ABSTRACT
Norwegian coinage was in its infancy at the turn of the first millennium. When the name of the Viking King Olaf Tryggvason (r. 995–1000) appeared in the legend of silver pennies ONLAF REX NO[RMANNORVM] the Norwegians were at the same time in the process of becoming Christianised. According to later tradition, from the late twelfth century onwards, it was King Olaf Haraldsson (r. 1015–28, 1030) who completed the task of forging Norway as a Christian kingdom. Olaf Haraldsson was also the first to organise minting on a scale sufficient to be considered as a first important step in the direction of a national coinage. Nevertheless, the number of coins issued in the 1020s would have been insufficient for a national purpose. According to the thirteenth-century Heimskringla and twelfth-century legal texts, Olaf Haraldsson was instrumental in legal reforms carried out at the Mosterthing in 1016. Later texts referring to these laws of Saint Olaf, ‘Rex Perpetuus’ of Norway, are without reference to coinage or any administrative measures concerning coin circulation, but the legal administrative system became important for the organisation of coinage and a monetary regime on a national level, and law codes implemented in the twelfth and thirtheenth centuries contain laws on money and coinage, that is, on counterfeit coinage. 1
