User:P. S. Burton/New5

High Middle Ages Few were populated by more then a few hundred inhabitants. Stockholm and Visby had at most around six or seven thousand inhabitants, Kalmar, maybe about half as many. Uppsala, Söderköping, Lödöse and Jönköping, were all significant centres, each with over a thousand inhabitants. All other cities were so so small that they would be considered villages by today standards.

Stad (Sweden)

royal charter gave the city's citizens the right to pursue activities that otherwise were prohibited. The oldest preserved Swedish city charter, is one issued by Magnus Ladulås for Jönköping, dating back to 1284. Then there was already a small settlement in the area, as well as one of the sources documented castle, but not until 1284 stadgades citizens' monopoly on trade and crafts in the north of Småland. They had the right to keep the market at St. Anthony and St. Francis feast days (17 January and 4 October). The next charter, which was issued already in 1288, was awarded the city of new land, and it was decided that the burghers would appoint twelve aldermen to steer the University in conjunction with a royal official. In addition, it was stated that they were keeping farmer's market once a week.

What, then, Sweden's five oldest cities? If we exclude those towns that no longer exists even as urban areas, as Birka and Uppåkra, we find that Lund in southern Sweden and Sigtuna in Uppland, both founded in the late 900s. Since the cities appear to have had about the same town, probably founded by members of the royal family networks and even had some of the same population (Anglo-Saxon mint master who is known by the name), it is not unlikely that they were based at the same time. If we shift our attention to 1000's, we find Skara in western Sweden and Helsingborg and Lomma the Scanian coast. Please note that it seems Lomma have lost their privileges at an early stage, already in 1100. Lödöse the Göta River and Tumathorp (now Eastern Tommarp in Skåne) were developed to towns either in the late 1000's or early 1100's.

If we limit ourselves to the medieval kingdom of Sweden and omits the Danish and Norwegian cities, the picture is roughly this: 1. Sigtuna (900s), 2. Skara (1000's), 3. Lödöse (1000 - or 1100's), 4. Visby (late 1100's), 5. Söderköping (early 1200s). This is followed by Kalmar, and then lots of cities in the mid-1200s (Stockholm, Nykoping, Orebro, Arboga, and others).

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In 1252 appears for the first time in the Stockholm Exchange. Birger Jarl issued this year, two letters on the spot, one self and the other with her son Waldemar. Apparently the city was newly established. Someone older urban areas has not been demonstrated. There is also no coincidence that our future capital shows up just then. After Birger Jarl's seizure of power in 1250 initiated a century-old era of city founding. The king, bishops, bailiffs and retailers colluded to give Sweden a network of medieval cities.

But how it looked before? During the Viking Age had small towns and major commercial centers arose, flourished and passed over without getting any particular successor - Paviken on Gotland, Köpingsvik on Oland and others. The largest, Birka on the island of Björkö, and lapsed on 970s. Which cities existed in the gap between the Vikings and Birger Jarl era? Were there any at all?

Yes, there were cities in Sweden, but they were not many and not large. Empire lacked a government with interest in using the cities to switch coins, take up duty and protect the area through the fortifications. The city was founded during the Early Middle Ages thus came to look different and have very different functions.

We shall now give a brief visit to the six oldest urban hubs in the medieval Swedish kingdom, the city was founded in Stockholm. (Worth noting that we content ourselves with the medieval Swedish kingdom, not the present, would also be a bunch of old Danish cities, Lund and Helsingborg in the lead, a qualifier from the list.)

The oldest still existing town in medieval Sweden is without a doubt Sigtuna. Exactly when Sigtuna was founded is unknown, but we know that the city grew over 900 century last decades, probably at the instigation of the local monarch. A good guess is that King Erik, the stories called the Victorious Eric, took the initiative. Erik's son, King Olof had proven to mint coins in the city from the 990's, a business that was run through to 1030's by Olaf's son Anund Jacob.

The village consisted of a long street with houses on both sides. We do not even know if the farms were permanently inhabited during the early decades of Sigtuna. Probably erected by the great men who were allied with the king and who thereby demonstrated his closeness to power. Moreover, they proved that they were Christians, they had embraced the new religion. Sigtuna was not only a royal, but also a distinctly ecclesiastical city.

