Medieval European Coinage

Advertisement for MEC by Cambridge University PressA British Academy Research Project

General Editor: Dr. Elina Screen

About MEC
List of volumes
MEC authors and staff
Financial support

 

About MEC

Medieval European Coinage is a major international work of reference for medieval numismatists, archaeologists and historians. The series of some 17 volumes, published by Cambridge University Press, will cover the coinage of Europe c. 450 to c. 1500, region by region. The MEC Project will produce the first comprehensive survey of European medieval coinages since the Traité de numismatique du moyen âge of Engel and Serrure (3 vols, 1891-1905). Each volume of MEC provides an authoritative, up-to-date account of the coinage of an area, written by experts in the field. The text is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue of the coins in the unrivalled collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, largely formed by Professor Philip Grierson.

The first volume of MEC was published in 1986, and the critically-acclaimed volume 14 on Southern Italy appeared in 1998. A further eight volumes are currently in preparation. A full list of volumes follows.

 

List of volumes

1. The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th Centuries). P. Grierson and M. A. S. Blackburn (published 1986).

2. Germany I: Western Germany. P. Ilisch (in preparation).
3. Germany II: North-eastern Germany
4. Germany III: Central and Southern Germany

5 (i). France I: The age of the denier. M. Bompaire (in preparation).
5 (ii). France II: Later royal and feudal coinages.

6. The Iberian Peninsula. A. Balaguer and M. Crusafont (in preparation).

7 (i) The Low Countries I: The Early Coinage and the Pre-Burgundian South. P. Grierson and S. Boffa(in preparation).
7 (ii) The Low Countries II: The North and the Burgundian Period. P. Grierson and S. Boffa (in preparation).

8. British Isles I: c.600-1066. Rory Naismith
9. (i). British Isles II: 1066-1279. Martin Allen
9 (ii). British Isles III: 1279-1509.

10. The Nordic Countries. J. Steen Jensen (in preparation).

11. Hungary and the Balkans. E. Oberländer-Târnoveanu (in preparation).

12. Italy I: Northern Italy. W. R. Day Jr., M. Matzke and A. Saccocci (in preparation).
13. Italy II: Central Italy. W. R. Day Jr., A. M. Stahl and L. Travaini (in preparation).
14. Italy III: South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia. P. Grierson and L. Travaini (published 1998).

15. Central and Eastern Europe. B. Paszkiewicz (in preparation)

16. The Crusader States

17. Kingdoms of Arles and Lorraine

 

MEC authors and staff

MEC volumes are written by acknowledged experts in their field. The project was initially conceived and overseen by Professor Philip Grierson (1910-2006) and Mark Blackburn (1953-2011) as General Editor. Today it is based in the Department of Coins and Medals of the Fitzwilliam Museum and co-ordinated by Dr. Elina Screen. The project has benefited from the generosity of numerousfunding bodies.

Anna Balaguer and Miquel Crusafont are independent scholars and members of the Societat Catalana d'Estudis Numismàtics, Barcelona. Their many publications include Crusafont's important catalogue, Acuñaciones de la Corona Catalano Aragonesa y de los reinos de Aragon y Navarra. Medioevo y tránsito a la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 1992) and Balaguer's Història de la moneda dels contats catalans (Barcelona, 1999).

Serge Boffa is helping to complete the work of Philip Grierson on the Low Countries volumes of MEC. A former full-time research associate (funded by the Fondation Wiener-Anspach, 1998-2002), Serge is currently working at the Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, Belgium.

Marc Bompaire is a researcher of the Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique, France. His recent publications include Numismatique médiévale: monnaies et documents d'origine française (Turnhout, 2000), with F. Dumas.

Peter Ilisch was curator of the Coin Cabinet of the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster. He has published extensively on West German coinages, especially those of Lotharingia.

Michael Matzke is head of the Münzkabinett of the Historisches Museum in Basel, and former Assistant Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals of the Fitzwilliam Museum. His publications on medieval numismatics include 'Vom Ottolinus zum Grossus: Münzprägung in der Toskana vom 10. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert', Schweizerische Numimatische Rundschau / Revue suisse de numismatique 72 (1993).

Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu is Director of the Coin Room of the National History Museum of Romania. He has published extensively on Byzantine, South-Eastern European Medieval and Golden Horde Coinage, and also on the economic and political history of the Balkans, Danube basin and Black Sea area in the 10th-15th centuries.

Borys Paszkiewicz is Professor in the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Wroclaw. His research has included important work on the medieval coinages of Upper Silesia (2001) and a series of articles on 12-15th century Polish and Lithuanian coins.

Andrea Saccocci is Professor in Numismatics at the Università degli Studi di Udine. Recent articles include 'Ritrovamenti monetali in tombe di santi nell'Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli VI-XV)', in Trouvailles monétaires de tombes (Études de numismatique et d'histoire 2) (Lausanne, 1999), and 'Il grosso agontano e la circolazione «internazionale» della moneta marchigiane (secc. XIII-XIV)', in Atti e memorie: Deputazione di storia patria per le Marche 103 (1998).

Peter Spufford is a retired Fellow of Queen's College Cambridge and former Professor of European History in the University of Cambridge. His substantial work on medieval numismatics and economy includes Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986, with Wendy Wilkinson and Sarah Tolley), Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1988) and more recently Power and Profit: the merchant in medieval Europe (New York, 2002). Professor Spufford is assisting with the process of bringing the Low Countries volumes of MEC to the press.

Alan M. Stahl is Curator of Numismatics in the Princeton University Library. Chief among his numerous publications are The Venetian tornesello: a medieval colonial coinage (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1985), and more recently, Zecca: the mint of Venice in the middle ages (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

Jørgen Steen Jensen is former keeper of the Royal Collection of Coins and Medals of the National Museum of Denmark. His many publications include Viking-Age Hoards and Late Anglo-Saxon Coins (Stockholm, 1987).

Lucia Travaini is Associate Professor in Numismatics at the Università degli Studi di Milano and a former Senior Research Associate for MEC. Her major publications include La monetazione nell'Italia normanna (1995) and MEC 14 (1998).

 

Financial support

The generous financial support of the following organisations has since 1982 funded the research enabling the preparation of these volumes, and currently allows the Project to employ William Day Jr. (volumes 12, 13) as a full-time research associate: