Environment, Society and the Black Death
Page 13
So far discussion has centred on late-medieval settlement in terms of desertion. It is also necessary to look upon it from a perspective of long-term change. At some places in southern Sweden a lasting structural stability seems to have characterised the agrarian settlement. Excavations in the hamlet of Stora Ullevi in the province of Östergötland have revealed an adaption of the high medieval settlement to a plot system, similar to the one that is visible on the oldest maps of the eighteenth century.49 This adaption was discernible around 1200, the settlement thereafter having stayed fixed in the plot system up to modern times, unaffected by the long late-medieval crisis. A similar structural continuity has been observed in the above-mentioned village of Örja in the province of Scania where the structural change of settlement was dated to the twelfth century.
The province of Halland in western Sweden shows quite a different kind of development of medieval agrarian settlement.50 Unlike the eastern parts it had a distinct mobile character and the locations of settlement units were changed during the Middle Ages. An important change, occurring in the late Middle Ages, meant that settlement was moved to new locations at the border between infields and outlands. Probably this change should be seen in the light of the general restructuring of the agrarian economy during the late-medieval crisis, meaning an orientation of the production towards animal husbandry.51 Thus, an increase of outland pasture and a more rational use of the infields caused the moving of the settlement.
Whether this development of settlement was a characteristic only of Halland is still obscure. In other parts of Sweden the picture of agrarian settlement is more complex and elusive. In the Mälaren valley, excavated remains of settlement often do not coincide with locations of villages and farmsteads on the oldest maps and probably the late-medieval settlement may have had a partially mobile character.52 However, the investigated remains are usually fragmentary and difficult to interpret, which causes great problems in identifying a late-medieval context.
Fig. 21. Dendrochronological dates (felling years) from five Swedish provinces, AD 1000–1700. Bars show the number of dates per 10-year time slices. Dates later than 1700 are not included. The year 1350 is indicated by a dashed line. a. The provinces of Dalarna, Jämtland and Härjedalen (based on Bartholin 1989a); b. The provinces of Småland and Östergötland. Datings by the National Laboratory for Wood Anatomy and Dendrochronology at Lund University
Fig. 22. Dendrochronological dates (felling years) from medieval churches in the provinces of Småland and Östergötland performed by the National Laboratory for Wood Anatomy and Dendrochronology at Lund University. Bars show the number of dates per 10-years time slices. Dates later than 1700 are not included. The year 1350 is indicated by a dashed line
Rural churches and monasteries
The building of churches in the countryside of medieval Sweden peaked in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Many churches, of stone as well as of wood, were erected, especially in the southern part of the country. Successively, building in stone became dominating and stone churches replaced several early wooden churches. This expansive period came to an end in the first half of the fourteenth century and during the remainder of the Middle Ages relatively few churches were built in the countryside. Instead, the late Middle Ages were characterised by extensions and reconstructions of already existing churches.
The decades following the year 1350 meant an almost immediate cessation of building activities in churches, the same pattern that was seen in the towns being repeated in the countryside. This observation is supported by the dendrochronological dates from the provinces of Östergötland and Småland (Fig. 22).53 In some regions the stop seems to have lasted for about four or five decades. Dendrochronological dates from a number of churches in Scania show that the building activities there were resumed in the beginning of the fifteenth century.54 However, this pattern is not valid for all regions. In the provinces of Småland and Östergötland dendrochronological dates show an increase of the building activities not until the second part of the fifteenth century.
A critical comment on the chronological distribution of the dates must be added. The purpose of dendrochronological analyses has often been to date the oldest phase of the church. Hence later phases, such as the rebuilding activities of the late Middle Ages, may be underrepresented in the material. Probably, this will be the case for the churches of Östergötland where a lot of reconstruction work, mostly vaulting, is not reflected in the dendrochronological dates from the late Middle Ages.
The extensions of the churches in the late Middle Ages included building of towers, chapels, sacristies and porches. A decisive change of the interior of the churches was the construction of brick vaults in the later part of the fifteenth century and in the beginning of the sixteenth, reflecting an agrarian surplus in the time of societal recovery being invested in new constructions. Initially cross vaults were dominating but in the course of the fifteenth century stellar vaults became common.
In searching for the aim of the vaulting, symbolic as well as functional explanations have been presented.55 The vault may have been looked upon as a symbol of the heaven and the unearthly world and at the same time have served as a protection of fire in the church.
The geographical distribution of late-medieval vaulting shows some interesting variations, being inconceivable from a purely economic perspective. Most remarkable is the difference between the west and the east of Sweden. In the east the majority of stone churches became vaulted in the late Middle Ages, especially in the provinces of Uppland and Östergötland (Fig. 23).
In extensive parts of the western provinces, Västergötland, Bohuslän, Halland and Värmland, very few churches were vaulted in the late Middle Ages. Concerning this remarkable difference between the east and the west of Sweden, administrative as well as economic reasons have been discussed.56 However, none of them seems convincing. If economic resources had been the decisive factor, the fertile areas of, for example, Västergötland would have had many vaulted churches. Probably an explanation is to be found in cultural differences, which are discussed below.
