Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600), 9) 9782503593999, 2503593992

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, Magdalena E. Naum, and Jette Linaa. Introduction
Volker Demuth. The Same, but Different: Reflections on Some Medieval Stoneware Vessels Found in Norway
Sergio Escribano-Ruiz. On How to Keep the Monopoly of Diversity: Itineraries of Foreign Pottery in the Basque Country, AD1300–1700
Jette Linaa. Memorable, Modern, or Mundane? Investigating the Place of Porcelain and Majolica in Homes and Hearts in Early Modern Denmark
Miguel Busto Zapico. A Mandatory Stop: The Trade of Imported Pottery in Asturias (the NW Iberian Peninsula) during the Early Modern Period
Rachel Facius. Pilgrim Badges and the Magical Middle Ages: Aspects of the Cult of Saints, Magical Thinking, and Religious Identity
Samantha Garwood. Producers, Intermediaries, and Consumers: The Role of Adriatic Ports in the Venetian Glass Trade
Aleksandra Kulesz. Clothing Cultures in the Seventeenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: The Male Footwear from Elbląg as an Example of Western-Type Fashion
Magdalena E. Naum, Cajsa Sjöberg, Håkan Håkansson, Anders Lindskog, Mats E. Eriksson, and Per Ah lberg. Kilian Stobæus and his Fossil Collections: Science, Aesthetics, and Emotions
Back Matter

Citation preview

Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF DAILY LIFE (800–1600) Volume 9 General Editor Gerhard Jaritz, Central European University Editorial Board David Austin, University of Wales Lampeter Christian Krötzl, University of Tampere Svetlana Luchitskaya, Russian Academy of Sciences Anu Mänd, University of Tallinn Daniel Smail, Harvard University Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Archaeological Perspectives

Edited by Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover images (clockwise from top left): Porcelain dish from the VOC-ship Witte Leeuw, stranded in 1613. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. (NG-1978-127-6442-W). Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, released into public domain. British or French lead Pilgrim’s Badge with Saint Leonard, fifteenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters Collection, 1986.77.1. Image released into public domain. Fossilized Echinoids from the collection of Kilian Stobæus, originally at the Museum Stobæanum. Photo: Gunnar Menander, courtesy of Magdalena Naum. Glass situla, early sixteenth century, Venice (Murano). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Edward C. Moore Collection, 91.1.1433. Image released into public domain. © 2021, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/105 ISBN 978-2-503-59399-9 E-ISBN 978-2-503-59400-2 10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.123705 ISSN 2565-8212 eISSN 2565-9561 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

7

Introduction 11 Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, Magdalena E. Naum, and Jette Linaa The Same, but Different: Reflections on Some Medieval Stoneware Vessels Found in Norway 25 Volker Demuth On How to Keep the Monopoly of Diversity: Itineraries of Foreign Pottery in the Basque Country, ad 1300–1700 51 Sergio Escribano-Ruiz Memorable, Modern, or Mundane?: Investigating the Place of Porcelain and Majolica in Homes and Hearts in Early Modern Denmark 73 Jette Linaa A Mandatory Stop: The Trade of Imported Pottery in Asturias (the NW Iberian Peninsula) during the Early Modern Period 113 Miguel Busto Zapico Pilgrim Badges and the Magical Middle Ages: Aspects of the Cult of Saints, Magical Thinking, and Religious Identity 143 Rachel Facius Producers, Intermediaries, and Consumers: The Role of Adriatic Ports in the Venetian Glass Trade 173 Samantha Garwood Clothing Cultures in the Seventeenth-Century PolishLithuanian Commonwealth: The Male Footwear from Elbląg as an Example of Western-Type Fashion 211 Aleksandra Kulesz

6

ta bl e o f co n t e n t s

Kilian Stobæus and his Fossil Collections: Science, Aesthetics, and Emotions 235 Magdalena E. Naum, Cajsa Sjöberg, Håkan Håkansson, Anders Lindskog, Mats E. Eriksson, and Per Ahlberg Index

257

List of Illustrations

Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa

Figure 1.1. Location of towns and regions mentioned in the chapters of the book.18

Volker Demuth

Figure 2.1. Miniature jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from Utstein monastery, Rogaland, Norway. Stavanger, Arkeologisk museum. Late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.28 Figure 2.2. Miniature jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from the deserted village of Marsleben near Quedlinburg, Federal state Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany’. Halle, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte. Late fourteenth century.32 Figure 2.3. Fragmented drinking jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from Bryggen in Bergen, Norway. Bergen, University Museum. Late fourteenth century.37 Figure 2.4. Drinking jug in Lower Saxon stoneware found on the seabed at Næroy, Trøndelag, Norway. Rørvik, Kystmuseet NORVEG Trøndelag. Late fourteenth century.41

Sergio Escribano-Ruiz

Figure 3.1. Geographic area studied in this chapter.54 Figure 3.2. Overall percentages of pottery consumption in Araba according to general types of pottery.54 Figure 3.3. Some examples of imported glazed and white glazed pottery.57 Figure 3.4. First imported glazed jars ( Jarro 11-XII) and local production ( Jarro 11-XXXI, Jarro 11-XXXVII). First imported glazed bowl and local production.61

Jette Linaa

Figure 4.1. Elsinore and the Sound, c. 1590. Georg Braun (1551–1622) and Franz Hogenberg (1540–1590): Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Köln c. 1590.77 Figure 4.2. Yearly passages of ships through the Sound 1568–1660.78 Figure 4.3. Numbers of immigrants and Danes living in Elsinore 1560–1645.78 Figure 4.4. Reconstruction of the cadastral map of Elsinore 1645.79 Figure 4.5. Porcelain dish from the VOC-ship Witte Leeuw that stranded in 1613.82

8

l i s t o f il lu s t r at i o n s

Figure 4.6. Italian majolica dish with a blacksmith and a cupid in a landscape, workshop of Piero Bergantini, 1521–1523.82 Figure 4.7. Overview of production dates and deposition dates of archaeologically recovered porcelain in Elsinore and Copenhagen.87 Figure 4.8. The social profile of Elsinore 1571–1650 in seven economic categories.90 Figure 4.9. Ownership of porcelain and majolica among social groups in Elsinore across four time periods.91 Figure 4.10. Ownership of majolica and porcelain among the occupational groups of the city.93 Figure 4.11. Global goods owned by Danes,p 1571–1650.95 Figure 4.12. Global goods owned by migrants, 1571–1650.96 Figure 4.13. Global goods owned by Danes, 1590–1600.96 Figure 4.14. Global goods owned by migrants, 1590–1600.97 Figure 4.15. Global goods owned by Danes, 1640–1650.97 Figure 4.16. Global goods owned by migrants, 1640–1650.98 Figure 4.17. Dining with cherries in a porcelain bowl; a prosperous Calvinist family. Anonymous painter, 1627. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.101

Miguel Busto Zapico

Figure 5.1. 1. Location of Asturias and the archaeological contexts studied. 2. Pottery sample divided by archaeological contexts (percentages of the graph expressed in MNI). 3. Pottery sample divided by archaeological sites (quantity expressed in MNI).115 Figure 5.2. 1. Pottery sample divided by pottery workshops. 2. Morphology of each of the pottery specimens (percentages expressed in MNI). 3. Technical and aesthetic pottery analysis (percentages expressed in MNI). 4. Functional groups of pottery (percentages and quantity expressed in MNI). 5. Pottery forms (percentages and quantity expressed in MNI).118 Figure 5.3. 1. Consumption of imported pottery in Asturias from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century (percentages expressed in MNI). 2. Imported pottery consumption divided by archaeological contexts. 3. Graph with the evolution of consumption patterns of imported pottery in Asturias from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century divided by archaeological contexts (quantity expressed in MNI).123 Figure 5.4. 1. Graph with the evolution of consumption patterns of imported pottery in Asturias from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century divided by pottery workshops (quantity expressed in Mni). 2. Location of the main ceramic workshops cited in the text.125 Figure 5.5. In groups of two: pottery pieces found in Asturias (left) and their parallels (right).136

li st o f i llu st rat i o ns

Rachel Facius

Figure 6.1. A pilgrim badge from Santiago de Compostela representing St James.144 Figure 6.2. Chronology of the pilgrim badges found in Jutland.149 Figure 6.3. Pilgrim badge depicting Mary and child.163 Table 6.1. Badges found in Jutland: origins, motif, and number of badges found.148 Table 6.2. All pilgrim badges included in the analysis and their find circumstances.151

Samantha Garwood

Figure 7.1. Fragment of small bowl decorated with millefiori pieces. Muzej grada Šibenika.189 Map 7.1. Map of truncated conical beaker distribution.179 Map 7.2. Map showing distribution of truncated conical beakers with blue trail rims.179 Map 7.3. Map of cupped rim beaker distribution.180 Map 7.4. Map showing distribution of prunted beakers from the earlier period.182 Map 7.5. Map showing distribution of prunted beakers from the later period.183 Map 7.6. Map of krautstrunk distribution.183 Map 7.7. Map of gambassini distribution.184 Map 7.8. Map showing distribution of beakers with mould-blown decoration.184 Map 7.9. Map showing distribution of goblets with hollow feet.185 Map 7.10. Map showing distribution of goblets with lion-mask stems.186 Map 7.11. Map of biconical bottle distribution.191 Map 7.12. Map of inghistera bottle distribution.191 Map 7.13. Map of kuttrolf bottle distribution.193 Map 7.14. Map showing distribution of tall, square bottles.193 Map 7.15. Map showing distribution of bottles with white trail rims.194

