The Historical Archaeology of the Medieval Crisis in Scandinavia

Abstract

In the wake of the Black Death in i 1350 Europe saw demographic disaster, economic decline, and social and political breakdown. Thousands of farms were deserted. This is the Medieval Agrarian Crisis. The latest decadesof outland archaeology, primarily within the frames of rescue archaeology, have made it possible to outline the course of the crisis in the forested parts of middle Scandinavia. The 14th and 15th centuries were a time of economic change rather than economic decline. However, various areas changed in different ways. When taking outland production into account the medieval crisis has to be conceptualised in another way; it was not solely an agrarian crisis. It was also early industrial expansion and change towards extensive farming.

Bucking the trend: Population resilience in a marginal environment

“…Our highly refined chronology enables us to differentiate categorically the late 15 th century decline in activity at Slieveanorra from any early 14 th century events, and to track the extent of land-use throughout the climate oscillations of the Little Ice Age. Our findings add to an emerging body of literature that highlights that some “marginal” communities persisted through these times [ 118 – 121 ]. Similar resilience has been posited for the continuation of upland farming in Scotland through the Little Ice Age where agricultural productivity may simply not have been of prime importance to the occupants [ 41 ].…”

Effective Houses: Property Rights and Settlement in Iron Age Eastern Norway

“…In both the 6th century and the 14th century, a large number of farms were abandoned, the area under cultivation shrank, and the pressure on pastureland was lower, while much of the man-made landscape reverted to woodland (Andersen and Berglund 1994;Lagerås 2007). The demographic crisis of the 14th century probably led to the keeping of livestock having a greater role to play compared with cereal cultivation than it had had before (Salvesen 1979;Ersland and Sandvik 1999:56;Imsen 2000:65;Lunden 2002:58-66;Berglund et al 2009;Gundersen 2021). The changes at the transition from the Early Iron Age to the Late did not, however, run exclusively in the direction of desertion.…”