High Middle Ages

In 2009-2010 an emergency excavation was carried out on a future golf course of „Golf ter Hille‟, Oostduinkerke. Zone 2 yielded traces of a transformation of a simple farmstead into a moated site with a typical motte-and-bailey structure. The traces from the oldest phase, phase I, yielded a broad variation of pottery dated in the late 9th-11th century. Besides the local grey pottery, especially pottery from production centers in the Rhineland, the Meuse Valley, Northern Netherlands / Germany or the Dutch Kempen and Northern France was identified. Phase I yielded a wide variety of kitchen, table and artisan ware. Besides the presence of the same pottery groups, it seems that phase I is sharing other characteristics with sites in the coastal plain of Northern France. It‟s possible that phase I fits within a North Sea maritime culture that is located in the region Calais-Boulogne-Dunkerque and the Flemish West Coast.

A period in history which the Renaissance scholars pejoratively called the «Middle Ages» was marked by the emergence of Europe— the rise and development of the Western civilisation. The centuries from the fourth to the fifteenth proved essential for the moulding of today's Europe, but equally so for Croatia, as they witnessed the adoption of specific cultural values and the concentration of extraordinary creative and intellectual energy. The Middle Ages represent the foundations of the processes that followed, their proper understanding being possible only by tracing them to their medieval roots. It was then that Europe acquired its main features: the unity that was effectuated through the Christianity and culture, the opulence of differences, the schism between the East and West, deep-seated contrasts between the North and South, growth of institutions and diverse government bodies, technological and scientific advances, the value of labour and the rise of productivity, affirmation of the new.
The medieval period, however, is often erroneously described as 'dark', 'spiritually and materially backward', 'barbarian', 'a period of obscurantism and persecution', etc. On the other hand, there exists just as distorted romantic perception of the Middle Age as a period of idealism epitomised by chivalry, 'courtly love', monastic mysticism and asceticism, along with most refined human virtues. Apart from the bipolar view, some historians tend to refer to this thousand-year time span as a period of immobility. The truth lies elsewhere: it was a period of profound changes and reforms. The Middle Ages are characterised by a complexity and diversity of facets and meanings. Moreover, this period is defined through a coexistence of different identities, features and phenomena that together create a medieval world. It is more than an interesting, exotic, if obsolete, world of the past—it is a living legacy. The surviving architectural achievements, artefacts and other material remains of the Middle Ages represent the core of European identity. Equally inherent in our today's life and world is its invisible spiritual legacy

The paper discusses the potential of Historical Network Research (HNR) in Medieval Studies with a special focus on the problem of the availability of sources. In particular, it identifies three research fields in which HNR will be a most promising approach to provide valuable new insights into the mechanisms of medieval society and politics: genealogy, prosopography of clerical and academic elites and political history.

in: M. Düring / U. Eumann u.a. (Hgg.), Handbuch Historische Netzwerkforschung. Grundlagen und Anwendungen (Schriften des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts Essen zur Methodenforschung, 1), Berlin u.a. 2016, S. 85-99.

An ambitious project with a beautiful outcome.

At first glance the fields of women and gender during the medieval millennium seem vast and insuperable. This volume is a must for students of Gender and Women’s Studies. It also offers interesting insights to the expert since so many different nuances are collectively addressed.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle Ages were divided in many ways. But one thing they shared in common was the fear that God was offended by wrong belief. Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the first comparative survey of heresy and its response throughout the medieval world. Spanning England to Persia, it examines heresy, error, and religious dissent - and efforts to end them through correction, persuasion, or punishment - among Latin Christians, Greek Christians, Jews, and Muslims. With a lively narrative that begins in the late fourth century and ends in the early sixteenth century, Medieval Heresies is an unprecedented history of how the three great monotheistic religions of the Middle Ages resembled, differed from, and even interrelated with each other in defining heresy and orthodoxy.