Aleksandra Kulesz

Figure 8.1. Elbląg’s location.212 Figure 8.2. David Bailly, Portrait of Prince Janusz Radziwiłł. Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu. 1632.218 Figure 8.3. Daniel Schultz, Portrait of Prince Janusz Radziwiłł. The National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. 1652 or 1654220 Figure 8.4. 1. catalogue number 10. a – vamp, b – sole, c – welt, d – insole, e – heel, f – heel layer. 2. catalogue number 8. a – vamp, b – sidereinforcement, c – toe-reinforcement, d, e – quartiers. 3. catalogue number 5. a – horizontal projection, b – vertical section. 4. catalogue number 13. 5. catalogue number 9.229

9

10

l i s t o f il lu s t r at i o n s

Magdalena E. Naum, Cajsa Sjöberg, Håkan Håkansson, Anders Lindskog, Mats E. Eriksson and Per Ahlberg

Figure 9.1. Portrait of Kilian Stobæus in his museum painted by K. P. Mörth.239 Figure 9.2. Network of scholars who exchanged fossils and publications on palaeontology with Stobæus.242 Figure 9.3. Examples of Stobæus’s ‘Brattensborg coins’ (Isocrania) from his dissertation De Nummulo Brattensburgensi nec non Frondosis Cornu Ammonis (1732, figs 1, 3) and a photograph of the specimens from the collections of the Department of Geology, Lund University.245 Figure 9.4. Stobæus’s Cornu Ammonis (Patagiosites stobaei) as illustrated in his De Nummulo Brattensburgensi nec non Frondosis Cornu Ammonis (1732, fig. 7).246

Sergio Es cribano- R uiz, Magdalena  E . N au m, and Jette Linaa

Introduction

From European to Global Things Medieval and early modern Europe was interconnected through a web of mercantile, dynastic, religious, social, and family networks that to various degrees relied on exchanges of things. The logistics of these exchanges and connections relied on a complex system of roads. The major land highways, such as Via Imperii and Via Regia, coastal seaways, and a myriad of smaller routes joined distant regions of the continent with each other, serving as conduits for commodities and ideas. Considering this interconnected nature of Europe, it is not surprising to find a wide spectrum of commodities in the continental households. The archaeological and historical record suggests that since the thirteenth century, European markets continued to expand and offer an increasing diversity of objects (Gutierrez 2018, 890–91). Residents of the fourteenth-century castle in Warsaw, Poland, for example, dined on glazed ceramics manufactured in Denmark, northern Germany, the Low Countries, and Russia (Auch and Trzecieski 2007), while burghers of fifteenth-century English Hull could purchase frying pans, pipkins, and bowls produced in the Low Countries, jugs and pitchers from south-west France, German stoneware, as well as lusterware bowls from Spain (Evans 2019). The households and shops in the sixteenth-century Danish town of Malmö contained commodities such as textiles and finished clothing articles from Amsterdam, Deventer, Bruges, Cambrai, Arras, and England, salt from Baie de Bourgneuf, beer from Pomerania, Norwegian dried cod, Spanish rapiers, and gloves and skins from Russia (Bager 1977). By the seventeenth century, residents of the Prague Castle in the Czech Republic acquired a taste for Mediterranean plants, such as grapes, figs, olives, rice, almonds, and pistachios, and Asian spices and seeds, such as black paper Sergio Escribano-Ruiz    University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU Jette Linaa    MOMU/Aarhus University Magdalena E. Naum    Aarhus University Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Archaeological Perspectives, ed. by Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, HDL 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) pp. 11-24 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.123733

12

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

and coffee, and were introduced to the North American plants, such as tobacco, peanuts, and pumpkins (Beneš and others 2012). The examination of continental food culture in particular illustrates that robust medieval mercantile connections expanded beyond the borders of Europe reaching Asia and Africa, and from the late fifteenth century onwards the New World, reaching a truly global scope. There is an increasing number of authors who, by analysing material aspects of the past, are demanding in-depth study of the development and timescales of globalization1 (LaBianca and Scham 2006; Jennings 2010; Pitts and Versluys 2014; Hodos 2016b). The importance of the late medieval period should be taken into consideration to explain this process, given that it represents a mobilization of both individuals and material things on an unprecedented geographical scale leading to the emergence of shared practices, ideologies, and identities (Campbell 2016; Jervis 2017). In the course of this geographical expansion, direct access from Europe to Asia, and the obsession with the latter’s commodities, led to major unexpected changes worldwide, such as the colonization of the Americas. With the systematic expansion of European kingdoms across the length and breadth of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the entire world became interconnected (Hausberger 2018, 33–38). Hence, the geographical exploration and conquest initiated in the fifteenth century propelled the increasingly globalized flow of things and ideas. One of the issues raised in the scholarship is how the globalization process affected consumption — whether it was gradually becoming defined by the market and buying power (Hausberger 2018, 23). Although the production and consumption process of certain materials could be defined through an economic lens, such as trading networks and local technology, supply and demand, and prices and wages, it was also conditioned by many other factors such as customs, taste, beliefs, or emotions. One shall therefore bear in mind that the significance of material things is rooted in a multitude of contexts in which their roles, uses, and meanings are negotiated and appropriated (Hahn and Weiss 2013a, 1). The interaction between these aspects within different frameworks of time and space would go on to define the value of things for those who produced, consumed, or disregarded them (Appadurai 1991, 17–19; Van Oyen 2016, 355; Jones and Alberti 2016, 24). In this anthology, we have brought together works that constitute an attempt to address the complexity of relationships between people and their material world. By analysing the movement of certain materials throughout Europe and the ways new objects and technologies were perceived and used



1 The term ‘globalization’ is variously defined in archaeology and history as either a postsixteenth-century phenomenon of truly worldwide engagement or occurrence of dense spatial (but not necessarily worldwide) connections and networks resulting in shared practices, technologies, ideologies, and identities (see Hodos 2016a for exploration of the concept and further references).

i nt ro d u ct i o n

by Europeans, we want to draw attention to the continental connectivity and its significance in the periods preceding establishment of worldwide networks. Focusing on circulation of European things in the early modern period, we want to draw attention to the continuity of continental connections in the period experiencing rapid access to global commodities and their place alongside things arriving from Asia and the Americas. In many ways, this is an approach enhancing current scholarship. Even though specific, exemplary works do exist about the mobility of objects and the transformative effects of this movement on things and people (e.g. Beaudry and Parno 2013; Hahn and Weiss 2013b; Gerritsen and Riello 2016; Heitz and Stapfer 2017b; Joyce and Gillespie 2015a; Bauer and Agbe-Davies 2016; Hodos 2016b), our geographical attention is on case studies from contexts rarely discussed internationally, and diversity of conceptual approaches to objects complement and expand existing research. We also believe that it is necessary to consolidate this line of research. Although it may seem paradoxical, the archaeological research on globalization in the period under study, particularly the relationship between late medieval mercantile interests, consumption, and exploration and its impact on forging global networks and consumer appetites in the following centuries, is a recent, incipient phenomenon within European archaeology, especially outside of the UK (Escribano-Ruiz 2019). Nonetheless, the field of historical archaeology is ready to approach material objects that have moved across the continent and all over the world in order to produce insightful, multiscalar, innovative, and time- and place-sensitive narratives on the nature of connectivity, human–object entanglements, ideologies, and world views that shaped consumption. It is no coincidence that all the essays in this book demonstrate how actively archaeological studies may contribute to an improved understanding of the late medieval and early modern period in this regard.

In Pursuit of Travelling Material Things The development of material exchanges and the movement of things across increasingly larger geographies affected relations between people and things. Investigation of these processes requires an appropriate methodological and theoretical approach. A perspective stressing the interconnectedness of the late medieval and early modern world and the complex way in which it affected consumption and circulation of things as well as the importance of employing different scales of analysis to appreciate the consequences of this material connectivity was first advanced in American historical archaeology (Orser 1996, 183–204). This approach is also embraced by post-medieval European archaeology (e.g. Johnson 2006). Nowadays, it is naturally assumed that many of the material things surviving from the past can be best understood from a contextual, relational, and multiscale

