle Ages, taking the forthcoming study by Sverre Bagge as a point of departure (From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom) and this study’s discussion of the various factors that contribute to the rise of a central power and beginning bureaucratisation: demography, social and economic change, the introduction of contemporary western military technology with castles and heavy cavalry, and the introduction of writing and the ecclesiastical hierarchy as the result of Christianisation. Scandinavian scholarship on these subjects has been strongly influenced by national ideas as well as by the notion of the Later Middle Ages as a period of decline. This view has in turn been questioned in recent years, partly by greater emphasis on factions based on personal links, partly by the distinction between conflicts between monarchy and aristocracy within each country and across the borders. Thus, the field is now open for new empirical studies and new challenges to these interpretations. More specifically, the following aspects will be dealt with, partly as a direct continuation of our research during the CMS’s first period, partly as new elements:
- The formation of states in Northern and East Central Europe in the Early Middle Ages.
- The competition between various princes and power-holders as a factor in state formation and the importance of the European system of a multiplicity of political units within a common cultural and religious framework.
- The importance of Christianity for state formation. A wider comparison will allow us assess the specific importance of Christianity, not only compared to the earlier religions of Europe but also to Islam, another religion of the Book which deeply influenced states and political culture in the neighbouring civilisation. A comparison with Eastern Christendom, as developed in Byzantium and parts of the Slavonic world, will also be interesting.
- The cultural and ideological aspect of state formation, as expressed e.g. in propaganda, religious ideology and courtly culture.
- Research on the Nordic laws and their connection to Roman and canon law. The Nordic laws have recently become the focus of new attention, and it is now possible to gather a team of Nordic scholars to do comparative research on this topic. This research should be carried out in close connection with the study of canon law which also has received a great revival internationally in recent decades, since expertise is still lacking in the Nordic countries.
- Urban history, focusing on the bishop towns’ role as centres of royal and ecclesiastical power.

Construction of the Past

Based on the research undertaken in the period 2003-2007, there is a need for a closer dialogue between linguistic regions and disciplines. On the one hand, national exceptionalism has been allowed to make claims for its ‘own’ literature that do not hold up to comparative scrutiny. On the other hand, general claims are made about European literature and chronicle writing without taking into account ‘peripheral’ literatures. In the period 2007-2012, the CMS will contribute to counterbalance such tendencies by continuing to bring forth specific cultural mechanisms between centre and periphery as well as pointing to the relevance of the periphery for a better understanding the European medieval past. More specifically, we will be dealing with the following themes:
- Medieval historiography as an expression of national and cultural identity. We intend to pursue the impact of Roman historical writing in both periphery and centre – an area of research which deals with the overarching problem of cultural (elite) identity and particularism versus universalism.
- Medieval historiography as literary products, with emphasis on narrative patterns and the play on fiction. Two projects are already under way, one on medieval narratives from the ‘forgotten’ periphery in the form of Byzantine, Latin, and Old Norse narratives from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The second project will focus on twelfth-century Latin historiography and deals with the use of biblical typology in a centre-periphery perspective.
- The relationship between historiography, political culture, and state formation. One area of research is the extent to which Roman models reveal local elite ideas about statehood or nationhood. Another area is the effect historiography and law books were intended to have on shaping elite identities and the mutual support they give each other: a strong past for a certain group/dynasty/people makes contemporary legal claims on their part more valid, and, conversely, a strong political, military, and judiciary showing provides an excellent opportunity of redefining the past.
- The relationship between secular and ecclesiastical culture. In literary terms it is important to note that the two ‘cultures’ do not coincide with a supposed difference between Latin and vernacular ‘culture’. It is our conviction that we are dealing with one literary discourse consisting of a complex of channels and modes of communication. Historiography, and other narrative literature, forms an important point of departure for assessing the relationship between writings mainly occasioned by ecclesiastical institutions and those whose main input comes from groups outside the church. Notwithstanding – or rather because of – the rejection of a simple dichotomic model (ecclesiastical/secular - vernacular/Latin), the role of Latin and vernacular writing is a key area for further research, in Nordic as well as international scholarship.

You can also download two documents that illustrates the research programme and its status, namely the application for the Centre from 2002(PDF)and the midway report on research 2003-2006(PDF) as submitted by the Centre on May 1 2006.
In addition a publication list 2003-2006 organized by themes and types of publication is available on this site.

CMS ANNUAL REPORT 2007 (PDF)
CMS ANNUAL REPORT 2006 (PDF)