Il s'agit de deux panneaux réalisés suite à l'étude préliminaire de trois carrières (les seules connues en 2011) du centre carrier de la vallée de la Manse, ainsi que de la fouille d'une partie de la carrière 1. Ces panneaux servent à la présentation des carrières, qui sont ouvertes pour les journées du patrimoine, de l'archéologie, des troglos....

1 - Carrières de sarcophages et troglodytes
Présentation générale du site des Roches composé de carrières souterraines ayant produit des sarcophages, qui seront remployé dès le Moyen Âge en tant qu'habitations troglodytiques.

2 - Un centre de production de sarcophages du haut Moyen Âge
Premières observations sur les trois carrières des Roches : techniques et méthodes d'extraction ; stratégies d'exploitation ; quantification de la surface exploitée et de la quantité de blocs produits...

La découverte en 2012 d'autres carrières à proximité a permis de revoir et compléter ces premières informations.

When early medieval sources record the appointment of a new bishop, the authors occasionally provide extra information on the social, geographical, educational or ecclesiastical background of the appointee. These details were not randomly chosen, since they reflected ideas that emerged in the previous centuries and culminated in a disparate corpus of texts commonly referred to as 'canon law'. In this article, I shall take a closer look at the bishops in the church province of Rheims in the 'long' tenth century (between 888 and 1049). In particular, I will zoom in on one feature of the episcopal profile that frequently surfaces in narrative, diplomatic and epistolary sources: the pre-episcopal career. After a brief discussion of canonical prescriptions on the ecclesiastical career, I shall explore the functions the bishops exercised before their promotion to a see, in the secular clergy, in monastic milieus or at the royal court. Despite the traditional emphasis on a tenth-century 'church in the hands of the laity', this analysis demonstrates that canon law on the requirements for episcopal candidates was not necessarily disregarded. The sources representing the career of the studied bishops first and foremost paint a picture of continuity: deeply rooted in Late Antique, Merovingian and Carolingian developments, yet steadily transforming, pressed by local circumstances.

The Influences of the Dominican Order in the Middle Ages
Taylor Institute, Lincoln College, and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University

September 10-12, 2015

This interdisciplinary conference will explore the influences of the Dominican Order on all aspects of medieval life, encompassing the large-scale influences of the Order and the legacy of its prominent figures, as well as the impact that the Order had on those that came into contact with it.

The keynote paper will be delivered by Mary Rouse, on ‘The Vital Impact of the Dominicans on Books at the University of Paris, 1217-1350’.  The program will feature papers on the Dominican influence in England, Northern Europe, Italy, Eastern Europe, and the Byzantine world; the influence of Friars on other movements and communities; Dominican influence on architecture, art, books, music and liturgy; and influential Dominican philosophers and theologians.

Confirmed speakers are from the UK, the USA, Canada, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.  In addition, the conference will include a walking tour of medieval Oxford, and a concert of music that can be associated with the Dominican Order. 

http://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/influences-dominican-order-middle-ages

The paper presents a short review of historiography examining the Ottoman conquest of the Bosnian Kingdom in 1463, with an emphasis on opinions and evaluations of historians from the Ragusan writers and chroniclers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the modern critical historiography.

Since the gradual expansion of the Ottoman Empire in South-Eastern Europe may be viewed as a single process, some historians wanted to draw a parallel between the Bosnian case and the examples of other states that fell under the Ottoman rule during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even though the grounds for these comparisons are understandable, it is very difficult to learn anything from them. Circumstances to which individual rulers and their states, from the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria and Serbia to other smaller or larger principalities, were subjected were essentially different. In these comparisons historiography has given a negative evaluation of Bosnia’s struggle and its rulers. Someone had to be responsible for the fall of the Kingdom and the blame was almost exclusively assigned to the last two Bosnian kings.