13

14

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

standpoint, so as to enable the many links between different sets of materials and human perception of the objects to be explored. A precise mapping of movement of things is merely the starting point of analysis (Van Oyen 2016, 355), the aim of which is to understand why and how things moved in the first place, how and why were they consumed, how their use related to gender, age, and social status, and how the objects shaped human action and experiences. The attention to objects and their mobility has been at the core of archaeological inquiry from the formation of the discipline. From the early migrationist thinking assuming that material culture and cultural change can only happen through human migration and diffusionist theories promoting slightly more complex explanation of cultural and material transmission, over the last four decades, the approach to material culture underwent significant methodological and conceptual shifts. Always central for the discipline, the typo-chronological, technological, and provenience approaches were enriched by more acute attention to the ways material things structure human experiences and more sophisticated thinking about the multifacetedness of interactions between people and things (e.g. Tilley 2006; Miller 2010; Hodder 2012). Questions of what is it, how old, how and where was it made are enriched by inquiry into the networks that move objects around, the meanings of things for their makers and users, the multisensory and biographical dimensions of things, processes of commodification and singularization, and webs of interdependencies that bring objects and people together, to mention a few. This way of thinking is in accord with the so-called material turn that started in the 1980s and 1990s, swept across the humanities and social sciences, and saw the traditionally archaeological concern with material culture embraced and enriched by other disciplines. The new scholarship recognizes things as composites of materials, knowledge, experiences, and social relations, in pursuit of which many researchers appear to follow the methodological suggestion put forward by Arjun Appadurai (1991, 19) to engage with the things themselves, in the search for meanings inscribed in their forms, uses, and trajectories. Generally speaking, there would appear to be a certain consensus in maintaining that studies of material culture have tended to be pursued within a plural and fragmented theoretical framework over the past few decades. Although changes of research direction have been frequent and the widespread practice of theoretical loans led to a multiplicity of approaches, this plurality is not necessarily an obstacle but rather a productive strength, inviting serious reflection on the subject of materiality. The same can be said about multidisciplinarity of research on material culture. The converging of history, archaeology, and anthropology allows for richer, multifaceted, and contextualized accounts of object exchanges, mobilities, and appropriations (Beaudry and Parno 2013; Gerritsen and Riello 2015, 3–5; Gerritsen and Riello 2016 1–3; Heitz and Stapfer 2017a, 20–28; Van Oyen 2017), although it must be admitted that truly interdisciplinary studies engaging

i nt ro d u ct i o n

methodological and conceptual strengths of different disciplines are still rather rare. Archaeology, which has developed sophisticated methods for establishing provenience and chronological and stylistic developments as well as spatial distribution of material objects, for example, can be employed to a much higher degree in historical and art-historical studies of material things and its continental and global exchanges and appropriations (Buchli and Lucas 2001, 8). Archaeology provides a unique lens for tracing the paths (geographical, temporal, cultural) taken by material things. Identifying materials from the past and tracing their trajectories and lives has been and will remain one of the disciplinary strengths (Olsen 2013, 4; Olivier 2013, 120). This is the path we follow in this volume.

Global Constellations of Itinerant Materials In this book, we try to take advantage of the potential of archaeology to trace the roots and routes of things (Knappett 2016, 39), with the aim of understanding the effects of their movement through Europe during the late medieval and early modern period. Even if movement is considered to be a fundamental capacity of things ( Joyce and Gillespie 2015b, 3), the previously mentioned growing mobility and connectivity characteristic to this period meant the creation of several new constellations (Van Oyen 2016) of diverse thing assemblages ( Jones and Alberti 2016, 16). Increasingly large, but also itinerant, hybrid, and miscellaneous congregations of materials are characteristic for the archaeological record from this period. Despite the fact that these relationships between materials and their larger consequences are explored in the recent scholarship, we have avoided contextualizing this volume within the theoretical framework of assemblages. On the one hand, this is because the concept and method of assemblage can be ambiguous and confusing (Lucas 2012; Hamilakis and Jones 2017) and has been overused in recent times. That is precisely the reason why we do not wish to add a new category to the considerable variety of such assemblages, which cover practice (Antczak and Beaudry 2019), biopolitics (Corcoran-Tadd and Pezzarossi 2018), senses (Hamilakis 2017), and even specific cultural groups (González Álvarez and Alonso González 2013). On the other hand, the use of the concept requires an in-depth theoretical study and explicit debate that we are not prepared to pursue in this book. This would compel authors to align themselves around a specific theoretical concept, and that has never been our objective. On the contrary, we have encouraged the authors to apply diverse approaches that best suit their research questions and empirical material. We have opted to take the epistemic leap, which starts by identifying and tracing material exchanges, with a view to then explore the meaning of things as they enter different sociocultural contexts and define processes in play and their impact on people’s attitudes towards material things.

15

16

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

In some ways, the content of this book aligns with the theoretical framework of relational constellations described by Astrid Van Oyen as things and their agency ‘structured by the relations articulated by the material practices in which these things were enrolled’ (2016, 360). Van Oyen argues that things, as essential components of virtually any practice, are defined by the specific relations they participate in within that practice. A thing’s possibilities for action are defined in relation to a goal, desire, or necessity in which that thing figures. The relations in which a particular thing is involved are shaped by the contingencies of practice anchored in time and place (Van Oyen 2016, 360–61). These relational constellations can have varied degrees of fluidity and rootedness depending on sociocultural and technological context (Van Oyen 2016, 363). This way of thinking is close to the essential idea of assemblage put forward by Jones and Alberti (2016, 30), particularly because it involves examining the changing nature and effect of materials on their move from one group or set of relations to another. In taking on that perspective, this book considers certain issues which should be studied in depth, as has been pointed out in recent debates about the adaptation of the theory of assemblages in archaeology. These are the questions of how assemblages become, stabilize, persist, and dissolve (Lucas 2017, 190), how the nature of relational constellations — their fluidity, categoricalness, or rootedness — relates to different sociocultural, geographical, and chronological contexts and ideologies. Scrutinizing these questions requires empirical observation. By engaging with diverse empirical material and tracing the interactions of people, ideas, and materials across time, space, and different social settings, the essays in this book consider whether things on the move acquired new meanings and values by transforming their new settings and what kind of relational constellations they have entered. Throughout this introduction, we have been alternately referring to our main purpose of study using terms such as ‘things’, ‘materials’, and ‘material things’. Although we do not consider nominalism to be a problem per se, we do think it is important to explain the reasons why priority has been given to certain concepts. On the one hand, we assume that the purpose of our study is materiality and materials and that these are important in themselves — not because of their inclusion within a given cultural framework ( Jones and Alberti 2016, 22–27). On the other, we feel more comfortable talking about things rather than objects — not only because we like to understand archaeology as the discipline of things (Olsen and others 2012), but because of the underlying theoretical implications in choosing the concept ‘thing’ to denote the material result of interdependencies and connections (practical and ideational), ‘gatherings of materials in movement’ (Ingold 2012, 439; Antczak and Beaudry 2019, 88–91), ‘congealed moments in a longer social trajectory’ (Appadurai 2006, 15), a subject that takes central stage in structuring human lives (Brown 2001; Miller 2010). At times, to avoid the ambiguous nature of the term ‘thing’ we choose to operate with a more concise concept of ‘materials’. Conversely, on other occasions, we take advantage of the vagueness attributed to the term.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Things on the Move: Outline of the Volume The idea of this book was put forward at the annual meeting of the European Archaeologists Association held in Maastricht (Netherlands) in 2017. There, Jette Linaa and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz organized a debate session entitled ‘European Things in Motion: Transnational Material Culture during the 14th and 17th Centuries’. The aim of the session was to map out a series of archaeological materials and bring them together in a discussion on itinerant material things (Figure 1.1). The stimulating and wide-ranging set of papers and debates that ensued inspired us to publish the studies. The call for papers for the special edition required authors to consider how things on the move acquired new meanings and values and transformed social relations and environment in their new setting. In this regard, we asked all authors to discuss at least two of the following points: the contribution of archaeology and related sciences to provenience studies; the role of transport, trade, and exchange; the changing significance and purpose of things from one context to another; and the various effects of imports on host societies. Four studies in this book choose ceramic as an empirical material but approach it through somewhat different perspectives. Ceramics, due to their ubiquity in late medieval and early modern households, diversity of forms, uses, and aesthetics, as well as the fact that they preserve well in archaeological material, are a useful group of objects for exploring social, cultural, technological, and economic processes in the past, including globalization trends. Volker Demuth explores a few examples of late medieval German stoneware vessels found in Norway through an object biography perspective. This approach allows him to address the trajectories of the vessels from their production, trade, and distribution channels to their uses after they have been brought to Norway and their entanglement in different social and cultural practice. Sergio Escribano-Ruiz investigates consumption of continental ceramic in the Basque Country from a long-term perspective of four centuries. The picture that emerges is of increased uses of ceramics over time and their prominent role in table setting, of active, fashion-minded local producers and consumers with highly localized and idiosyncratic preferences of pottery who recognized the communicative, sensory, and discursive aspects of ceramics, and of upper classes for whom exclusive ceramics had potential in projecting their cultural capital and taste. Jette Linaa explores the consumption of Mediterranean majolica and Chinese porcelains in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Helsingør (Denmark) based on probate inventories and archaeology. She focuses on the aura of preciousness these highly decorated ceramics had and connects them with emerging early modern lifestyles. She also explores their cultural and affective dimensions and the way they defined the experience of the Dutch diaspora in the town. Miguel Busto Zapico analyses continental and global trade in ceramics in early modern Asturias. The long chronological approach allows him to explore changes in pottery

17

18

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

Figure 1.1. Location of towns and regions mentioned in the chapters of the book. Map: Moesgaard Museum.

production and consumption through time, to account for shifting fashions and tastes on a local and regional level, as well as to discuss the patterns of connectivity with the outside world. He also relates the consumption of ceramics with larger economic and sociocultural developments in the region arguing that they are good indicators of this dynamism.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

