Environment, Society and the Black Death

by Desconhecido

  Another environmental consequence of the crisis, which in turn may have delayed agricultural re-expansion, is the overgrowing by woodland and other vegetation on abandoned land. In general it requires more work to bring abandoned land back into use again than it takes to maintain continuous land use. Less work is needed to continue cultivation on a well-managed field than it takes to establish a new field or to re-establish an abandoned one. The same is true for hay meadows – less work is needed to continue mowing than what is needed to restore a meadow overgrown by shrubs and trees. The consequence of this would be, that if it takes a certain working force to keep a farm going, it would take a larger working force (or a harder working one) to put the same farm back into use again after abandonment. In general, the longer the interruption in cultivation, the more work is needed to re-establish full production. According to Urban Emanuelsson, who refers to this as the cultivation hypothesis, this effect of abandonment tends to prolong societal crises by keeping food production down.28

  In the case of the late-medieval crisis, the degree of reforestation on abandoned land may have been a decisive factor. To clear abandoned and overgrown fields from trees and shrubs is a labour-intensive task. Also to restore a field turned into grassland requires more work than continuous cultivation, but it takes much more work to clear a field overgrown by woody vegetation. We may therefore expect a high degree of reforestation to raise the threshold for agricultural re-expansion. In the present study, pollen data show that there was reforestation in the wake of the Black Death, at least in the higher parts of the uplands, which probably delayed agricultural expansion in those areas. However, in other parts of the uplands the land of deserted farms was not reforested, but to a large degree kept open by grazing even when settlement and arable fields were abandoned. To turn to animal husbandry was obviously a rational strategy in a time of land excess and labour shortage. But it was strategic also in another sense. Grazing the abandoned farms and holding back the forest during the crisis facilitated future reestablishment of arable fields and meadows. This may very well have been an intended strategy. The land of deserted farms was a resource for grazing but also for future expansion. By keeping it in a reasonably good shape not all the work once invested in the land was wasted.

  In summary, the late-medieval crisis and in particular the population drop initiated by the Black Death of 1350 did not only result in profound and long-term societal changes, but also in environmental and ecological changes. These changes were not only passive consequences of the crisis – they also affected the course of the crisis through different feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative. This study has provided some insights into the environmental changes during the crisis and suggested some possible feedbacks. But still we have only glimpses of a reality that was certainly much more complex. To better understand social processes and agricultural strategies during the crisis we need more studies of the environmental consequences. This is true for the late-medieval crisis as well as for other crisis throughout human history.

  Even though each societal crisis has its own historical context, many processes – both social and ecological – are similar. It may therefore be rewarding for future studies not to regard the late-medieval crisis as a unique catastrophe, but to compare it for instance with the sixth-century crisis. Each societal crisis has its own characteristics but is also part of larger picture of recurring periods of expansion and decline. To make comparisons with the present-day situation is more difficult but not impossible. In preindustrial societies a much larger proportion of the population than today worked with agriculture and had a more direct dependency on their local environment. Today, in the industrial world, few of us are directly involved in food production. This, however, does not make our dependency on the environment smaller. More than ever, human impact on the environment has serious consequences for society and any possible crisis in the future may lead to environmental change. Studies of past society-environment interactions will certainly not solve present-day or future problems, but provide historical examples of human strategies and ecological consequences and how they may be interrelated.

  Notes

  1 Crutzen 2002

  2 IPCC 2013

  3 Barker 2006; Goudie 2013

  4 Williams 2006, 395ff, 475

  5 Tainter 1988; Diamond 2005

  6 Whitmore et al. 1990, 37; Redman 1999, 170

  7 Malthus 1803. For an introduction to this discussion see for instance Moran 2010, 25ff

  8 Wagner et al. 2014

  9 Larsen et al. 2008; Gräslund & Price 2012

  10 Näsman & Lund 1988; Widgren 2012; Lagerås 2013a

  11 Andersen & Berglund 1994; Lagerås et al. 1995; Lagerås 1996; 2007

  12 Williams 2000, 29; Rudel et al. 2005

  13 For historical human diseases, see for instance Mähäläinen (ed.) 2006; for livestock epidemics during the fourteenth century, see Kershaw 1973

  14 Österberg 1971

  15 Diamond 2005

  16 An important exception is America, where the ecological consequences of European conquest in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have gained increased attention during the last decades. Cf. Mann 2006, 350ff

  17 Emanuelsson 2009, 225ff

  18 Bernes 2011, 62ff

  19 Competition between cattle and wild herbivores has been studied in modern populations (e.g. Stewart et al. 2002)

  20 Myrdal 2012b, 183

  21 Ruddiman 2003; 2005, 115ff

  22 Claussen et al. 2005; Broecker & Stocker 2006; Olofsson & Hickler 2008

  23 Ruddiman 2003, 284

  24 Zillén et al. 2008; Zillén & Conley 2010

  25 Redman 1999, 122

  26 Myrdal 2003, 237; Vestbö-Franzén 2004, 225

  27 Myrdal 2012a, 217; 2012b, 222

  28 Emanuelsson 2009, 40, 232, with reference to Kjekshus 1977

  8.