In line with the times in which they lived and contemporary historiographical trends, some historians attributed the quick fall of Bosnia to internal factors, such as conflicts within the state and the complex religious situation including the presence of heretics. The most commonly cited argument was the discord between the nobles and betrayal, even though the latter is mentioned in only one authentic contemporary diplomatic source. The work of these historians served as a basis for the myth of an easy and simple breakdown of the medieval Bosnian state in which the Bogomil betrayal played an important part. Contemporary critical historiography concluded that this myth was created by Bishop Nikola of Modruš, the papal legate in Bosnia, in order to justify his own wrong policy that hastened the unavoidable fall of the Kingdom.

Only a small number of historians studying this topic looked at the broader picture and took external as well as internal factors under consideration. This is especially evident in older literature which, inspired by patriotism, ethical values and the concept of heroism, paints a more negative image of Bosnia’s fall. If we consider all the available sources, and critically analyze those of Roman and Hungarian origin, we gain the impression of a rapid surge of the Ottoman army into Bosnia, intense fighting under Bobovac and other Bosnian fortresses, strong resistance of the defenders, destruction and mass deportations of population, general panic and emigration towards the Adriatic and the islands.

Even though the thesis that the defence of the Bosnian Kingdom during the last Ottoman attack faltered very quickly is not completely wrong, after the publication of new sources and results of historical research historians have reached the conclusion that Bosnia offered significant resistance in its battles against the Ottoman Empire. The final fall of Bosnia under Ottoman domination was in fact a result of numerous interconnected factors and signified the completion of a process begun with the first conflict between Bosnian and Ottoman troops in 1386. If we take into consideration the Ottoman policy towards Bosnia as well as the Ottoman conquering policy in South-Eastern Europe in general, we can see that Bosnia resisted strong pressure for a long time and that it had been “falling” under the Ottoman rule for almost 80 years.

The phenomenon we call chivalry becomes visible in the sources from the mid-twelfth century onwards, when the elites in Western Europe found themselves faced with a variety of changes—political, social, intellectual, and economical—that forced them to redefine their status and function in the world.  European elites were increasingly concerned with good conduct, morality, and self-representation. As Peltzer demonstrates in his contribution to this volume, chivalry in the Empire was closely connected to the special position of the ministeriales. This chapter contributes to the definition of Imperial chivalry in analysing the construction and promotion of the ideal in didactic texts in the German vernacular. It argues that these texts emphasise in particular the aspect of service present in medieval knighthood and thus offer chivalry as an ideal especially to ministeriales and lower ranking members of the secular elites.

„Bertholds Kandidatur hat bei der Genese des Thronstreits möglicherweise eine nicht geringe Rolle gespielt. Natürlich ist eine solche ´Was wäre wenn´-Erwägung spekulativ. Ihr Reiz liegt aber darin, dass wir hier gewissermaßen einen politischen ´Schmetterlingseffekt´ erkennen können, wie er in komplexen Akteursnetzwerken zuweilen auftreten muss. Innerhalb eines passenden politischen Gesamtszenarios können relativ kleine Ursachen große Wirkungen haben. Es erscheint faszinierend, die Verstrickung der Zähringer in das komplexe Ereignisgewebe von 1198 zu beobachten und die Episode ihrer Thronkandidatur nicht einfach als überflüssiges, letztlich belangloses Element der Erzählung zu betrachten.“

In his analysis of medieval lordship, Thomas N. Bisson differentiates between lordship and feudalism, as well as between lordship and kingship. He also compares biblical lordship, derived from man’s creation in the image of God, to violent forms of lordship perpetrated by power-hungry castle owners against nearby peasants. His analysis also takes into account the passage of time, and the social, economic, and political forces that affected the development of lordship throughout the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Overall, Bisson’s work seems to trace the history of lordship through a series of phases – what this essay will identify as the shepherd phase, the tyrant phase, and the politician phase. These phases overlapped, and each phase existed in some form or another throughout the Middle Ages. However, each phase seems to have had its own zenith, more or less sequentially. An obvious caveat of this phase approach is that any attempt to organize the development of lordship in this way risks oversimplifying the complex historical developments that occurred during the Middle Ages. It goes without saying that lordship developed in different ways during different time periods. However, Bisson’s analysis of lordship does generally show the ebb and flow of biblically derived lordship, the the violent lordship associated with the proliferation of castles, and the more politically minded form of political lordship that emerged by the dawn of the Later Middle Ages.