The remaining four chapters engage other types of materials: pilgrim badges, glass, clothes, and fossils as examples of early modern collectables. Rachel Facius explores a religious ideology that embraced pilgrimage as a form of travel that moved medieval inhabitants of Jutland (Denmark) across Europe focusing, in particular, on the material souvenirs of this endeavour — pilgrim badges. She sees them as multifaceted things endowed with sanctity, radioactivity, and agency, inviting multisensory engagements and deeply entangled with medieval spirituality and world view. Samantha Garwood examines complex and dynamic systems of medieval and early modern trade exchanges moving Venetian glass across the Balkans and beyond that not only involved an intricate logistical network of land and sea routes, but also a group of diverse actors: glassmakers, agents, merchants, sailors, carriers, pirates, and customers. She explores, among other things, the consciousness and tastes of the consumers by drawing attention to the relationship between the material, technological, and aesthetic qualities of glass, its economic value, and the social spectrum of those purchasing glass vessels. Aleksandra Kulesz investigates male footwear and clothing culture in seventeenth-century Elbląg (Poland) in the context of two coexisting fashion trends in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: ‘German’ fashion (largely following Western styles) and Polish dress influenced by Eastern traditions. Among other things, she considers how fashions spread and what motivates fashion choices. She also explores the impact of clothing on shaping one’s social persona and projecting one’s own beliefs and identity illustrating, through examples, the reciprocal relations between people and clothes. The last chapter by Magdalena Naum, Cajsa Sjöberg, Håkan Håkansson, Anders Lindskog, Mats E. Eriksson, and Per Ahlberg takes a different empirical turn. Rather than focusing on consumer goods, it engages fossils from the museum of Kilian Stobæus, an eighteenth-century Swedish collector, placing them in the context of continental scholarly networks and the culture of collecting that blossomed in early modern Europe. Identifying fossils as scientific, social, and pleasure objects, and informed by the theories of agency and materiality, the study explores the circulation of fossils, the constellation of people and ideas they brought together, and the mutually constitutive ties between the fossils and the collector. The volume as a whole analyses certain emerging, dynamic networks (Knappett 2016) by highlighting the movement of things and their transforming effects, which are replete with contingent trajectories and unpredictable outcomes. In doing so we make the assumption that things are not inert, but rather that they change depending on their contexts and that their values are created, maintained, rejected, or even denied (Hahn and Weiss 2013a, 1–9). Things undergo a continuous process of conversion, of becoming (Ingold 2012, 431–35), appearing in different forms at any given time, and absorbing meanings in specific ways (Hahn and Weiss 2013a, 9). These circumstances turn things into vibrant subjects, and their analysis as such may contribute towards a dynamism that is sometimes absent in the narratives of the past.

19

20

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

The authors analyse imported material things — those that were moved from their place of origin and have been recovered at far-off places. It has been maintained that these materials play a specific role, as their origin may bestow on them a greater value or add an aura of a specific nature, of uniqueness (Hahn and Weiss 2013a, 5). Perhaps for this reason new things entail transforming consequences, either because of the effect of the things themselves or owing to a more widespread social change that lends them a new meaning (Hahn and Weiss 2013a, 8). A mutually affective and constitutive bond is created between a new thing and the one that receives it (Beaudry and Parno 2013, 2), which can also be extended to material practices in domestic life (Highmore 2016). These bonds and relations may have diverse and dynamic characters, however. Some of them are explored across the different geographic, temporal, and social contexts covered in this book.

Itinerant Material Things for Confined People We are writing this introduction about the advent of globalization and its effects on materials and people just at a time when a new phase would seem to be emerging within the globalization process. The biological movement of the COVID-19 virus reached a worldwide scale, kick-starting an era of recession with a profound social impact. The apparently infinite mobility and the intense interpersonal interconnectivity that contributed to the rapid spread of the pandemic also paved the way for a new virtual, social reality — an emergent future previously only outlined in fiction that has suddenly become a non-negotiable present. Confined to our houses, we are confronted with novel social and material circumstances. Regardless of the uneasiness and vulnerability created by the global pandemic, the situation has also raised major questions for archaeology. It has provided us with the chance to reflect on the relationship between mobility and things and our dependency on things. While most of us were confined, things kept on being produced without pause, and being circulated around the world to satisfy consumer needs and calm the fears of scarcity. The extraordinary situation of confinement confronted many of us with the thingness of the material world of our homes, changing our relationships and perception of objects and introducing us to new material things, such as masks and face coverings. It redefined our consumption habits, social interactions, and properly dressed bodies at an accelerated speed. The pandemic is an extreme example. It is not to be thought as an analogy to the times and processes discussed in the book, but it invites, nonetheless, a reflection on the long histories of continental and global connections that although created for calculated purpose, have also brought about and keep on bringing unexpected outcomes. It is also the most recent and exaggerated illustration of the degrees to which we have become dependent on things and have become dependent on goods and commodities made elsewhere — both phenomena having long historical trajectories. It

i nt ro d u ct i o n

also invites a consideration of how new constellations of things can come about and stabilize, and how human engagements with materials and things are impacted and shaped by specific situations and contexts. In this sense, it is an illustrative modern example of the processes that also occurred in the past and are scrutinized in this book.

Works Cited Antczak, K. A., and M. C. Beaudry. 2019. ‘Assemblages of Practice: A Conceptual Framework for Exploring Human–Thing Relations in Archaeology’, Archaeological Dialogues, 26.2: 87–110 Appadurai, A. 1991. ‘Introducción: Las mercancías y la política del valor’, in La vida social de las cosas: Perspectiva cultural de las mercancías, ed. by A. Appadurai (Grijalbo: México DF), pp. 17–87 ———. 2006. ‘The Thing Itself ’, Public Culture, 18.1: 15–21 Auch, Michał, and Maciej Trzecieski. 2007. ‘Średniowieczne importy ceramiczne z badań na dziedzińcu głównym pałacu Pod Blachą’, Kronika Zamkowa, 1–2: 127–54 Bager, Einar. 1977. Malmø skifter, vol. i: Bofortegnelser 1546–1559 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie) Bauer, A. A., and A. S. Agbe-Davies. 2016. Social Archaeologies of Trade and Exchange: Exploring Relationships among People, Places, and Things (London: Routledge) Beaudry, M., and T. G. Parno. 2013. ‘Introduction: Mobilities in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology’, in Archaeologies of Mobility and Movement, ed. by M. Beaudry and T. G. Parno (New York: Springer), pp. 1–14 Beneš, Jaromír, Věra Čulíkovác, Jitka Kosňovská, Jan Frolíkb, and Josef Matiášek. 2012. ‘New Plants at Prague Castle and Hradčany in the Early Modern Period: A History of Selected Species’, Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica, 3.1: 103–14 Brown, Bill. 2001. ‘Thing Theory’, Critical Inquiry, 28.1: 1–22 Buchli, V., and G. Lucas. 2001. ‘Introduction’, in Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, ed. by V. Buchli and G. Lucas (London: Routledge), pp. 3–18 Campbell, B. 2016. The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the LateMedieval World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Casella, E. C. 2016. ‘Horizons beyond the Perimeter Wall: Relational Materiality, Institutional Confinement, and the Archaeology of Being Global’, Historical Archaeology, 50.3: 127–43 Casimiro, T. M., and S. Newstead. 2019. ‘Portuguese Coarsewares in North Atlantic Trade (16th–18th Centuries)’, American Ceramic Circle Journal, 20: 59–82 Corcoran-Tadd, N., and G. Pezzarossi. 2018. ‘Between the South Sea and the Mountainous Ridges: Biopolitical Assemblages in the Spanish Colonial Americas’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 52.1: 84–101 Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio. 2019. ‘The Centrality of the Margins: Global Intersections of a Basque Rural Area during the Recent Past’, World Archaeology, 51.2: 273–90

21

22

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

Evans, D. H. 2019. ‘Continental Ceramic Imports into Hull between c. 1260 and c. 1700’, in Ceramics & Glass: A Tribute to Sarah Jennings, ed. by Julie Edwards and Sarah Payter, MPRG Occasional Paper, 8 (London: Museum of London), pp. 97–128 Gerritsen, A., and G. Riello. 2015. ‘Introduction: Writing Material Culture History’, in Writing Material Culture History, ed. by A. Gerritsen and G. Riello (London: Bloomsbury Publishing), pp. 1–13 ———. 2016. ‘Introduction. The Global Lives of Things: Material Culture in the First Global Age’, in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. by A. Gerritsen and G. Riello (London: Routledge), pp. 1–28 González Álvarez, D., and P. Alonso Gonzalez. 2013. ‘The “Celtic-Barbarian Assemblage”: Archaeology and Cultural Memory in the Fiestas de Astures y Romanos, Astorga, Spain’, Public Archaeology, 12.3: 155–80 González-Ruibal, A. 2013a. ‘Reclaiming Archaeology’, in Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, ed. by A. González-Ruibal (London: Routledge), pp. 1–29 ———. 2013b. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity (London: Routledge) Gutierrez, A. 2018. ‘Trade and Other Contacts in Late Medieval Britain’, in The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain, ed. by C. Gerrard and A. Gutierrez (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 887–908 Hahn, H. P., and H. Weiss. 2013a. ‘Introduction: Biographies, Travels and Itineraries of Things’, in Mobility, Meaning and the Transformation of Things, ed. by H. P. Hahn and H. Weiss (Oxford: Oxbow Books), pp. 1–14 ——— (eds). 2013b. Mobility, Meaning and the Transformation of Things (Oxford: Oxbow Books) Hamilakis, Y. 2017. ‘Sensorial Assemblages: Affect, Memory and Temporality in Assemblage Thinking’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27.1: 169–82 Hamilakis, Y., and A. M. Jones. 2017. ‘Archaeology and Assemblage’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27.1: 77–84 Hausberger, B. 2018. Historia mínima de la globalización temprana (México: el Colegio de México) Heitz, C., and R. B. Stapfer. 2017a. ‘Mobility and Pottery Production, What For? Introductory Remarks’, in Mobility and Pottery Production: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. by C. Heitz and R. B. Stapfer (Leiden: Sidestone Press), pp. 11–38 ——— (eds). 2017b. Mobility and Pottery Production: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives (Leiden: Sidestone Press) Highmore, B. 2016. ‘Formations of Feelings, Constellations of Things’, Cultural Studies Review, 22.1: 144–67 Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Malden: Willey-Blackwell) Hodos, Tamar. 2016a. ‘Globalization: Some Basics’, in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, ed. by Tamar Hodos (London: Routledge), pp. 3–11