In parallel to the first street was laid out in due course a second street with several churches, of which all but one - the Dominican Maria Church from the 1200s - today is in ruins. During the second half of the 1000's and early 1100's, Sigtuna also the seat of a bishop. If the bishop's seat had become still had Sigtuna today is likely much higher than it is, but the city's historical destiny was that it was overshadowed by the Stockholm and Uppsala. Hence today's picturesque small town.

Little Sigtuna is a singular special case in the Swedish city history. The city was founded centuries before other cities grew up in eastern Sweden. Without a vigorous, proactive monarchy had never had a chance.

Scientists have guessed that Sigtuna served as an advanced base for a Christian monarchy, which are being set up but that was not yet safe. Thanks to its location on the waterfront, it was easy to get to Sigtuna and easy to get out, if the king had to retreat. A particular concern is the fact that Sigtuna was founded shortly after the Birka abandoned. Sigtuna was a replacement for Birka? Or rather, a victorious competitor? The other teaches the scholars argue long.

Less than a century after the Sigtuna was founded on royal orders in the Northeast grew two other towns in the southwest, apparently without royal interference, at least initially. The cities were quite different in character but both had so many buildings and permanent residents that they emerge with clarity in the written and archaeological source material.

One city was Skara. The German historian Adam of Bremen describes the 1070s as a Skara magna civitas, "important place". The task is confirmed by other sources. In the 1100s the town had three churches, a cathedral, and a feast. In the early 1200s was Skara Sweden's most impressive metropolis Episcopal, a church town that was totally dominated by the West Sweden's Bishop. We can safely assume that many of the city's tradesmen and craftsmen in one way or another were connected to the church and its needs.

A document from 1262 indicates that there were booths on the square, although the first evidence of the city's craft is the more than 3.5 meters thick cultural layers that archaeologists have found in excavations. To a certain commodity, especially for the Episcopal Church's behalf, has taken place is put beyond all doubt.

The second city was Lödöse, the oldest predecessor of Gothenburg. The city already existed in the 1000's, but the earliest written evidence stems from the 1151st A short time later began to mint coins in place.

If Sigtuna, founded by the king's city and Skara bishop who was Lödöse merchants' hub, gateway to the west. The town grew up where it did was due to location at the intersection of Ljudaån (current Gårdaån) and Gota River, about fifty miles north of the river's outlet.

Vessels from the Kattegat found its way up along the river to Lödöse, where goods were unloaded and loaded on to be transported by land in western Sweden. Ten kilometers upstream of the low rate when Fuxerna (Lilla Edet), which blocked further älvtransporter. Since Lödöse appears to have emerged from below, due to pressure from merchants and craftsmen, not by kings and bishops, the city is very interesting to analyze. Today, the buildings on top of all smaller than in the Middle Ages, which is rewarding from an archaeologist perspective. Thanks to extensive excavations we know a lot about how Lödöse looked.

Between Ljudaåns two outlet arms erected small houses that constituted the city's core. When the settlement was most Lödöse was also a "Northern Town" which extended over a 100 to 150 feet wide lot north of it. Across Lödöse ran a major north-south main street, accompanied by several other streets. Initially, the wood coating, but in the 1100s began to pave certain routes. Lödöse hub, the neighborhood that everything revolved around, was probably of the piers that shot out of Ljudaåns northern mynningsarm, which today are dehydrated. The excavations have revealed an extensive craft. In Nordstan lived iron smiths in the inner city leather craftsmen and goldsmiths. The city has thus been a thriving cents place for production.

But how did all these people eat? Probably by shipments from the fertile hinterland. Farmers in Göta valley realized the possibilities and sold as much food as they could to the townspeople. In 1100 - and 1200's there was Lödöse an expansive resort with several churches, a hospital and a Dominican convent. Moreover, the place of great strategic value in its capacity as the border outpost of Denmark and Norway. By the early 1200s was Lödöse consolidation. Norwegians burned while down bail of 1220s, but a few decades later, a new facility on site. Unfortunately, we know very little about it. The castle is covered namely a ten-meter high hill, which since 1890 is crowned by a house which by its very existence is blocking any excavation.