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. black@assumption.edu
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

The study presents the partial outcome of long-term research into mediaeval roads and settlements in the Bojovský stream drainage area located in the north-western surroundings of confluence of the the Vltava and Sázava rivers at Davle. Specifically, it proposes a possible localisation of the vanished town of Jablon-ná, also enabling us to name a well-known archaeo-logical location for which we do not know the his-torical name.

Examination of medieval intellectuals in the Hungarian Kingdom has a long traditions. In the last few decades well known scientists such as György Bónis, László Mezey, András Kubinyi and József Köblös had did researches this topic. The focus of these examinations was the medieval Hungarian inteligentsia who had legal knowledge and who worked in a secular or ecclesiestical offices. At the same time, lot of educated people didn’ t own such positions. Most of them came from peasant or civil background and after their school years they sometimes stayed at the countryside,
where they played a less important role as the other mentioned group of literates.
This paper aims to demonstrate the role, the livelihood and the way of carrier-building of this social group living in villages and market-towns. The identification of these people in sources is not a simple mission. Although sometimes we have accurate information about their activities connected to official or educational jobs, in most cases all we know about them is their personal names. Personal names of serfs in the Middle Ages contained distinctive name elements which refer to the attributions of the name-holders. The most important kind of these names connected to literacy are the Deak/Dyak, literatus, baccalaureus, notarius and so on. The widespread literatus was a real umbrella term, and it meaned a ’man who had spent any time in the school as student’. In the rural Hungary it was the most common word for this group. In my paper I try to present the origin, the activity and the social influence of these people living in the countryside and determine their proportion in medieval Hungarian society.

Marián Čurný: Tehla a stavebná keramika v architektúre stredovekých a včasnonovovekých Košíc. Ziegel und Baukeramik in der Architektur des mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Košice (Kaschau). In: FORUM URBES MEDII AEVI IX./1–2. Cihla a stavební keramika ve středověku a novověku v městské architektuře střední Evropy. Bricks and building ceramics in medieval and modern urban architecture of central Europe. Archaia Brno o.p.s. Brno 2015, 174-185. ISBN: 978‑80‑905546‑4-1

Este libro muestra cuáles fueron los personajes decisivos y los hitos

culturales decisivos en torno a los cuales Europa llegó a ser lo es, o lo que era. Fueron personajes que lucharon por hacer de un mundo caído un mundo más agradable a los ojos de Dios. No fueron personajes portentosos. En la cotidianidad de una vida marcada por la oración, el amor a Dios y al prójimo y la conciencia clara del fin último, ellos fueron capaces de construir una cultura floreciente en el saber y en las artes, que pervivió en Occidente hasta los albores de la Revolución de 1789.

The consensus on Pope Honorius III (1216–27) is that he was a conciliatory politician who lacked the harder edge possessed by his immediate predecessor and successor. Yet, using overlooked evidence regarding the role of Honorius in Frederick II’s seizure of the kingdom of Jerusalem from John of Brienne in 1225, this article reveals that he was in fact capable of acting in a ruthlessly pragmatic manner. It provides a rare case study of the duplicitous uses that could be made of the papal chancery by an early thirteenth–century pope while navigating a difficult diplomatic path between two kings.

By comparing two knights of two different eras, can we record the evolution of chivalry?

William Marshal (c.1147-1217) lived during the age in which chivalry was mid-way through it evolution. He lived the life of a knight who had to fight for his living and propelled himself through the ranks of the aristocracy due to his achievements on both the battlefield and the tournament. When he was knighted before the battle of Drincourt (1167) he held no land. However, upon his death he held the prestigious earldom of Pembrokeshire, lands in Ireland as well as being the Marshal of England during Henry III's infancy.

