Reply to comments on trade,towns and states: A reconsideration of early medieval economics

The aim of this paper is to discuss a specific group of stamped gold foils with human representation from the late Scandinavian Iron Age (AD 550/600–800) from the perspective of size. The article argues that the framed gold foils embed sophisticated and multi-layered transformations that capture and echo basic principles of northern cosmology and belief systems related to Odin as the god for kings and his ability as a seer.     

Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1998

Abstract

Historic Building Investigations and selective excavations carried out during recent conservation works have shed new light on St Mary's Guildhall, Boston (Lincolnshire), built by an internationally significant religious fraternity in one of the most important ports of medieval England. Dendrochronological dating of the guildhall indicates a construction date of c 1390. This is significantly earlier than had previously been supposed and suggests a close link between the construction of the guildhall and the grant of a royal licence of incorporation to the guild in 1392. It makes the guildhall one of the earliest securely dated brick buildings in Lincolnshire and is important evidence of investment during a period when Boston was experiencing severe economic decline. Multidisciplinary analysis of the archaeology of the building and some of the guild's surviving documentary records enables a reconstruction of the original form and function of the guildhall and its now-lost material culture. Comparative analysis of Boston with other surviving provincial guildhalls begins to shed light on the emergence of a distinctive type of public architecture in pre-modern England.     

Medieval Britain and Ireland in 2014

This section of the journal comprises two core sets of reports linked to work in 2014: on finds and analyses relating to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and on site-specific discoveries and reports in medieval Britain and Ireland (MB&I), with a selection of highlighted projects. For the PAS report, reviews on coin and non-coin finds and on specific research angles are presented. For MB&I, the Society is most grateful to all contributors (of field units, museums, universities, developers, specialist groups and individuals) who have provided reports on finds, excavations, field-surveys and building analyses for 2014. For MB&I, see below for the format and content of the Fieldwork Highlights section and for contact details of the compilers. The annual Specialist Groups Reports appear in the Society’s Newsletter.     

An Institutional Analysis of Property Development,Good Governance and Urban Sustainability

It can be argued that creating a reputation for sustainable development for the benefit of a competitive advantage resonates with institutional theory. In principle, this opens up the possibility to relate a given sustainability agenda with theoretical frameworks based on old institutional economics (OIE) and/or new institutional economics. This is particularly true in arenas where qualitative factors cause a discontinuous change from the previous structure, such as amid urban regeneration. Using empirical evidence from three very different European cities, Budapest, Amsterdam and Trondheim, it is shown that OIE has plenty to offer for a “patchy” and evolving problem area such as the analysis of planning and property development in an urban setting. The position taken here is that good community governance needs the support of the private sector too. Smart policies, regulations and especially incentives set at the local and regional levels are an imperative to meet the sustainability goals set out in the Rio-1992 agenda. This international comparison attempts to provide some guiding answers to the empirical question as to how sustainable the three cases of country- and city-specific governance are in terms of their property development.