i nt ro d u ct i o n

——— (ed.). 2016b. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization (London: Routledge) Ingold, Tim. 2012. ‘Towards an Ecology of Materials’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 41.1: 427–42 Jennings, J. (ed.). 2010. Beyond Wari Walls: Regional Perspectives on Middle Horizon Peru (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press) Jervis, B. 2017. ‘Assembling the Archaeology of the Global Middle Ages’, World Archaeology, 49.5: 666–80 Johnson, M. 2006. ‘The Tide Reversed: Prospects and Potentials for a Postcolonial Archaeology of Europe’, in Historical Archaeology, ed. by M. Hall and S. W. Silliman (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 313–31 Jones, A. M., and B. Alberti. 2016. ‘Archaeology after Interpretation’, in Archaeology after Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory, ed. by B. Alberti, A. M. Jones, and Y. J. Pollard (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press), pp. 15–35 Joyce, R., and S. D. Gillespie (eds). 2015a. Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press) ———. 2015b. ‘Making Things out of Objects that Move’, in Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice, ed. by R. Joyce and S. D. Gillespie (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press), pp. 3–19 Knappett, C. 2016. ‘Globalization, Connectivities and Networks’, in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, ed. by Tamar Hodos (London: Routledge), pp. 29–41 LaBianca, Ø. S. and S. A. Scham. 2006. Connectivity in Antiquity: Globalization as a Long-Term Historical Process (Oakville, CT: Equinox) Lucas, G. 2012. Understanding the Archaeological Record (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) ———. 2015. ‘The Mobility of Theory’, Current Swedish Archaeology, 23: 13–32 ———. 2017. ‘Variations on a Theme: Assemblage Archaeology’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27.1: 187–90 Miller, Daniel. 2010. Stuff (Cambridge: Polity) Olivier, L. 2013. ‘The Business of Archaeology Is the Present’, in Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, ed. by A. González-Ruibal (London: Routledge), pp. 124–26 Olsen, B. 2013. ‘Memory’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, ed. by P. Graves-Brown, R. Harrison and A. Piccini (Oxford: Oxford University Press), DOI: 10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199602001.013.026 Olsen, B., M. Shanks, T. Webmoor, and C. Witmore. 2012. Archaeology: The Discipline of Things (Berkeley: University of California Press) Orser, C. E., Jr. 1996. A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (New York: Springer) Pitts, M., and M. J. Versluys. 2014. Globalisation and the Roman World: World History, Connectivity and Material Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

23

24

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z , m ag dal e n a  e. nau m, and je t t e li naa

Tilley, Christopher. 2006. ‘Objectification’, in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. by Chris Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer (London: Sage), pp. 60–73 Van Oyen, A. 2016. ‘Historicising Material Agency: From Relations to Relational Constellations’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 23.1: 354–78 ———. 2017. ‘Material Culture and Mobility: A Brief History of Archaeological Thought’, in Mobility and Pottery Production: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. by C. Heitz and R. B. Stapfer (Leiden: Sidestone Press), pp. 53–65

Volker Demuth

The Same, but Different Reflections on Some Medieval Stoneware Vessels Found in Norway

Introduction: Aims and Methods Pottery studies are a wide and well-established field of historical archaeology. As ceramics very often appear in large quantities in medieval and early modern contexts, many studies emphasize the statistical significance and the representativeness of the material. This practice is without doubt an important branch of historical archaeology that delivers valuable results to various fields of research. In recent research, the analysis of medieval ceramics often seems to be mainly aimed towards the use of the material as a source for examining diverse cultural phenomena (e.g. Green 2018; Tøssebro 2011). This reflects a tendency in archaeology, which almost excuses itself for its occupation with material culture and for the dedicated examination of the ‘old things’ for their own sake (Olsen and others 2012, 7). Maybe this is a countermotion to older research, which often focused on technological and typological analysis, without using archaeological material like ceramics for broader conclusions other than developing a pottery chronology to date the stratigraphy of a site. In the present essay, I want to try to approach medieval ceramics by making them tell the possible stories they have been entangled with, being clear over the fact that many factors can merely be estimated (Hofmann 2015, 88). My focal points are individual vessels from different find spots in Norway. I will try to get closer to the ‘biography’ of these objects, which is a way of approaching material culture carried out by Kopytoff (1986), introducing the term ‘biography of things’. For archaeological research it is a fruitful procedure to ‘follow the things themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories’. (Appadurai 1986, 5). In many ways archaeological finds such as pottery can be regarded as ‘keyholes in time’ (Gaimster 2010, 143). Where do they come from, how did they get to the place where they have been found, which purposes did they fulfil, and Volker Demuth    University of Stavanger Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Archaeological Perspectives, ed. by Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, HDL 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) pp. 25-49 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.123734

26

vo l k e r d e m u t h

what did the objects mean to the people who were using them in the past? The archaeological context of the things are of substantial significance for this conception of decoding the bygone meaning and use of the objects of investigation (Kienlin and Kreuz 2015, 79). Thus by scrutinizing the ‘object biography’ one may get insight into various actors and networks that were involved with the vessels during production, distribution, and use. It is important to realize that the artefacts that are examined went through many hands on a long journey. That way we may be able to ‘engage with the objects “as lived with”’ (Prenell 2016, 40). After analysing the single object, one can compare it to an equivalent analysis of a similar vessel. By this means, differences in the functions and the significance of technological, typological, and chronological similarities between objects will become clear. Through the archaeological finds we have direct access to ‘the things people owned’, giving us a basis to discuss ‘the way they used them’ (Hamling and Richardson 2010, 1). It is an attempt to pay respect to both the details of the material and the individual object, without neglecting its broader meaning and interaction with various actors and networks.1

Medieval Pottery in Norway: A Very Brief Introduction Before starting with the actual topic of the paper, it feels necessary to give a brief introduction into characteristics and the current state of research on medieval pottery in Norway. The most striking peculiarity of medieval ceramics in Norway is that there was no indigenous pottery production in the country at all in the period between c. 1000 and 1650 ad. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of imported medieval pottery found in Norway. The first attempts at its examinations are from the first part of the twentieth century (Grieg 1933), but it was only after the upswing of modern urban archaeology in the period 1950–80 that serious scientific studies were conducted (Molaug 1975; Reed 1990). Especially Bergen, the most populous and economically most important medieval city in the country, plays an extraordinary role for Norwegian medieval archaeology (Herteig 1969, 12; Wubs-Mrozewicz 2012, 222). The medieval pottery from Bergen, which is the largest collection in the country, has been the subject of several studies dealing with specific wares. The first of these studies, dealing with the high medieval Pingsdorf ware, also gives a broad numeric overview of the wide spectrum of medieval and early modern pottery excavated in the central district of Bergen (Lüdtke 1989).

1 This paper emerged from a short presentation and the following discussions during a fantastic session at the 2017 EAA meeting in Maastricht, organized by Jette Linaa (Århus) and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz (Vitoria-Gasteiz) with the title: ‘European Things in Motion: Transnational Material Culture during the 14th and 17th Centuries’. Many thanks to the organizers and all participants for fruitful comments. Special thanks to Derek Hall (Stirling) for his efforts at rectifying my English. All residual faults are of course entirely mine!

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Some other studies concentrated on different wares from England, France, and Germany (Blackmore and Vince 1994; Demuth 2001a; Demuth 2015b; Deroeux, Dufournier, and Herteig 1994; Tøssebro 2011). There are also a few unpublished master’s theses (Brun 1996; Bueklev 2006), but research on medieval pottery has not been the main focus of recent medieval archaeology in Norway. Medieval ceramics appear in Norway almost exclusively at the coast and predominantly in the few urban centres such as Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger, and Tønsberg. Based on the studies mentioned above, one can sketch a rough pottery sequence for Norway. Wares from the Rhineland and the Netherlands, such as various greywares, glazed Andenne-type ware, and red-painted Pingsdorf type, dominate in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Most pottery appears as pitchers and pots. The mid-thirteenth to the fourteenth century sees a huge impact of (eastern) English glazed ware, with Grimston ware being the predominating one. Grimston ware was produced near King’s Lynn, which was the most important medieval port in England for the trade with Norway. Aside from the English wares, highly decorated earthenwares from southern Scandinavia, northern Germany, and the Netherlands also appear, accompanied by a few French glazed wares, such as Rouen ware and Saintonge. In the fourteenth century, ceramic vessels are predominantly for drinking and pouring or storage, such as jugs and eventually beakers. Various stonewares seem to arrive in Norway towards the late thirteenth century; they dominate at least the Bergen pottery sequence by the end of the fourteenth century and through the fifteenth century. In general, Siegburg stoneware is clearly dominant, but there are also significant stoneware imports from other production sites in the Rhine / Meuse area, such as Langerwehe and Raeren, and from southern Lower Saxony. Towards the end of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century, cooking vessels and new ceramic forms such as plates and bowls in glazed earthenware enlarge the pottery sequence. The provenance of the latter are, to a large extent, various regions in the Netherlands and northern Germany. The average amount of pottery is clearly increasing from the high Middle Ages to the late medieval and early modern period. As such, the ceramic sequence from Bergen reflects general trends in the pottery market on the shores of the North Sea, despite all regional specifics (Carlsson 1982; Hurst 1986).