Richard Beauchamp on the other hand was born into a noble family. His father was part of the Lord's Appellant which rebelled against Richard II (1387) and from this the Beauchamp family lost all of their land. However, upon Henry Bolingbroke (future Henry IV) usurping the crown from Richard in 1399, Thomas Beauchamp found himself in royal favour. Like Marshal, Richard proved himself on the battlefield. He was present at the battle of Shrewsbury (1403) and ventured on a pilgrimage (similar to Marshal). Upon his return he loyally served Henry V in France and became the lieutenant of Calais.

Both of these knights lived in two different eras. Richard was more educated and learned of the ways of the chivalric culture than Marshal due to it's evolution. However, both were great warriors and leaders of men who extended their wealth. This dissertation discusses both of the lives of these great knights while comparing the differences of the late Twelfth and early Fifteenth Centuries.

The identification of deviant burials as those of ‘vampires’ is a feature of excavated skeletons from sites across Eastern, Central and Southern Europe as well as the Balkans. Based on a close reading of historic and folkloric sources researchers have sought to match features of excavated sites with narrative descriptions drawn from vampire legend and myth. This study critically reviews the recent claims based on sites in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. Whilst it is found that there was a widespread belief in vampires across Europe, it is argued that it is difficult to make absolute claims for ‘vampire’ burials on archaeological grounds as in most cases there are alternate and equally compelling interpretations of the data.

KEYWORDS
ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, VAMPIRE, DEVIANT BURIAL, PLAGUE, BLACK DEATH, FOLKLORE, PAGAN, BURIAL, WITCH, BALKANS, EASTERN EUROPE, CENTRAL EUROPE, SOUTHERN EUROPE, BULGARIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, POLAND, GREECE, ITALY, SLOVAKIA, LESBOS, VENICE, APOTROPAIC, VAMPIRIDZHIJA, PERPERIKON, SOZOPOL, PROSTEJOV, CELAKOVICE, DRAWSKO, GLIWICI, SOUTHWELL, KILTEASHEEN, LAZZARETTO NUOVO, NACHTZEHRER, KAMIEN POMORSKI

Thanks to the system of ranking by centrality points which was elaborated by András Kubinyi, an ever increasing area of the research of the market towns is occupied by those analyses which
examine the features and development of urban-like settlements in a well-defined region. Accordingly, the present study aims at outlining the course of development of 124 market towns which lay in the north-eastern part of Hungary. In the process of transformation into a market town the person of the lord was a factor of decisive influence. It appears that considerable differences can be grasped in the courses run during the transformation process between settlements under private lay lordship, those owned by the king, and those in the hands of the church. Basically, settlements belonging to the first group show a marked belatedness in their development into market towns as compared to those in the two latter groups, and the extent to which the terminology applied to them (civitas or oppidum) spread in the middle ages differs considerably also. Yet, alongside the person of the lord, other factors likewise determined both the possibilities and limits of evolution. Such factors shaping the model may have been the presence of an aristocratic residence, the settlement of privileged settlers, a place of authentication or the emergence of local mining industry. However, on the basis of characteristics offerred by the market towns examined in this study, it is evident that the process of market town development was basically limited to the sphere of private lay lordship: most of the oppida were in the hands of such lords already at the beginning of the transformation process, and remained there after the acquisition of the title, whereas the greatest part of the settlements originally owned by the king only entered the process after they had left immediate royal lordship.

France is fabulously rich in incised effigial slabs and this book is the first study written in English to examine in detail their unique qualities in a particular region, the five départements of the Pays de la Loire. It uncovers their various meanings, as gravemarkers and tools to encourage intercession for those they commemorate, and how they were commissioned by a socially diverse range of patrons, from ecclesiastical grandees to the lesser clergy, and from knights and esquires to widows and members of the professional classes. The corpus even includes some royal tombs, for branches of the French national family and the ducs de Bretagne. The book records 187 known slabs in the region, dating between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries. First there are seven chapters providing an incisive introduction to the social and artistic history of the artform (pages 1-237), followed by a detailed inventory recording each slab in turn, with full analysis and references (pages 238-370), followed by glossary, bibliography and index and then a generous secton of nearly 250 colour plates, photographs of surviving slabs and reproductions of the famous drawings by Roger de Gaignières, courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The author lives in the Pays de la Loire and has researched the subject for several decades. The book is written in English for an international academic audience with all quotations and transcriptions given in their original form with a translation. The book is now ready for printing and is on a lavish scale: 446 pages of text plus 224 pages of colour plates on art paper, all to be properly sewn and bound in cloth.

