The Agrarian History of Sweden Read online

  Figure 2.4 During the late Iron Age (AD 550–1000) many of the farm and hamlet territories known from medieval and later sources were established. The contrast to a previous territorial organization is clear in some areas of Östergötland and Uppland. Source: Widgren 1983.

  In Uppland and Östergötland it is possible to trace a radical change in the spatial organization of farm boundaries by comparing the stone-walled enclosures (c. AD 400) and the farm territories of the late Iron Age (c. AD 700). In the first period, large systems of enclosures and cattle drove-ways connected several farms in a village-like pattern. These extensive stone-walled enclosures often covered land that later would be held by several different farms and hamlets. Some time during the late Iron Age–probably at least by AD 700–distinctive new forms of burials monuments appeared. The mound-like stone settings of the late Iron Age are clearly distinguishable from the earlier, lower monuments. The spatial pattern of the cemeteries also changed. During the early Iron Age there was of a mixture of dispersed grave monuments and a few very large cemeteries with low stone settings of different kinds. During the late Iron Age, a pattern of several small cemeteries with the characteristic grave forms emerges. In some cases these new cemeteries were sited on abandoned drove-ways from the older system, indicating a clear break with the old pattern of land use. Generally, the late Iron Age cemeteries also often have a distinctive spatial connection to the farm, hamlet, and village lands documented in the earliest cadastral maps dating from the seventeenth century. These are the named farms we find in the medieval records. The previously large enclosure systems were thus replaced by the historical, territorial structure of farms and hamlets, each with their own lands. This indicates a radical shift in the way land was held, and can probably be connected to increasingly centralized power over land and landholding. The changes in the agrarian landscape in this period are thus more related to new social structures than to basic changes in farming practices and land use.27

  Expansion of cultivation

  The two maps (Fig. 2.5) show the distribution of cereal cultivation in the Roman Iron Age (AD 1–400) and the Viking period (AD 800–1000), based on the pollen record. If the first map is compared with the distribution of settlement and agriculture at the end of the Bronze Age (500 BC), it will be seen that the growth in the first four centuries AD did not in fact lead to an expansion of agriculture as such. The early Iron Age development thus had the character of an intensification of cultivation and settlement in areas that had been used more extensively during earlier periods. This was particularly the case in the southern and central wooded areas of Sweden, while it was mainly along the northern coast that agriculture really expanded in this period.

  Figure 2.5 Occurrence of cereal cultivation according to pollen diagrams.

  Source: National Atlas of Sweden 1994.

  During the late Iron Age, by contrast, the area where agriculture was practised expanded much further north; in fact, the whole area where barley could be cultivated without too much risk was taken into use during this expansion. Part of the expansion, especially in the southern part of Norrland, was closely linked to the increase in iron production. In particular, the growth of iron production in the province of Dalarna bears witness to the increased regional division of labour during the late Iron Age that ultimately formed the basis for the new centre of power in Uppland.

  Late Iron Age crops and livestock

  Hulled barley was still the dominant crop in all parts of Sweden in the late Iron Age, but, in contrast to the early Iron Age, new regional specializations started to appear. It was at this time that there were the first signs of a shift towards the regional distribution of crops similar to that known from later, historical periods. In southernmost Sweden the cultivation of rye increased, probably in connection with changes in dietary preference for leavened rye bread, but also perhaps because an autumn-sown crop reduced the demand for labour by moving part of the hectic period of tillage and sowing from the spring to the autumn. In Halland in south-west Sweden, the archaeo-botanical evidence from the late Iron Age shows an unmistakable increase in the cultivation of oats, which, along with the use of oats in bread, is also well documented in the region in later, historical periods. In the Mälaren valley in eastern central Sweden, barley dominated, but wheat retained a special role throughout the first millennium. In northern Sweden barley dominated throughout the first millennium, as it continued to do until modern times.

  Figure 2.6 The distribution of bone fragments at five different archaeological sites from the Viking Age. Lignåre and Pollista were rural settlements, Granby-Hyppinge and Fornsigtuna elite rural settlements, and Sigtuna an early urban settlement.

  In northern and central Europe the eighth century AD saw the beginning of a general change in the livestock economy. Until then cattle had clearly dominated, with the keeping of sheep and pigs little more than a sideline. From now on pig-keeping took an ever-more important role, and their bones predominate in the archaeological record. This partly reflects the dawning of urbanization, but also fundamental changes in agriculture and landscape, for with larger arable acreages and the introduction of crop rotations and regular two- and three-course systems there was less and less grazing available. While pig-keeping had once characterized the deciduous woodlands, they now became important domestic animals raised on the fully cultivated plains. The region that is now Sweden did not match this general development, yet it is still possible to see a greater role played by the consumption of pork. The development in southernmost Sweden was largely in line with the rest of Europe, albeit on a smaller scale. In the rest of Sweden, the high consumption of pork has been documented mainly at a number of elite sites. This is clearly illustrated by a comparison of five different Viking Age sites in Uppland (Fig. 2.6). Fornsigtuna and Granby Hyppinge were elite rural settlements, while Sigtuna was an urban settlement.