Small Jugs, Large Occurrence: Stoneware Miniature Vessels One find that I want to examine more closely is a small jug in grey stoneware that currently is on display in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger in south-western Norway. The vessel is approximately 5 cm high, and it has one strap handle that is attached a bit under the rim. The rim is slightly bent outwards and a little crooked. Most likely, the latter is the

27

28

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Figure 2.1. Miniature jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from Utstein monastery, Rogaland, Norway. Stavanger, Arkeologisk museum, accession number S13998. Late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Photo courtesy of Arkeologisk museum, University of Stavanger.

result of slight overfiring, but it is not unusual that products we would consider to be of ‘second rate quality’ found their way to consumers (Drenkhahn 2015, 166; Heege 2002, 257, fig. 543). The belly of the vessel is globular with a maximum width of approximately 4.5 cm. The flat foot has a diameter of 3 cm and is separated from the body with a distinct carination. The fabric is fully fused greyish stoneware; the surface is light brown with a number of blackish dots of melted iron oxide (Figure 2.1). Both the fabric and the form of the miniature vessel make it highly probable that it was produced in southern Lower Saxony, presumably in the well-known pottery village of Coppengrave, where similar vessels were found in considerable numbers (Stephan 1981, 44 and plate 61, 1&2). The identification of the provenance was very recently improved and verified by an XRF analysis.2 Unfortunately, there is little information about the find context. The find is part of an older collection from the former Stavanger museum. The vessel was discovered during architectural-historic investigations in the medieval monastery of Utstein (Petersen 1941, 113). This is one of the most important monastic sites in Norway and the only medieval monastery in the



2 The pXRF analysis was conducted by Dr. Wilke, Wennigsen, on the basis of a large sampledatabase from various stoneware production sites (Wilke and Rauch 2016). The results of the analysis are planned to be published in near future.

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

country with remaining medieval buildings. It is located on an island a few sea miles north of the episcopal city of Stavanger and near to the main seaway along the Norwegian coast. It is mentioned for the first time as a monastery of Augustine friars in a testament from about 1280 (DN i, 70; Fischer 1965, 4) and is commonly believed to have been founded around 1260 (Eide 2006). This strategically important place, with a sheltered natural harbour, was already in the Viking time and in the high medieval period an important king’s manor (Fischer 1965). As such, it is one of the most prominent places for medieval Norway. According to prevalent archaeological practice of the time, the early investigations in the first half of the twentieth century focused on the building history, without taking too much interest in any finds and their stratigraphic context. Still, the excavators collected a number of finds, amongst them a considerable amount of pottery, during the excavation of the architectural remains. These are collected in the museum’s magazine, with mostly not more than handwritten, barely readable notes about the year of discovery. Amongst the other pottery finds from this monastery is an almost complete pitcher in highly decorated, lead-glazed red earthenware, presumably from Denmark or the south-western Baltic coast (Ekroll 2005, 260), as well as Rhenish near-stoneware, and fragments of lead-glazed English pottery, all approximately dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth century. There is also pottery from the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, represented by a complete Siegburg funnel-necked jug, a Raeren miniature jug, and fragments of other miscellaneous stoneware. The majority of ceramic finds from Utstein dates, however, to the late sixteenth and seventeenth century and thus to the period after the monastery was dissolved in the reformation of 1537. The buildings served from then on as a private residence for various noblemen. Returning to the object, the one-handled miniature jug in stoneware: Where and when was that vessel made, how did the object get to Utstein monastery, by whom was it used, and to what purpose? As mentioned before, both the fabric, the form, and technological details of the vessel concur in detail with stoneware from the production site at Coppengrave, approximately 40 km south-east from the small Hanseatic town of Hamlin on the River Weser. Coppengrave was, together with nearby villages such as Fredelsloh / Bengerode and Duingen, an important centre for the production of stoneware in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries (Stephan 2012). The region has tertiary clay deposits of high quality that are a precondition for stoneware production. In addition, water and firewood were available in the lightly forested, hilly, and rural landscape of southern Lower Saxony (Borg and Beyer 2010, 569). It remains unclear, but is very likely, that the advanced firing technology for the manufacture of stoneware and near-stoneware was adopted from the Rhineland, where stoneware technology was developed in the first half of the thirteenth century (Stephan 2012, 23). Apprentice potters as journeymen may eventually have transferred the technology, or potters from the Rhine area were amongst the new settlers that were taking up residence in the previously rather scarcely populated hilly

29

30

vo l k e r d e m u t h

areas of southern Lower Saxony. Territorial lords in this region supported the founding of new settlements in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries which in some cases had pottery as an important branch of the economy. This is strikingly exemplified with the potter village Bengerode and the nearby abbey Fredelsloh as a foundation of the dukes of Dassel (Stephan 2010, 133). The settlement patterns in Coppengrave and Duingen also indicate that the geographical preconditions for the pottery industries were a determining factor for the development of the settlement (Stephan 1981, 8). By the implementation of new technology, such as stoneware production, the resources of the agriculturally less fruitful region would produce a surplus when sold on a supraregional market. If one assumes that the distribution of pottery from the producers to overseas consumers was similar in the late Middle Ages as in the better documented early modern period, a distribution via the River Weser seems highly probable (Demuth 2015a, 348). Hamlin on the Weser was the nearest town with merchants that were engaged in the Hanseatic trade network. It is highly likely that the southern Lower Saxon stoneware went to traders on riverboats in considerable amounts. The next important trade hub would be the major Hanseatic city of Bremen with its staple rights. Situated on the mouth of the River Weser, Bremen was the place where the transferring of the goods from the river to seafaring ships most logically occurred. Since the eleventh century, Bremen had lively contacts with the North Sea regions, notably with Norway (Helle 1982, 160). The main trade pattern between Norway and the European mainland was always the exchange of preserved fish (mainly dried cod) from Norway against grain and grain products (such as beer and flour). Around the year 1400, the authorities of the Hanse Kontor in Bergen were explicitly concerned with the retail trade of a number of Bremen-based Hansards (Helle 1982, 814). The oldest account of business units in the Hanse Kontor from 1615 specifies that in this period more merchants came to Bergen from Bremen than from any other Hanseatic town (Helle 1982, 793). There are frequent complaints of the Kontor’s officials, who were recruited primarily from Lübeck, that merchants from Bremen are involved in individual and retail trade with Norwegians (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2008, 159). It seems that Bremen merchants generally appeared as important actors in the larger North Sea and North Atlantic region, as far as Greenland, Iceland, and Shetland (Mehler 2009, 95–97). Considering all this, it seems highly probable that a merchant based in Bremen or buying goods in that city may have brought the small stoneware jug under discussion to the North. But of course, stoneware was a commodity that was traded widely in all Hanseatic ports along the North and Baltic Seas, and the vessel may thus have been redistributed one or several times (Gaimster 2014). The monastery of Utstein with its good harbour is one of the first places where land will come in sight for a ship sailing from the southern North Sea. As an administrative and economic centre in the region, it would have been a logical place to visit for merchants looking for business ventures.

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

How was this miniature vessel used at Utstein? Traditionally, the miniature vessels from Coppengrave are interpreted as children’s toys, though this interpretation has been convincingly doubted (Oltmanns 2018, 25). Regarding the function of the stoneware miniature jugs, practical applications as a container for liquids used for moistening the finger when spinning fibres are also possible (Stephan 1981, 44). As Utstein was a monastery, the presence of playing children is not very likely, and as stated above, it may be questioned whether these vessels are to be interpreted as toys in general. However, miniature vessels such as the one presented are occasionally found in monasteries. In Lübeck, four miniature vessels in stoneware or near-stoneware were found in a well in a monastery, which was built in the early thirteenth century and in use until the fourteenth/fifteenth century (Oltmanns 2018, 19). In Scotland, miniature vessels in stoneware or local glazed earthenware copies are interpreted as inkwells (Cruden 1953, 167; Cachart and Perry 2017, 104, Kat. No. 80). This interpretation conforms with the context of a monastery, where the art of writing can be one of the primary occupations of many persons. The vessel from Utstein could, however, also be an indicator of textile production in the monastery, as sheep herding is still today the best agricultural use of the meadows on the windswept island. Yet other functions of the vessel are equally possible. At a monastic site, one may expect the preparation of ointments or other remedies, which could very well be stored in such a small stoneware vessel. An important task of ecclesiastic people in the Middle Ages was to administer the last rites to the dying, including the anointing with holy oil — maybe the present vessel was used for such tasks? Obviously, it is pure guesswork to speculate about the object’s function without having detailed information on the find’s context. It may help to look at other comparable objects to obtain a wider understanding of the individual vessel. This is also necessary for pinpointing the chronology of the find, as the vessels from the production areas also have only a loose chronological fix to the late medieval period (Stephan 1981, 45). A very similar vessel as the one from Utstein has been recovered during rescue excavations in the deserted village of Marsleben, north of the Harz Mountains in northern Germany (Demuth 2012, 358). This vessel is c. 6 cm high and has a more evenly globular body with a flat base and a slightly outwardly bent rim, with the characteristic strap handle (Figure 2.2). The vessel was discovered in a stone-built cellar in association with a fire layer that marked the abandoning of the site, which was observed in several features. Written sources mention the village as deserted in the year 1400. A stone-built well not far away had a dendrochronological terminus post quem of 1346 (Demuth 2012, 355).3



3 The author conducted the excavations in this part of the site; the description of the stratigraphic features is based on the unpublished report and site documentation in the archives of Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle.