The paper examines the connections between late medieval urban development in Hungary,
the handicraft industry and the name giving practices of the lower and middle classes of medieval
society. It has long been accepted through research into Hungarian local history that the state of
urban development and the proportion of handicraftsmen (and other people not involved in agricultural activities) among the population of a settlement were interdependent. Highly developed settlements
would have more inhabitants engaged in industrial activities and services, than their poorer
counterparts. Hungarian economic history traditionally considers the bearers of personal names
derived from occupational names as handicraftsmen. In general, the proportion of these people
among the inhabitants of the distinct settlement types was different, thus in market towns more
people supported themselves with handicrafts than in villages, but the highest number of
handicraftsmen lived in cities. Naturally, the more important a settlement was, the more crafts were
present there. Based on a corpus of approximately 12,000 late medieval personal names, the author
examines the proportion of handicraftsmen among the inhabitants, and the specialization of the
handicraft industry in the seven types of settlements identified in the so-called “centrality score
system”. The system devised by András Kubinyi aims to describe the different levels of development
in medieval settlements. The results of the present analysis reinforce and numerically justify
Kubinyi’s statements.

La presenza e l’azione femminile nel periodo altomedievale, fra VI e X secolo, sono studiate in modo specifi co solo da pochi decenni, e in maniera pressoché univoca dalla storiografia anglosassone e francese. In quella italiana, ancora oggi, l’apporto delle donne alle vicende umane che segnano questo periodo storico è fortemente sottovalutato. Il volume colma una lacuna editoriale, indagando le caratteristiche, le differenze e il signifi cato della presenza femminile nell’alto Medioevo tramite l’analisi ragionata della storiografi a e la presentazione di fonti – trattatistiche, normative, biografi che, religiose, testamentarie, capitolari e di altro genere, scritte e iconografi che – accompagnate da commenti chiari ed efficacemente organizzate per temi.

"Abstract:
The Swedish project The Medieval town -  subtitled The consequences of the early urbanization process for modern city planning - started in 1976. Cultural layers in towns had at that time almost no legal support in the The law of Ancient monuments (Forminneslagen) as they now have in The Law of Cultural Heritage (Kulturminneslagen 1988). It was therefore, before the new law, a large antiquarian problem and irreplaceable cultural heritage was disappearing without any archaeological excavations had been made. The Medieval town project was headed by the Swedish National Heritage Board, with funding from eg. the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. All archaeological excavations in 77 Swedish medieval towns (including the originally Danish towns in Scania, Halland and Blekinge) were surveyed and registered and for each town a report was published. The town of Ystad in Scania in southern Sweden was surveyed by the author for three months 1980-1981. Two reports, Ystad I and Ystad II – an archaeological study of the hinterland before the town, were published in 1983.

This publication - Ystad revisited - is an evaluation of the archaeological situation in Ystad - thirty years after the Medieval town project. The publication  contains four perspectives: an antiquarian, an archaeological, a scientific and finally a contemporary perspective. The evaluation shows that, in comparison with many other medieval towns in Sweden, rather few archaeological excavations have been made in Ystad during the last thirty years. The most recent relatively large archaeological excavations were made as far back as 1984 and 1986. The background to this situation and the implications for the research on the medieval town Ystad are discussed. Some archaeological issues are highlighted. For instance the clay-lined pits which are connected with the extensive seasonal herring fishing in the 12th century, before the town was founded. Another interesting, and unexpected, finding is a very large and wide 14th century moat laid out in the western part of the medieval town. GISmaps showing all archaeological excavations in Ystad are included in the report. The contemporary perspective discusses whether the earlier romantic image of Ystad as a ”well preserved town with half-timbered houses and medieval charm” has changed during these thirty years. And finally - how has the success of the Wallander crime novels and all (c. 50) films shot in Ystad and vicinity affected this image?