  Iron tools and increased labour productivity

  The later Iron Age (AD 600–1000) is characterized by a sharp increase in the use of iron for agricultural implements. While iron ard-shares first came into use around 700 BC in Europe, there are no equivalent Scandinavian finds: the first iron ard-share found in Sweden came from the settlement at Vallhagar on Gotland, and has been dated to the fifth or sixth century AD. It is almost contemporaneous with another find from the fortified settlement at Darsgärde. In spite of the small number of finds in Sweden, we can document three different types of small ard-share in the later Iron Age: short and broad (Vallhagar); long and narrow (Darsgärde); and winged (Skåne). From the late Iron Age there are two finds of ard bodies, of which one shows clear signs of having been built to carry an iron ard-share. During the late Iron Age ard-shares were seldom longer than 10 cm. In the medieval and early modern periods ard-shares could be up to 30 cm long.

  During the late Iron Age a longer scythe was also introduced. Settlement finds and a few grave finds from Sweden, along with hundreds of grave finds from Norway, give a clear picture of the development of harvesting implements during the latter part of the Iron Age (AD 500–1000). Along with a large number of sickles, there are also finds of short-scythes longer than 30 cm. The long-scythe (up to 50 cm) is represented in Sweden only with a few finds dated to before AD 1000, but in Norway long-scythes occur from the eighth century, and there is good reason to believe they were common in Sweden also.

  In an experiment in the 1930s, Axel Steensberg compared flint and bronze implements of different kinds, but all of much the same size (17 cm), with a 30 cm short-scythe from the Roman Iron Age (AD 1–400) and a 50 cm long-scythe from the Viking Age. This experiment showed that cereal harvesting and haymaking was much more efficient in the late Iron Age than it had been in earlier periods. Nevertheless, as can be seen in Fig. 2.7, the length of the implement may be more important than the material, be it flint, bronze, or iron. The earliest iron sickles had much the same capacity as the bronze sickles, harvesting some 400 m2 a day. The first real short-scythes harvested almost twice th
e area in the same time. With a late Iron Age long-scythe, it was possible to harvest four times the area as with a flint sickle of the Stone or Bronze Age type. There was thus a close link between the increased role of specialized iron production and productivity in farming.

  Figure 2.7 The relationship between blade length and harvested area per day’s work for different types of prehistoric harvesting implement. A–flint sickle without handle; B–crescent-shaped sickle in flint or bronze with a short handle; C–bronze knob-sickle; D–iron short-scythe; E–iron long-scythe (based on data in Steensberg 1943).

  During the expansive period of the late Iron Age we can also see a change in building techniques. The long tradition of long-houses–with cattle and humans dwelling in the same building–waned. People began to build smaller houses in which the walls carried the full weight of the roof. These new, smaller houses were built with a variety of methods, including timber-framing with plank walls, wattle-and-daub (as before), and jointed logs; what they all shared was their relatively small size. These departures from the Iron Age long-house tradition meant that stalling and other functions were rehoused in smaller buildings separate from the dwelling-house. In other words, the end of the Iron Age saw a transition from multi-function houses to numerous single-function constructions. This change, which started in the eighth century, can be seen as a response to two new issues. It reflects an adjustment to smaller households, each with fewer cattle–the number of stalled cattle per household clearly dropped in the late Iron Age–and is also related to advances in wood technology. With the advent of specialized carpentry axes the craft of carpentry became more efficient.

  The social and economic context

  It was once thought that Scandinavian societies in the late Iron Age were centred on free and equal landowning farmers, whose land rights were based on inheritance. This was contrasted to much of continental Europe, where a more feudal system was already in place. In recent years this view has been much debated, especially in Norway, and it is now generally accepted that different forms of landholding existed side by side, and that an informal type of tenancy was developed before it became formalized in the medieval period.28

  In earlier research it was also argued that Scandinavia was a clan-based society, and that land was held by kinship groups rather than by individual lords. It is now understood that the runic inscriptions from the Viking Age depict a kinship system that was not based on patrilineal clans, and instead displays all the signs of bilateral kinship. Men raised rune-stones to their brothers-in-law, their stepsons, and their fathers-in-law. Women could inherit land and pass it on to their descendants. The late Viking Age runic inscriptions not only tell us about the people in whose memory they were raised, but also about farms and landed property. The rune-stone at Ågersta in Uppland serves as a boundary marker between two properties, and reads

  Vidhugse had this stone raised in memory of Särev, his noble father. He lived at Ågersta. Here shall stand the stone between the farms. Let that dræng read who rune-wise is those the runes that Balle carved.

