Barrie Cook
Curator of Medieval and Early Modern
Coinage
Coinage of Medieval and Early
Modern Britain and Europe
Department: Coins and Medals
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8607
Email: bcook @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Barrie Cook holds curatorial responsibility
for the coinages of Britain and Europe and their dependencies
c.1200-1800, and the coinage of Byzantium and its dependencies c.
700-1460. As well as coins, this remit covers tokens,
tickets, coin-weights, jettons and other related material. He
is responsible for processing and recording relevant Treasure
cases: identifying and publishing new coins hoards from England
dating from 1180 (the introduction of the Short Cross series)
onwards.
Barrie’s particular research interests include
the history of the English mint, medieval counterfeiting, the
coinages issued by kings of England in France in the medieval
period; coins and ceremony; the city view on coins and medals of
early modern Europe.
Current British Museum projects
Barrie Cook is currently involved in the Museum’s new Medieval
Gallery and the touring exhibition: ‘Encounters: travel and Money
in the Byzantine World’ (at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts,
Birmingham, from February 2007). He is also involved with the
Timelines project.
Previous British Museum projects
Barrie Cook has contributed to several recent
major temporary exhibitions including:
- Elizabeth (National Maritime Museum,
2003)
- London 1753 (British
Museum, 2003)
- Gothic (Victoria and Albert Museum,
2003-4)
He has also curated a number of BM exhibitions
including:
- Humphrey Cole: mint, measurement and maps
in Elizabethan England (1998)
- Cityscapes: panoramic views on European
coins and medals (2003)
- Michelangelo: money and medals
(2006)
- Encounters: travel and money in the Byzantine world
(2006-7)
External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
-
Publications
B. Cook, Coinage and History in the North Sea
World c.500-1250: essays in honour of Marion
Archibald, with G. Williams, The Northern
World vol. 19 (Leiden: Brill, 2006); including the article
‘En monnaie aiant cours: the monetary system of the
Angevin empire’, pp. 617-86
B. Cook, Encounters: Travel and Money in the Byzantine
World, with E. Georganteli, (Birmingham, Barber Institute of
Fine Arts, 2006)
B. Cook, English Medieval Coin Hoards I:
Cross and Crosslets, Short Cross and Long Cross Hoards, with
M. M. Archibald, (London, British Museum Occasional Paper 87,
2001)
B. Cook, ‘Coining dies in late medieval
England, with a catalogue of the British Museum collection’,
Numismatic Chronicle 160 (2000)
B. Cook, ‘Crimes against the currency in twelfth and thirteenth
century England’, in P.D. Clarke (ed.) Owens’s Historical
Essays in Honour of Professor Jeffrey H.
Denton, published as Bulletin of the John Rylands
University Library of Manchester 83, no. 4 (2001), pp.
51-70