Ystad Revisited
av Sten Tesch

”Projektet Medeltidsstaden” – med undertiteln ”Den tidiga urbaniseringens konsekvenser för modern stadsplanering” startade 1976. När projektet inleddes hade kul-turlager i städer inte något lagligt skydd i Fornminneslagen. Det kom först i och med Kulturminneslagen 1988 (sedan 1/1 2014 Kulturmiljölagen). Det var därför ett stort antikvariskt problem att medeltida kulturlager togs bort utan föregående arkeologisk undersökning. Projektet Medeltidsstaden bidrog i hög grad till att förändra den situationen. Projektet, som drevs av Riksantikvarieämbetet och Statens historiska museer, med finansiering från Riksbankens Jubileumsfond och Humanistiska Samhälls-vetenskapliga forskningsrådet (HSFR), pågick under åren 1976-1984.

I Sverige finns 77 städer med medeltida ursprung. Det arkeologiska materialet i dessa städer inventerades och utvärderades i en rapport - en för varje stad. I projektet ingick även de tidigare danska medeltida städerna i Skåne, Halland och Blekinge. Ystad inventerades av författaren till föreliggande skrift under tre månader 1980-81. Till skillnad från övriga städer gjordes två rapporter för Ystad, en om själva staden (Ystad I) och en omlandsstudie om Ystadbygden före Ystad (Ystad II). Båda rapporterna utkom 1983.

Skriften Ystad Revisited är en utvärdering av det arkeologiska materialet i Ystad – trettio år efter projektet Medeltidsstaden. Utvärderingen visar att det i Ystad under denna period gjorts förhållandevis få arkeologiska undersökningar, jämfört med många andra medeltida städer i Sverige. Anmärkningsvärt är att det inte genomförts någon mer omfattande utgrävning sedan 1986. I skriften diskuteras orsakerna till detta och vad det inneburit för forskningen om medeltidsstaden Ystad.
Alla arkeologiska undersökningar i Ystad redovisas på tre GIS-kartor och i en bilaga.

I rapporten uppmärksammas särskilt två företeelser, dels de s.k. lerbottnarna dels upptäckten av en tidigare helt okänd vallgrav nästan mitt i staden.

Lerbottnarna hänger samman med det säsongsmässiga fiske som föregick staden, när sillen gick till på 1100-talet och stod så tät att man kunde fånga den med bara händerna, som en senare 1200-talskälla uttrycker det. Lerbottnar är trågliknande lerklädda gropar i sanden. De kan vara från en till flera meter stora. Lerbottnarnas funktion har diskuterats livligt i mer än trettio år och någon konsensus i denna fråga har ännu inte uppnåtts. I skriften aktualiseras en nygammal tolkning.

Vid en arkeologisk undersökning i kv. Pernilla 1984 - endast ett hundratal meter väster om Mariakyrkan - gjordes en mycket oväntad upptäckt då en vallgrav som var 15 meter bred och 1,5 meter djup framkom. Vallgraven inramade en 20x50 meter stor rektangulär holme. Även om graven var betydligt bredare och djupare än de vallgravar som omger de flesta borgar i Skåne - inklusive borgen i kv. Vallgraven i Ystad – kan det diskuteras om det rör sig om ett planerat borgbygge. Därtill är holmen troligtvis för smal. Kanske har man i stället planerat för någon form av förindustriell verksamhet baserad på vattenkvarnar i denna del av staden. När graven grävdes i mitten av 1300-talet låg här ett blomstrande stadskvarter, som då måste ha avhysts. Trots denna omfattande stadsplaneförändring och det stora arbetsföretag som igångsatts dröjde det inte lång tid innan graven lades igen. Det krävdes åtskilliga lass med sand för att åstadkomma detta. Uppskattningsvis bör det ha rört sig om ca 5000 kubikmeter motsvarande ca 500 lastbilslass. Allt är mycket gåtfullt. Troligtvis har dessa beslut, både att gräva graven och att sedan lägga igen den, fattats på en nivå som låg över den ”kommunala”.

