Environment, Society and the Black Death by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MEDICAL / General
ISBN: 9781785700552
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2016-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

Fig. 26. Cadastral map of Vålle from 1825 showing the settlement (brown squares) and its surroundings. Black line marks the excavation area

Fig. 27. Change of settlement at Vålle AD 1000–1500. Settlement dated to a. 1000–1300 and b. 1300–1500, respectively

Neither are there any signs of economic specialisation in the late Middle Ages of the kind seen at the site in Bohuslän. The smithy that was present in the thirteenth century disappeared after 1350 together with the other buildings of the early Middle Ages. Only one large building, a dwelling house, replaced them in the late Middle Ages.

However, some finds of an unmistakable exclusive character from this building give a clue to the understanding of the late-medieval Stora Ullevi. The finds consist of some book clasps, a polished rock crystal and some mountings, one with a picture of a heraldic lion (Fig. 30). Such finds are not typical of an ordinary agrarian settlement, rather of urban and ecclesiastical contexts. Similar objects have been found in residences in the town of Linköping and in the nearby monastery of Vreta.91 These finds raise questions on the social structure in Stora Ullevi in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Do they reflect the presence of some high status people and thus a major social change in the village during these centuries?

The nearby town of Linköping was an important religious centre already in the early Middle Ages, long before it got its legal status as an episcopal town at the end of the thirteenth century.92 Most likely there must have been a close cultural connection between the town and the neighbouring villages and hamlets because of the special role Linköping played in this part of Östergötland. The fact that the hamlet of Stora Ullevi was included in one of the urban parishes might have been an expression of such a connection. Thus it seems rather logical that the formation of a survival strategy of the hamlet in the time of the crisis was highly influenced by the development of the neighbouring town.

The late-medieval crisis seems to have caused an immediate interruption of the building activities in the town of Linköping already around 1350, which lasted some decades.93 After 1380 these activities started anew. In the last decades of the fourteenth century Linköping underwent a dynamic development characterised by expansion and densification of the urban settlement.94 The growth of the diocese town combined with an extensive building of stone houses was no doubt of importance in this development.

Probably the town’s hinterland was affected by the urban dynamics and the finds from Stora Ullevi could be a material expression of this connection. Such an assumption is further supported by the analysis of animal bones from Stora Ullevi, which indicates an economic integration between the hamlet and the neighbouring town of Linköping in the late Middle Ages.95 A decreased consumption of beef in the hamlet can be explained by an increased distribution of cattle to the town. This trend is corresponded by an increasing consumption of mutton in the hamlet during the same period.

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