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Bertil Nilsson

Professor Emeritus

Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion
Telephone
+46 709-94 73 63
Mail
bertil.nilsson@lir.gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Bertil Nilsson

Born in 1951, appointed Master of Theology at Uppsala University in 1974 and Master of Philosophy in 1979 with history and Latin. Made Doctor of Divinity in 1989, also in Uppsala, and docent in practical theology in 1991.

My doctoral thesis deals with canon law and its encounter with the domestic legal tradition during the period when the Church in Sweden was on its way to becoming an integrated part of medieval Latin Christendom.

From 1990 to 1995 I was the co-ordinator of the interdisciplinary project "The Christianisation of Sweden: Culture and Mentalities during the Viking Age and Early Middle Ages."

Since 1995 I have been employed at the University of Gothenburg, first as a senior lecturer and then, from 2001, as a professor.

My research after my doctoral thesis has dealt mainly with various aspects of medieval canon law and its development, as well as the encounter between religions that accompanied the Christianisation of the Scandinavian kingdoms.

From 2005 to 2010 I was part of the Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies, a Nordic research collaboration between the universities in Bergen, Helsinki, Gothenburg and Odense.

I am currently part of the Medieval Nordic Laws project, led from the University of Aberdeen, which aims to produce translations of all the Nordic provincial laws, along with an introduction and commentaries. I am also involved in research into the Church's ecumenical councils, led from Rome by the Societas Internationalis Historiae Conciliorum Investingandae.

I teach history of Christianity at both undergraduate and postgraduate level in the Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion.

I am a member of various organisations, including The Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg and The Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture (Uppsala).