  The rune-stones are monuments raised to the dead, but they also functioned as title deeds. On the rune-stone at Veda in Uppland we learn that Torsten ‘bought this farm, and made the money east in Garðaríki ’. The runic evidence thus clearly shows that land was in fact held by individuals, and that it could be inherited and sold. Furthermore, rune-stones occasionally provide evidence of one man owning several farms, as is the case in Uppland (Älgesta and Nora), where we can document a family estate with farms as far as thirty kilometres apart. Similarly, in Hälsingland the Malsta rune-stone is interpreted as showing that Hä-Gylfe owned the hamlet of Malsta as well as the three hamlets Åkern, Bästdal, and Stamnäs further north.29 Along with place names, runic inscriptions also testify to a group of men who were entitled to hold land by virtue of their position in a military organization under a king or chief. The place names Karleby, Rinkeby (or Rickeby), Svenneby, and Tegneby refer to karlar, rinkar, sveinar, and thegnar; all ranks in the retinue of a chieftain.

  As recent research has highlighted, the difference between the continental, feudal system of land tenure and Scandinavian Viking Age tenure is smaller than previously thought. Studies of medieval landownership in Östergötland indicate that the king and his followers owned large areas of land there in the Viking Age. Early large-scale landownership is also documented from the Jarlabanke rune-stones in Uppland, one of which states that Jarlabanke owned ‘this hundred’ or district. Stefan Brink concludes that the information suggests that

  a high leader in society could own or at least control large areas of arable land and thus presumably farms. He could probably handle these farms and lands at will, placing slaves to work entire farms or pieces of land, or distributing farms and land to tenants.30

  There is a close relationship between the increased centralization of political power and landholding and the development of Viking Age agriculture. Increased capital investment in agriculture in the form of new and more efficient agricultural iron implements served to increase labour productivity. This formed the basis for a new division of labour, both socially and geographically, which marked a clear change from the previous period. The economic basis of what once were small kingdoms or lands (AD 200–600) was partly a local food exchange system and partly a highly specialized international exchange of raw material for textiles and of prestige goods. By contrast, in the late Iron Age there were many signs that the regional division of labour was increasing. Specialized iron production expanded in the interior of central Sweden and in the north. Inter-regional trade in iron–for weapons and agricultural tools–gathered pace. The trade in quernstones, soapstone cauldrons, whetstones, textiles, and other objects was also very much part of this new inter-regional exchange. It was as a direct result of this trade that new political centres emerged in Uppland in the Mälaren valley.

  CHAPTER 3

  Farming and feudalism

  1000–1700

  Janken Myrdal

  As in the other chapters in this volume, so Sweden’s modern borders set the geographical limits of the present analysis. For earlier and later periods this is less problematic than for the period covered by this chapter: in prehistory there were no fixed national borders, which means that all choices are equally valid when selecting a region for archaeological study; in later periods the national borders had stabilized. Not so in this period, when the nation did exist, but not with its present-day borders. For the period treated here the discussion must reflect the political reality that until the seventeenth century the southernmost provinces of what is now Sweden, among them the rich agricultural lands of the province of Skåne, were part of Denmark, while some of the westernmost provinces were held by Norway. There is also the matter of Sweden’s eastern provinces, which comprised what is now Finland, and are omitted from this overview.

  One way to describe the effect of these territorial changes is to say that ‘Sweden’ ultimately moved westwards, losing Finland in the east but gaining provinces in the south and west. Shifting borders are a common phenomenon, the result first of the establishment of the European nation-states in the Middle Ages, with their attempts to fix their borders, and thereafter the innumerable wars and peace treaties that eventually led to the more definite borders of eighteenth-century Europe.

  Within ‘Sweden’ itself, the landskap (provinces) are a deep-rooted historical constant. They were formed when the Swedish state was established in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and though they have not been administrative units since the seventeenth century, Swedes still talk about themselves as coming from ‘Västergötland’ or ‘Småland’.

  Figure 3.1 Medieval legal jurisdictions and regional laws. The arrows show their scope in about 1300. It is not certain that Västgöta law was in force in Värmland, which may have had its own law, now lost. Närke probably had its own law. Source: Myrdal 1999, for this and all other figures in this chapter.

  New sources for a new er
a

  Where prehistory differs from history is in its source material, for it is only with the survival of written sources that individual people and events become visible to us. The fact that the boundary between prehistory and the Middle Ages is drawn in the eleventh century in Scandinavia, later than in much of continental Europe, is a reflection of the lack of written sources before then (rune-stones excepted). The first written sources, on parchment, are from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while it is only from the thirteenth century that written records survive in any quantity. Instead, archaeological remains, along with a relatively plentiful visual record, are crucial to our knowledge of agrarian conditions in the Middle Ages.1

  One theme in this chapter is that Sweden was a part of Europe, one on the fringe but likewise included in the larger whole. The periodization chosen here is thus designed to help the reader to draw comparisons with the rest of Europe. Thus there is no ‘Early Middle Ages’ in this book. Instead, the ‘late Iron Age’ and the ‘Viking Age’ (c. 500–1000) are followed immediately by the ‘High Middle Ages’ (c. 1000–1350), while the subsequent periods are the ‘Late Middle Ages’ (c. 1350–1500) and then the ‘early modern period’ (c. 1500–1700).