31

32

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Figure 2.2. Miniature jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from the deserted village of Marsleben near Quedlinburg, Federal state Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Halle, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte. Late fourteenth century. Photo courtesy of Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie.

All evidence thus points towards a sudden devastation and ending of the settlement in the years before 1400. The stoneware miniature jug was found in the destruction layers of the cellar, together with a sword and various other iron objects. Amongst these objects was also an iron oil-lamp. Therefore, it seems plausible to assume that the function of the small jug in this particular situation was to fill oil in the lamp, something that is quite necessary in a dark cellar-room without windows. As mentioned before, the find layers and thus the miniature jug can be quite closely dated to the last decade of the fourteenth century. The sword and other weaponry finds in various parts of the deserted village indicate that armed conflict was the cause for the destruction and devastation. Before this, the village of Marsleben looked like a thriving place with many large stone buildings and a prosperous economy. In the pottery sequence, however, stoneware has just a minor impact. Interestingly, the

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

majority of stoneware in Marsleben was produced in southern Lower Saxony (Demuth 2012, 358), whereas Siegburg and other Rhenish stoneware is very rare. The reason may be that the potteries in southern Lower Saxony were linked not just to river and sea trade via the River Weser, but also to an extensive network of roads. Coppengrave, the most likely place of production, is just 120 km away from Marsleben. It is likely that peddlers could easily manage the transport of the pottery over this distance by foot or traders with carts travelled these roads with cargo of ceramics. There is good documentation for both means of transport and distribution from the early modern period (Demuth 2015a, 358; Stephan 2012, 38). The finds of Lower Saxon stoneware in towns and villages in the inland areas east of the production sites indicate similar economic actors and networks already in late medieval times (Demuth 2012, 358; Wehmer 2019). In the following, I want to compare the two miniature jugs. The similarities are quite clear and striking: both vessels have the same fabric, a homogenous grey, nearly fused stoneware; the surface of both vessels shows a light brown, slightly glossy clay slip; both vessels show a globular body, but the vessel found in Norway has a distinct coronation in the lower part, whereas the vessel from northern Germany is more equally globular. In addition, the rims are not identical; the rim of the vessel from Utstein is a bit more outwards bent. However, other typological features, such as feet and strap handles of both jugs, are very similar. All these technological and typological features indicate a production of both vessels in the region of southern Lower Saxony, most probably in Coppengrave or the nearby Duingen. Yet the find spots of both vessels show clearly that different actors, involved in different networks, transferred them to their respective ‘final destination’. Although the objects are almost identical and derive from the same source, their ‘biography’ and thus the implications we can draw out of their presence on the archaeological site are quite different. This applies also to their supposed functions. Whereas the small jug in the cellar probably had a very mundane task of helping to fill oil in a lamp to light up the cellar, its counterpart in the monastery presumably took part in different occurrences. The jug from Utstein may well have been a container for lamp oil, but the monastic character of the site suggests rather an artistic, medical, or ritual use of the liquid or ointment. The products of the medieval potters were in many ways very multifunctional. The discussed vessels seem to contradict modern rules of design as in our cases of ‘function follows form’, rather than the opposite. The multifunctional value of these small jugs becomes very clear in a third vessel of similar type. I refer to a jug that was found in 1885 during ‘digging on the former parish reeves […] farmstead’ in the village Lynge, in the district of Sorø, in central Sjæland, Denmark (Liebgott 1978, 72). Following the state of research at the time of publishing, Liebgott identified the vessel as Siegburg stoneware, but the technological and typological features point towards a product from the Lower Saxon stoneware potteries. The reason for publishing the find was, however, the fact that the vessel contained thirty-five silver coins

33

34

vo l k e r d e m u t h

and served as a treasure container. All coins were northern German silver bracteates from Hamburg, Lübeck, and Lüneburg which date to the second half of the fourteenth century. The chronological frame for the miniature vessels from Denmark and northern Germany is thus very similar and clear, which suggests that the vessel from Utstein monastery most probably dates to the late fourteenth century. In summing up, how do we address these three similar miniature jugs, found in different social and geographical environments? It seems clear that all three vessels derive from the same source, the late medieval stoneware potteries in southern Lower Saxony, presumably Coppengrave or Duingen. Furthermore, the time of use and deposition is probably very similar. The second half of the fourteenth century or slightly later seems an appropriate dating for all three finds. A late medieval dating is also put forward for very similar vessels in Lübeck (Oltmanns 2018, 22) and a vessel used as a reliquary in the church of Ringsted in Lower Saxony (Thier 1993, 244). Yet, aside from provenance and dating, the ‘biographies’ of the objects show few similarities. The vessel from Marsleben was a tool in everyday use of an artisan or a farmer in a typical rural settlement. The vessel in Utstein was probably used by clerics or monks in a very prominent monastery located at a strategical point in Norway. Finally, the vessel from Lynge, with its coin hoard, probably reflects the mediocre wealth of a parish reeve in medieval Denmark. Although all three vessels are expressions of the widespread economic and social networks in late medieval Northern and Central Europe, the individual differences of each find show the variety of both actors and networks. This underlines the necessity to assess each archaeological find and its circumstances as of unique value. The comparison of the three similar vessels confirms also the widespread scope of functions the same type of vessels could have had. This fact seems quite important, as a following reference to a lively academic discussion concerning miniature vessels shall show. The miniature jug from Utstein is, as stated in the beginning, displayed in the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger, together with two other stoneware miniatures, two small Raeren miniature vessels with two loopholes at the rim. These Raeren miniatures date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they are quite common finds all over Norway (Grieg 1933, 189). The discussion about their purpose and function has been ongoing for almost one hundred years in Norway. Whereas older scholars often emphasized the use of these miniature vessels as ointment jars (Grieg 1933, 192; Petersen 1941) or pointed towards the appearance of Raeren jugs as relic containers (Mowinckel 1926), the more recent research highlights the use of Raeren miniature vessels in spinning wool (Stalsberg 2005; Stylegar 2015). The discussion about the function of these objects can surely be fruitful, yet I would consider most of the explanations stated above as plausible and probably true on specific occasions. One should, however, be careful to draw strict and uniform conclusions from one object to another. This seems even more essential as there is an obvious tendency in museum exhibitions to commingle superficially

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

identical objects. In an outstandingly well-made medieval exhibition at the museum in Trondheim, miniature jugs of different provenience and date are displayed together (Stalsberg 2005, 42). If we want to address these objects as serious historical archaeological sources, we have to contemplate the find circumstances and the ‘biography’ of the individual object. Of course, there will be many ‘white patches’ as it will be in most cases completely impossible to capture the various stages in an individual object’s lifeline. Nevertheless, by trying to examine as much as accessible, we will gain knowledge not just about the single object, but also about the diverse actors and networks that had contact with the object during its time of use. As a last example of the miscellaneous ways in which especially miniature jugs were used, I want to present another Raeren miniature vessel. This one is somewhat sloppily made. It came into the collections of the museum in Stavanger in 1939 and obtained the accession number S-KT-4196. As are the other Raeren miniature jugs, it is made of grey stoneware with a glossy saltglaze and two loopholes at the rim that are pierced through with a tool. These types of vessels seem to be some of the earliest ceramic objects that spread in Norway to rural and inland places in the late medieval and early modern period. This one was obtained from a farm located in the mountains of south-western Norway, a place called ‘Hamrabø’ which is situated in the deep valleys connecting the mountainous hinterland with the fjords of the Ryfylke region (National heritage database find spot ID: 54650). From the findspot it is 10 km to the nearest coast and from there over 200 km sailing or rowing to Bergen. The nearest place where pottery in this time probably was obtainable from international trade would be the harbour of Avaldsnes with its strong Hanseatic presence (Demuth 2001b). The finder got hold of the object when digging out a plot for a new building on the farm. The vessel was hidden ‘25 cm in the ground, under a stone’.4 It remains completely unclear whether the vessel primarily reached the farm as a container for ointments, for example, or as a device used in textile production or even as a container for holy water. A function as inkwell may also be considered, which could indicate a literate person on the farm. There is proof in the form of diplomas that a number of farmers in late medieval Norway were literate, perhaps eventually also the farmers in Hamrabø (Aronsen 2015). The fact that the object in the end obviously was deliberately placed under a stone deep in the ground leaves few other plausible explanations than to see the deposition as an expression of a magical act. It is purely speculative whether the vessel was buried in the soil as an offering to some kind of ‘subterranean puck’ or if it is the physical remains of a magical ritual, like the English ‘witch-bottles’ (Merrifield 1987, 163). The fact that a stoneware vessel made in Raeren in present-day Belgium was used on a mountain farm in Norway shows, however, a certain participation of the



4 According to Norwegian National heritage database ‘Askeladden’ and handwritten notes in the archives of the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger.

35

36

vo l k e r d e m u t h

farmers in broad international networks. It remains unclear whether the vessel was acquired by a person from the farm travelling to one of the trade hubs on the coast, as the harbour of Avaldsnes or the city of Bergen, or if peddlers or merchants occasionally visited the remote area of the inner fjords. Yet the nature of the find and especially its circumstances make it very likely that it had a different meaning to the user in Norway than for the potters in Raeren. It reminds us about the large and fascinating variety of human behaviours that always should be taken into account when interpreting archaeological finds.