Fig. 23. Map of the distribution of vaulted churches from the Middle Ages within present-day Sweden (Dahlberg & Franzén 2008, 156)
Using the medieval monasteries in the countryside for a study of the late-medieval crisis raises some problems. Modern investigations of high archaeological quality are few and the existing source materials seldom offer opportunities for a detailed study of the late-medieval development. However, a modern investigation of the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra in the province of Östergötland, based on rich archaeological material, has provided some interesting results.57
A thorough analysis of the material culture of the monastery, buildings, small objects and graves, revealed a period of changes in the fourteenth century, reflecting a new approach to the world outside the monastery.58 This change was interpreted as an expression of a greater openness to the secular world and of increased contacts with an urban culture. Nevertheless a close connection between the changes of the monastery and the late-medieval crisis has been questioned.59
However, it is possible to launch a hypothetical connection. A considerable part of the workforce of the monastery being wiped out by the plagues, its agrarian economy would have been severely disturbed. Being more dependent of supply from the world outside, a survival strategy may have been trade with neighbouring towns, probably also promoting an increase of urban cultural contacts. Furthermore, the monastery was not short of economic resources, being richly provided with gifts and donations in the harsh times of the plagues.
Castles
The building of castles in the late Middle Ages has been regarded as one of the most obvious material manifestations of the crisis, particularly of the “dysfunctional reaction” of the societal elite in the second half of the fourteenth century.60 Developing a plunder economy when the crisis threatened to undermine its status, the nobility could use the castle as a highly effective, repressive to
ol. So, when all constructions of other kind were interrupted after 1350 the building of castles took another direction. A multitude of royal and aristocratic strongholds were constructed, making the second half of the fourteenth century the extreme peak of the building of medieval castles in Sweden (Fig. 24). A great number of castles were built by the royal power in the inland as well along the coasts of Sweden, several of them being located in western Sweden and in the province of Småland.61 The castles of the nobility seem to have been more evenly distributed over the country.62
Many of the castles constructed in the second half of the fourteenth century became short-lived phenomena, being closed down during the first decades of the fifteenth century. Many were destroyed in connection with peasant revolts in the 1430s. Castles surviving the fifteenth century, above all castles belonging to the royal power, were often located at the coast or at strategically important watercourses, many of them in connection with towns like Stockholm, Nyköping and Kalmar.63
According to Janken Myrdal’s interpretation of the castles built in the later part of the fourteenth century, many of them functioned primarily as centres of military repression. However, some constructions had a more complex function, detectable only by the use of archaeology. Magnus Stibeus has analysed extensive finds material of a royal castle, Piksborg, located in the southwest of the province of Småland and in use in the later part of the fourteenth century and in the beginning of the fifteenth.64 This material, consisting among other things of a huge amount of coins, had an unmistakably urban character, indicating not only military and administrative functions but also mercantile ones.
Fig. 24. Map of the distribution of Swedish royal castles of the fourteenth century. The dashed line mark the national border of medieval Sweden (based on Lovén 1996, 194–195). a. Royal castles in use 1319–1355; b. Royal castles in use 1356–1388
Thus, we may look upon Piksborg as an expression of a suppressive strategy of the royal power in an utterly severe period of the crisis, gaining a harder control not only over tax collection but also over other urban functions. For this purpose the “urban fortress” was a more efficient solution than the ordinary town. Hence Stibeus’ results concerning Piksborg fit well with the experience of late-medieval Skara, losing some of its urban functions in the time of the crisis.
The contemporary castles of northern Sweden have also been discussed from the same perspective.65
Proto-industrial settlement
Here a specific kind of place, connected with iron working and fishery, will be discussed, being defined as proto-industrial settlement. The term proto-industry has been much debated within economic history, often being used to define an initial stage of industry.66 Here a protoindustrial settlement will mean a place of a large-scale production oriented to consumption outside the actor’s own home district. The work was carried out by peasants combining a specialised surplus production with ordinary agricultural supply.67
Medieval metalworking in Sweden and its great importance for societal development has long been well known thanks to a large amount of historical research as well as archaeology. At present, research within the latter discipline is mostly work in progress.68
In an area of southern Sweden, including parts of Halland, Småland and Scania, medieval iron working has been studied in a long-term perspective.69 Here, a number of iron working sites were established in connection with colonisation of the area in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The iron production was organised within the context of the single farm, being oriented to a consumption of iron on this particular farm or in its closest hinterland.