The fourth city that emerged in medieval Sweden, Visby, which in the 1200s probably was greater than Sigtuna, Skara and Lödöse together. However, it is highly doubtful that Visby at this time could be counted to Sweden.

In the 1100s and during most of the 1200s was Gotland outside the Kingdom. First on the Magnus Ladulås time in the 1280s was formalized relations and islanders acknowledged king's sovereignty. The Visby was then a leading Baltic metropolis depended on two things. In the 1100's, merchants, both Germans and Danes, finding their way into the old Gutnish port to stock up, buy and sell. Since the merchants had been followed by German crusaders in 1200 as the first half conquered and Christianized the Baltics. Thousands of warriors, priests and merchants gathered in Visby to shop, rest, preach and entertain themselves between voyages. Many stayed in town life. While the majority of Swedish medieval cities was characterized by wooden houses came Visby already in the 1200s to be dominated by the stone building, which still leaves its mark on the city.

If we had gone back in time eight centuries, until the early 1200s, we had therefore met only three Swedish cities, four if we include Visby. The other major centers were little more than large villages, stately homes, rural bishop's residence and business centers. During the century that followed, however, as mentioned above, Sweden's urban landscape is changing dramatically.

The real expansion came after 1250, but already in 1200 the first half is clear development of two Östsvenska cities that have not made much noise: Söderköping and Kalmar. The fifth town in medieval Sweden is the one we know best. Söderköping emerged as transhipment point in the intersection of two rivers, well-protected behind Slätbaken. The rich hinterland guaranteed townspeople abundance of food.

During the first half of the 1200s developed the Östergötland port city quickly to the east of Sweden's wealthiest and most densely populated place, probably with a large element of north German merchants. In 1235 the town was a Franciscan convent. In documents from the 1250s we find the names of citizens and mention of the mills.

That we know so much about the medieval Söderköping depends less on documents than on the excavations. Archaeologists have uncovered squares, street layout, and even details of the street pavement. At the bottom was a layer of pebbles in the sand, over a trägata and top a pile of rocks. The houses were made of wood. The medieval Kalmar grew up outside the current city center, that is not on Kvarnholmen but in a semicircle of about 500 m away on the mainland opposite the castle. Nothing suggests a larger urban development before the 1200th The city's major expansion took place from 1230 - or 1240's.

In the 1250s, we have materials for individuals in the city, for example, Berthold, a lay brother in the Dominican Order, and the bourgeois Herman Buccha, whose sister was married to a citizen of Lübeck. As in Visby and Söderköping seems the German influence have been extensive.

Kalmar importance of rich trading and southerly outpost is clear from the city around the year 1300 had a city wall. In addition to Kalmar was in the kingdom only Stockholm, Visby and eventually even the border town of Vyborg in the east as fortunate this honor. The wall, which was two feet thick and more than eight feet high, was demolished in the 1600s. Although the 75-meter 1200-century church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, was demolished along with all other settlements in Kalmar was moved out of Kvarnholmen in the 1600s.

For this sextet old medieval towns might not have applied for a major city today. It is doubtful that cities such as Skara and Sigtuna would even be able to bear up was the contemporary community. Towns were small, with hundreds rather than thousands of inhabitants. They were not much larger in subsequent centuries. In medieval cities of Stockholm and Visby was the richest people lived only between six thousand and seven thousand inhabitants within the walls. Kalmar, southern Sweden's metropolis, had at most about three thousand inhabitants. Other cities were much smaller.

If we compare with the medieval countryside seems sextet above the more insignificant. Almost all medieval Swedes were linked to some form of agriculture or fisheries. The townspeople were an extremely small minority in a sea of ​​peasants. But it was a dynamic minority. Urban significance was far greater than their geography and demographic scope of the case revealed. This was where the German merchants and craftsmen came to settle down, become wealthy, to share their knowledge and their vocabulary. This is where the monarchy built fortresses, experimented with the minting, duties and taxes. The city foundation received a boost during the Birger Jarl and his sons is no coincidence. Certainly, many cities responded to a local need in folkökningens era, in the century that preceded the Black Death in 1350, but they were mainly state power tools.

With cities as bases created a new political system, the Christian kingdom that ultimately evolved into the nation-state Sweden.

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