Skriften avslutas med ett samtidsperspektiv där den tidigare romantiska bilden av Ystad - som ”Den välbevarade korsvirkesstaden med medeltida charm” - diskuteras. Har denna bild förändrats under de senaste trettio åren och har Wallanderturismen och de runt femtio filmer som spelats in i Ystad med omnejd påverkat denna bild är frågor som ställs.

Skriften Ystad Revisited – med undertiteln Nya arkeologiska perspektiv på ett gam-malt sjörövare- och lurendrejarenäste, trettio år efter Projektet Medeltidsstaden – är i A4-format och inlagan omfattar 98 sidor. Skriften är utgiven (2014) av Sten Tesch ARKISTORIA.

Sten Tesch har tidigare arbetat som arkeolog på Riksantikvarieämbetet (1967-85) och som chef för Sigtuna Museum (1985-2010). Disputerade 1993 på en avhandling i arkeologi om Stora Köpingebygden (öster om Ystad) och dess bebyggelsehistoria under förhistorisk tid. Var även delprojektledare i Ystadprojektet - kulturlandskapet under 6000 år vid Lunds universitet (1982-90).

Ekonomiskt stöd har erhållits från Anders Althins Stiftelse och Kungl. Patriotiska Sällskapet.

Ystad Revisted kan beställas från:
Sten Tesch
Skyttegatan 47
19332 SIGTUNA
sten.tesch@gmail.com
0733502229

Priset är 100 kronor exklusive porto och emballage.

The original letter of Duke Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, issued on the 1st of March 1455 in Ključ, which regulated the possible relations between him and his potential bride Barbara of Liechtenstein, is today preserved in the Princely Collection of the Liechtenstein family in Vienna. The text of the document was hitherto published only in the works of the Hungarian historian Lajos Thallóczy. However, he did not supply an image of the charter and described it only summarily indicating that it was written on parchment and that the script was in bluish ink. Apart from that, he also remarked that the letter was composed in poor Latin and that the concept was probably created by Ruggiero, the Duke’s scribe.

The charter is of a rectangular shape and was folded twice vertically and once horizontally (not counting the folded lower margin). On the very bottom of the document a broken dark brown wax lump with a red seal image was attached to the parchment by a red silk braided cord. Even though it is very difficult to speak about the broken seal, it can be concluded that it is in fact the great seal of Duke Stjepan, for which many historians considered was preserved only on one charter of his son Vlatko from the 26th of July 1470. We can now confirm that the seal was indeed used on the official charters of Duke Stjepan, even though the seal image is almost completely destroyed.

The contents of the charter are connected to the plans of Duke Stjepan to arrange great nuptial festivities in 1455 for the weddings of his two sons, but also for his own marriage since he was a widower from October 1453. It is still an open question how did the Duke get in touch with the court in Nicolsburg, today Mikulov in the Czech Republic, and under which circumstances did the combinations about the marriage relations with the Austrian princely dynasty of Liechtensten emerge. The charter which the Duke issued together with his sons was supposed to regulate the rights of his future spouse, the conditions of their “lasting and indissoluble union”, guarantee her religious rights and allow her to have her own retinue with priests. Apart from that, the Duke also promised to present Barbara a wedding gift in the form of a castle with an income of 2.000 golden florins. In the case of his death, the charter stipulated that Barbara could sell the castle to his heirs for a hefty sum of 14.000 golden ducats. She could then freely dispose with this money in Bosnia, as well as abroad. Despite all the trouble and incurred expenses, the marriage was never realized, and in May of 1455 Duke Stjepan married another woman, also named Barbara.