Kenneth Jonsson
Contact
Name and title: Kenneth Jonsson
Workplace: Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies Länk till annan webbplats.
Visiting address Room 341
About me
Born in 1950 in Filipstad, BA in 1973 at Lund University, Ph.D. in 1987 at Stockholm University and associate professor in 1990. Research assistant at HSFR in 1988-1992, professor in numismatics and monetary history at Stockholm University since 1992. The chair is financed by the Gunnar Ekström foundation for numismatic research.
In my thesis, The new era - the reformation of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage, I studied a monetary reform in England c. 973. The reform was part of an effort by the king to centralize power, but ended in conflicts with local powers. This caused a division of the country which created the basis for renewed Viking attacks in England and in the end paved the way for the Danish King Cnut’s conquest of England in 1016.
Just over 700,000 coins have been found in Sweden (of which more than
42,000 during the last 15 years alone). The finds have an enormous research potential and they are especially rich during the Viking Age, Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (800-1700). My research is concentrated to these periods with a focus on the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Germany, and England. As I see it, it is the aim of numismatics, based on coin finds and an analysis of the coins themselves, to see the coins in a wider perspective, economically, politically, administratively and socially.
Ongoing projects
The aim of one long term project is to, with the help of students, systematically document and analyze the coin finds from the Viking Age
(259,000 coins) and the Middle Ages (210.000 coins). During the Viking Age (c. 800-1150) mainly German, but also Islamic, Bohemian, English, and Danish coins have been studied in a total of 47 seminar papers. In the German part (107,000 coins) mint by mint has been studied. Hundreds of issuing authorities and mints and thousands of types have made the coinage difficult to understand. With the help of data bases covering the Swedish finds it has, however, been possible to analyze and bring order to this apparent confusion.
With regard to the Middle Ages (c. 1150-1520) nearly all stray finds and cumulative finds (finds from churches, monasteries, towns, and castles) have been documented and analyzed in 24 seminar papers. What remains are mainly late medieval German coins from Mecklenburg and Pomerania. This allows us to have a much better knowledge and understanding of the coinage and the coin circulation than was previously the case.
One project with external financing concerns the coinage of Erik of Pomerania 1396-1439 in Sweden, where Johan Holm is making a die-analysis based on the preserved coins. It will show the size of the coinage and how it was organized at the mints in Stockholm, Västerås, and Åbo. The results will be supplemented by myself with an analysis of the coin finds which will show how the coins circulated.
The basis for the research is databases of the finds and they are constantly updated with new finds from all periods. The finds from the Viking Age are published on our website as part of the CNS-project.
During the last few years I have started to map and analyze finds with talers (1550-1700) as well as with coins from the Swedish possessions during Sweden’s rise to power (1561-1721).