In the later part of the fourteenth century the area seems to have been struck hard by the plagues and societal decline and it was not until the end of the Middle Ages that a new landscape of production was taking shape. In the recolonised area iron working was a dominant element. Although an older technique – bloomery production – was still in use, the activities had changed, both quantitatively and structurally. Bo Strömberg has interpreted late-medieval iron working in the area as a sort of proto-industry.70 Its main characteristics were a volume of production much larger than before, a deliberate localisation of the working sites close to the raw material and the energy, that is the waterpower, and finally differentiated settlement at the production sites. Production was oriented to distribution outside the region, being governed by subordinate political actors.
A mining district called Näveberg in the province of Sörmland has been studied by the archaeologist Eva Skyllberg.71 Here mining activities began in the later part of the fourteenth century, a fact discussed by Skyllberg in connection with the late-medieval crisis. She considers the establishment of mining as a strategy to cope with the consequences of the crisis. Mining provided new revenues for the nobility when the rents of agriculture tended to decrease dramatically.
A characteristic of the activities at Näveberg was an organisation of labour where tenants were the primary actors in the mining process but subordinated to a manor estate. According to Skyllberg such an organisation of metal working was a unique phenomenon in medieval Sweden.72
Iron working in the districts north of Lake Mälaren differed considerably from the place described above. A thorough archaeological investigation at the site of Lapphyttan has shed light on the emergence of activities at the end of the twelfth century, as well as on the introduction of the blast furnace technique in medieval Sweden – the great technological innovation of medieval metal working – enabling volumes of production never seen before.73
Being subject to great interest by the nobility, these activities must most likely have functioned within a manorial system from the outset, at the end of the twelfth century up to the 1350s, meaning that iron working was organised and governed by a nearby manor. Operating a number of foundries, the manor needed a considerable workforce, consisting of subordinated crofters and tenants dependent of supply from the manor when working at the foundries.
Starting in the second half of the fourteenth century, a major abandonment of blast furnaces, (around 30%) took place.74 The closed constructions were so-called ‘outland furnaces’ with no spatial connection to settlement, thus reflecting the old manorial organisation of iron working. The demographic decline of the societal crisis brought this system to an end, enabling a new system of smaller, self-sufficient farms of peasant miners.75 The latter were freeholders, dealing with iron production beside the agricultural activities. They were living in villages, the single village forming a collective enterprise with an iron foundry in the centre, surrounded by farms.76
This system of collaborating farms underwent a continuing streamlining and improvement of iron working during the recovery phase in the late Middle Ages. A co-location of the blast furnaces and hammer mills, beginning at the end of the epoch, was of great importance for the expansion of the activities in the hey days of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.77
The peasant miners acting as an influential group in the peasant rebellions of the 1430s; this social transformation of the mining activities must have already occurred in the end of the fourteenth century or in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
So, the late Middle Ages appear as a breaking point in the development of metal working, the crisis being a considerable causal element of this development. It was not a question of introducing new techniques – bloomery and blast furnaces were known long before. Rather it was a question of a new social organisation as well as of a specialisation and streamlining of the activities.
Concerning fishery, no desertion of production sites similar to the above-described situation in the mining districts is to be seen in the late Middle ages. There are some radiocarbon analyses of coastal settlement along the Kalmarsund strait showing a slowdown of fishing activities in the fourteenth century, probably caused by general, societal decline in the second half of this century.78 At the major fishing sites of the Öresund strait and the southern Baltic, there was no such decline. Rather, restructuri
ng and specialisation characterise these places in the late Middle ages.
In Skanör, one of the most important places at Öresund, the large market area was closed down in the later part of the fourteenth century. At the same time the first settlement of the late-medieval fishing camp was established, located on an island west of the town of Skanör.79 Not until this time did the fishing camp become spatially defined, which was one of the primary conditions for the development of fishing as a large-scale activity. In Skanör and in the nearby Falsterbo, fishing became highly specialised in the late Middle Ages, the catching as well as the further processing of the fish being restricted many regulations.
Proto-industrial fishing, but of another character, was carried out along the Baltic coast of northern Sweden, starting in the fifteenth century. Burghers from the towns of the Mälaren valley organised this long distance activity as annual, seasonal expeditions to the northern archipelagos. Thus, this fishing was of a primary mercantile character but was not concentrated in big fishing camps as in the southern Baltic.
Apparently, large-scale fishing of a proto-industrial character was confined to the southern and eastern parts of Sweden, such activities entirely lacking in the western parts in the late Middle Ages.
Summing up the overview
Summing up this overview, some preliminary answers to the decisive questions, formulated in the introduction, will be presented.
Firstly, focusing on desertion and decline, it can be noted that there is abundant archaeological evidence all over the country, enhancing the picture of the crisis as a general ‘wave of decline’ raging everywhere. By all accounts towns as well as countryside were engulfed. However, no reliable quantification of the extent of the decline, on the basis of the archaeological material, is possible so far.
According to dendrochronological results the crisis seems to have had a very rapid impact on society in the middle of the fourteenth century, causing an immediate stop to building activities. The recovery of the fifteenth century shows, following the same results, a more prolonged course characterised by certain regional variations.