  Studying the late-medieval crisis – reflections on research perspectives

  Lars Ersgård

  In studying the late-medieval crisis, it may be simplest to look upon the phenomenon as decline, as just a matter of negative impact on society in a limited period. However, it is also possible to look upon the crisis from a broader perspective, following its consequences in a considerably larger context than exclusively the medieval. The purpose of the following is to cast some reflections on the archaeological results, presented in previous chapters, from such a perspective, primarily on the basis of the question of how the late-medieval crisis can be comprehended as a part of the development towards modern society.

  Originally, Swedish research on the late-medieval crisis was focused on the question of whether this crisis had hit society at all and, if so, to what extent it had affected primarily the agrarian settlement in terms of desertion. Today no one denies the fact that the crisis was extensive, also in Sweden, with severe demographic consequences. In an explicit way it is analysed as a part of a dynamic, societal development. Janken Myrdal’s model, referred to in the previous chapters, is the most pronounced example of such a perspective.1 Based on historical materialism a dialectic focus on class struggles is the theoretical starting point of this model. The actions of the nobility in the initial phase of the crisis became an incentive to extensive class conflicts in the later part of the fourteenth century/beginning of the fifteenth, resulting in a more positive development at the end of the Middle Ages and finally in a new historical “synthesis” in the shape of the nation state of the sixteenth century.

  Myrdal’s perspective is the one of an economic historian, incorporating the crisis in a greater narrative of the Middle Ages as a socio-economic course of upturns and declines. Claiming the validity of all geographical contexts, grand narratives of this kind have become subject to criticism. For example, archaeologists working with late-medieval contexts of marginal woodlands in northern Sweden have claimed that the grand narrative of the late-medieval crisis is less representative of development in these areas.2

  The
purpose of the archaeological investigation presented in this book has not been to look upon the crisis from the perspective of central versus marginal area, neither to present a brand new narrative of the crisis. All grand narratives are characterised by a certain degree of simplification, probably necessary when explaining profound societal processes. However, here the aim has been to emphasise the complexity of the crisis, rather than telling a new overall story of the phenomenon. Using the potential of archaeology, this chapter endeavours to reveal new aspects of societal changes, focusing on the strategies people were forced to develop, dealing with their everyday lives during this harsh times, and the results of these choices in the longer term as well as the shorter.

  Before he meaning and the consequences of this perspective are developed a brief European reference to Swedish development is presented. Hence a closer look is taken at late-medieval England, a country where the source materials concerning the crisis, the written as well as the archaeological, are abundant. However, the perspectives in English research have been somewhat different compared to Scandinavia.

  The population in England, according to results of modern research, was probably reduced by at least 50% in the period 1350–1450, a decrease on par with the situation in Sweden in the corresponding period.3 In many respects the development of the two countries shows several similarities. However, the picture of late-medieval England tends to appear as less dramatic compared with Sweden.

  Facing major problems from 1348–50, caused by the great decrease of the population, the inhabitants of the English society “with remarkable resilience … returned to work, and the whole system held together.”4 Some activities, like house construction and mining, stopped momentarily and were resumed later in the fourteenth century. Rebellions against increased tax burdens occurred but when they had settled, society seems to have adjusted to the new conditions engendered by a greatly reduced population.

  The peasants gaining a major control of production was an important consequence of the demographic changes of fourteenth century.5 It enabled increased freedom of action for the peasants, who were no longer just an anonymous group of “producers”. Increasingly they could act more independently than before, enlarging their holdings in the countryside or acting as entrepreneurs in a market.

  Archaeological study of late-medieval England has for a long time had its focus on agrarian settlement and its changes. Deserted villages and farmsteads in particular have been a dynamic field of research since the 1940s, archaeologists and historians having worked in close cooperation.6 However, using deserted settlement as a primary source for studies of economy and society in the English countryside has been a matter of debate.7 After all the deserted villages represent only a minority of all existing villages in the late Middle Ages.

  Desertion has occurred to a greater or lesser degree during all periods and deserted villages have not, in the same way as in Sweden, become synonymous with the ravages of the late-medieval crisis. However, a major part originating from the time span 1350–1700, this phase has played a significant role in the discussion on the causes of desertion.8

  Recent research has shown that only a minor part of desertion can be linked to the plagues of the mid-fourteenth century. Thus, there is no simple connection between the decrease of population and desertion. Rather, the causalities being complex, desertion appears as a gradual process.9

  The late-medieval crisis in England stands out as a rather complex history, including major decrease of population and societal decline as well as elements of emancipation, new initiatives and expanding markets.10 Will archaeology also help us to reveal a similar complexity in Sweden?

