Ingvild Øye

Settlement patterns and field systems in medieval Norway

ABSTRACT The paper gives a survey of settlement patterns and field systems in Norway c. 800–1500 A.D. based on archaeological evidence and contemporary written sources. As topography and climate varies considerably in a country that stretches across 13 degrees of latitude, the agricultural conditions vary accordingly, resulting in regional diversity in both settlement patterns and field systems. Separate, dispersed farms have for long been regarded as the predominant form of settlement for most of the country, but also clustered settlements seem to have been common along the western and north-western coast, at least from the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century. The diversity of settlement and tenurial patterns as well as physical variations in the agricultural potential resulted in a variety of farm types and field systems. Scattered fields under more or less permanent cultivation without fallow periods were usual in larger parts of medieval Norway, especially to the west, while rotation of arable land was used in areas where the proportion between land and husbandry was less balanced and more extensive cultivable soils. Altogether, the Norwegian settlement patterns and field systems reflect both regional heterogeneity and variations within regions, but they also reveal similarities with the neighbouring countries.

When did weaving become a male profession

ABSTRACT The article discusses the development and technological changes within weaving in the Middle Ages when it developed into a major craft and one of the most important industries of the Middle Ages in Northern Europe. While prehistoric weaving appears as a predominantly female work domain, weaving became a male profession in urban contexts, organised within guilds. Hence, it has almost become a dogma that the expanding medieval textile industry, and corresponding transition from a female to a male work domain, was caused by new technology – the horizontal treadle loom. By utilising various source categories, documentary, iconographic and archaeological evidence, the article substantiates that the conception of the medieval weaver as a male craftsman should be adjusted and the long-established dichotomy between male professional craftsmen and weavers, and women as homework producers of textiles should be modified, also when related to guilds. The change from a domestic household-based production to a more commercially based industry took place at different times and scales in various areas of Europe and did not only involve men.