  In the grand narrative of the late-medieval crisis in Sweden, the survival strategies of the nobility in the initial phase have been a decisive factor, directing social development and affecting society’s ability of recovery in a negative way.11 The peasants, being mostly an anonymous group of taxpayers in this early phase of the crisis, did not stand out as independent actors until the rebellions of the 1430s. However, using archaeology it will be possible to nuance this picture.

  Through archaeology we can, in another way than with the written record alone, write a history “from below”, reaching the single household and the strategies of everyday life. In a previous chapter of this book such histories have been told, concerning farmsteads in different parts of the country, their inhabitants facing new challenges after the plagues at the middle of the fourteenth century.

  Responses to decline in the middle of the fourteenth century, as they have been observed in the archaeological record, were discussed in Chapter 5 in relation to the phasing out of the manorial system of the High Middle Ages. Being in dissolution around 1350, this system received its final death blow in the plagues.12 Probably the consequences were the same as in England. The landowners leaving the direct control of production, the peasants at once gained a primary responsibility in the management of their holdings. Hence the later part of the fourteenth century must have meant, despite an immense diminishing of population and increasing tax burdens, a new freedom of action for the peasants, making it possible for them to develop their own strategies of survival and create new ways of cooperation. This freedom opened the way for specialisation of activities in the agrarian society, which had previously been organised within, and restricted by, a manorial system.

  The development of the mining districts north of the Lake Mälaren stands out as an elucidative example. The advanced blast furnace technique had been well-established in these areas since the end of the twelfth century. However, it was not until it began to be organised as a collective enterprise of freeholders after 1350, that this mining activity could be developed and specialised, then becoming one of the economic mainstays of the new nation state in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries (Fig. 58). A full understanding of the transition from subordinated tenants to self-owning peasant miners is still lacking but probably it occurred in the later part of the fourteenth century. The peasant miners taking part in the rebellion of the 1430s, are no tormented losers in the wake of the big crisis but a well-organised group with a new social identity.

  Specialisation and division of labour were central elements of west European societies in early modern times, the economy of the households increasingly being oriented towards a market.13 By all accounts we see a beginning of this already in the late Middle Ages. Despite the loss of at least half of the population, people were able to turn the negative trend, increasing the productivity of households through specialisation. So, the decline at the middle of the fourteenth century included the downfall of a social system as well the start of a new one.

  However, there is still another aspect of the crisis to reflect on – the cultural one. So far, a cultural perspective has been practically invisible in the research of the crisis, mostly being studied from a socio-economic point of view. In Chapter 5 significant regional differences of late-medieval Sweden were emphasised, differences hardly being comprehensible from other than a cultural perspective. Primarily, these differences have been about various approaches to the landscape, to the single farm and the towns. Essentially, the focus here has been directed towards the eastern and western parts of southern Sweden respectively.

  The differences mentioned above were the result of cultural divergence being discernable at the earliest in the thirteenth century. This phenomenon was a decisive, continued movement in society, which did not come to an end because of the late-medieval crisis. On the contrary, the latter strengthened the cultural differences, thus making it reasonable to discuss them in a wider historical context.

  Fig. 58. Ruin of a blast furnace from the eighteenth century by the factory of Silvhytteå in the municipality of Hedemora, province of Dalarna (photo: Bengt A. Lundberg, Swedish National Heritage Board)

  The previous discussion on the regional differences has primarily revolved around the following phenomena: mobility versus continuity of the settlement structure, the interact
ion between town and countryside as well as the relation between social forms of cooperation and proto-industrial activities. In the opinion of this author, the agrarian society of the west, as in the province of Halland, showed great spatial flexibility, adjusting settlement to a new orientation of production in the late Middle Ages. In the east people seem to have acted within a spatial structure, staying fixed since the High Middle Ages and further on in the time of the crisis.

  In the eastern parts of Sweden a strong interaction between towns and countryside was a significant part of the survival strategies in the time of the crisis. However, in the west the late-medieval towns were of little importance for their surrounding countryside. On the contrary, the peasants of this region seem to have developed a trade of their own, independent of the towns.

  In the east activities of a proto-industrial character were developed in the late Middle Ages, above all in the iron producing districts north of the Lake Mälaren, taking the form of villages of peasant miners. In the west no such activities were developed except for the southern part of Halland where proto-industrial iron making was established in the late Middle Ages.14 Specialised activities were developed in the west in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however being restricted to the context of the single farmstead.

  How is it possible to comprehend these regional contrasts in a wider perspective? In recent years Swedish historian Christer Winberg has presented the most profound study on Swedish regional characteristics, focusing mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.15 Making some references towards earlier periods, he emphasizses “three formative phases” as particularly decisive in the regional development of the western and eastern parts of Sweden respectively.16