Handy and Neat: Bengerode Drinking Jugs In contrast to the miniature vessels discussed above, there are just a few examples of medieval stoneware jugs in Norway of more ordinary size that are completely preserved or restorable. When studying the Lower Saxon stoneware imports in Bergen, it became obvious that it is a very difficult task to identify the vessel forms, as most of the material is highly fragmented (Demuth 2015b). One of the few exceptions is a fragmented drinking jug, found in the area of the Hanseatic Kontor in Bergen, that could be almost completely restored. Following the model I sketched at the start of this paper, I want to examine this find in detail. The discussed vessel is 16.5 cm high, its maximum width is 9 cm, the foot measures 8 cm in diameter, and the rim 6 cm. It is partially (approximately 70%) reconstructed from a number of fragments, but well enough preserved to imagine the complete vessel (Figure 2.3). It is a barrel-shaped jug with a sharp and distinct ridge under the rim, where the strap handle is attached. The barrel-shaped body is sectioned by three more decorative ridges and shows parallel grooves. The jug has a marked frilled foot and a flat base. The wall of the vessel is just 2.5 mm thin. The fabric is a buff, sintered stoneware; the surface is covered with a brown glossy wash with some small fused ferruginous spots. The technological and typological details of the vessel indicate clearly that the jug is a product of the stoneware potteries in southern Lower Saxony (Stephan 2012). Details like the sharp, decorative ridges on the body and the fabric point towards a production in the deserted pottery village of Bengerode (Grote 1976). It belongs roughly to the same pottery region as Coppengrave / Duingen, which is situated c. 30 km north of Bengerode / Fredelsloh. The fragments of this jug were unearthed during the large excavations in Bryggen, the former Hanseatic quarter in Bergen. After a devastating fire in 1955 destroyed large parts of the historical buildings in this area, large-scale excavations took place, which marked the starting point of modern medieval archaeology in the country (Herteig 1985). The excavators implemented the stratigraphic method during the Bryggen excavations. However, in the documentation, the find units are not assigned to defined layers, but connected with construction features. The single contexts of individual finds are thus not easy or even impossible to reconstruct. This is also the case with

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Figure 2.3. Fragmented drinking jug in Lower Saxon stoneware from Bryggen in Bergen, Norway. Bergen, University Museum. Late fourteenth century. Photo by the author.

the presented stoneware jug. Its remains were found ‘south of building 389’ according to the local database, where the remains of the vessel are listed with the accession numbers BRM 0/14412 and BRM 0/18239.5 Further information about the find context, such as the character of the layer from which the artefacts were recovered, is not available. The appointed ‘building 389’ is a part of an ensemble of buildings, which also includes buildings ‘386’, ‘388’, and ‘390’, which were destroyed or heavily affected by a devastating fire, which the excavator identified as a historically documented fire of 1413 (Herteig 1989, 103). Building ‘386’ was one of the few stone buildings in



5 The author assessed and analysed the database with information about the localization of the find objects in the years 1999/2000.

37

38

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Bergen, whereas building ‘388’ had a fireplace, which was quite exceptional in the wooden building complexes at Bryggen. Therefore, one can conclude that the buildings in which the discussed vessel was found were used as dwellings or residences, not for storage. The fact that the vessel was almost complete, though broken, triggers the interpretation that the jug had been used on or very near the find spot prior to deposition. The archaeological stratigraphy dates the time of the vessel’s usage to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, which conforms well to the typological dating of the jug. In this period Bryggen was clearly under Hanseatic administration with extensive autonomy, and it was populated exclusively by male persons from various Hanseatic cities (Helle 1982, 738). Therefore, a Hansard in all likelihood used the discussed vessel in Bergen. What was the function of jugs like this one? It has an estimated volume of about half a litre or a little bit more, which makes it not very suitable as a container for storage or as a pitcher for larger amounts of liquid. Yet everyone who ever has been in a pub has to agree that approximately 500 ml is a perfect volume for a beer-drinking vessel. In the late Middle Ages, beer was the second most important commodity traded from Hanseatic cities to Bergen (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2005, 160). Beer from their respective hometowns was also a product that the Hansard preferred to consume in their foreign establishments (Irsigler 1996, 383). Thus, it is plausible to assume that the discussed jug from Bergen was used by a late medieval Hansard to drink beer, presumably imported from his home region. Historical records indicate that the origin of imported beer was of such great significance for late medieval Hansards in Bergen that fights would even break out when Lübeck traders on night duty were served beer from Bremen (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2011, 17; Nedkvitne 2014, 225). It is unclear whether the quality of the brew was the reason for the conflict or rather the identification of the consumers with the products of their home region. In any case, the episode shows the importance of special beer brands for the Hansards. This leads me to considerations of the significance of the drinking vessels. Maybe specific vessels have been associated with special brands of beer. When it comes to high medieval French pottery imports in north-western Europe, some researchers assume that ‘the container was recognized as having an identifying function with regard to the content’ (Deroeux, Dufournier, and Herteig 1994, 178). It is possible that the characteristic jugs of Lower Saxon stoneware were also associated with certain beer brands, which were produced in specific cities. It is important to keep in mind that a characteristic trait of Hanseatic beer production is the diversification of recipes per city. Each major beer producing and exporting city had their own specific recipes, resulting in a variety of beers of different popularity and price (von Blanckenburg 2001, 178). Interestingly, specially valued Hanseatic beer brands came from the Hanseatic inland cities of Einbeck and Braunschweig, which are geographically very close to the production region of the presented stoneware jug. Is it a pure speculation that the contemporary consumer may have associated the

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

characteristic brown- or red-glazed drinking jugs of Lower Saxon stoneware with the high-quality beer from the same region? Here I come back to the object of my reflections and towards the final conclusion. As previously stated, it is most probable that the jug was produced in the pottery workshops in Bengerode in southern Lower Saxony. Much of what I wrote about the stonewares from Coppengrave / Duingen previously in this article concerns the stoneware from Bengerode as well. The stoneware from Bengerode / Fredelsloh may have had the River Weser as an important route of transportation, just as the Coppengrave stonewares. However, the small Hanseatic town of Einbeck is just 15 km away from Fredelsloh, and thus the stoneware may have used the same trading networks as the famous beer from this town. Einbeck beer was popular and expensive; it was exported to various places in the Hanseatic realm from the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, using a network of roads and the waterways on the Rivers Leine and Weser (von Blanckenburg 2001, 157). Einbeck and Fredelsloh are in close proximity, and the utilitarian ties between beer and stoneware drinking and serving vessels are obvious. Thus, it seems plausible that late medieval consumers also may have associated the characteristic stoneware with the highly esteemed beer. Of course, it is not possible to prove this interpretation. It is, however, obvious that jugs like the presented one and other stoneware vessels of similar form and function were frequently available in cities like Bremen, Lübeck, or Wismar from where large portions of beer were exported to Bergen (von Blanckenburg 2001, 251). Therefore, I want to put forward an interpretation that interrelates the Lower Saxon — and many of the more numerous Rhenish — stoneware jugs from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the intensified export of hopped beer from the Hanseatic cities. The presented jug from Bryggen in Bergen is in this way a physical expression of this trade, which is otherwise hardly detectable in the archaeological record. The find circumstances indicate strongly that the user of this specific jug belonged to the Hansards working and living in Bergen. We cannot know exactly if this supposed Hansard used the jug to display fresh flowers, store oil in it to paint the wooden walls, or even utilized the vessel as a chamber pot. All of this is hypothetically possible, yet in my humble opinion not very likely. It is much more probable that our supposed Hansard filled the jug with hopped beer imported from northern Germany. We cannot know whether he drank alone or in company. If it was in company, which seems likely as the limited space in the Hanseatic quarter gave little room for privacy, then it may have been fellow Hansards who may have disputed the quality of the various imported brands of beer. As I wrote previously, this was a serious issue, which could end in fights — the appreciation of the hometown and its typical beer was particularly strong when living and working abroad. Was it during such a dispute that the jug ended its existence as a functional thing, thrown into the narrow space between two wooden buildings? A statute from 1529 regulating the behaviour in the common living areas in the Hanseatic Kontor explicitly mentions the fines

39

40

vo l k e r d e m u t h

for ‘crushing another man’s tankard’, which indicates that this happened occasionally (Nedkvitne 2014, 349). However, to get an idea what happened to the things we study, how they were produced, used, and disposed of, we have to imagine various scenarios. Written documents strongly support the conception that Hanseatic merchants consumed beer they brought from their home region, and occasionally they also invited business partners for a drink (Irsigler 1996, 384). Therefore, we can also imagine a scene with a Hansard negotiating with his Norwegian customers over a jug of beer. What kind of customer this may have been is not deducible by archaeological evidence only but needs a recourse to historical sources. The Hanseatic trade in Norway was mainly based on the exchange of grain and grain products, such as flour, malt, and beer, against dried fish, which was fished and dried in northern Norway. This trade pattern prevailed throughout the heyday of the Hanse in the late medieval and early modern period (Nedkvitne 2014, 546). Grain and its products were partly sold to Norwegian merchants or other intermediaries who organized the distribution northwards. Yet, very importantly, there were obviously direct exchanges of grain for fish with peasant-fishermen from northern Norway (Nedkvitne 2014, 564), which was beneficial to both sides. The peasant-fishermen from the North were in this way directly connected with the wide-spanning economic networks of late medieval Europe. This interaction provided the people in the North with imported commodities, which had both highly practical and nutritious advantages and obviously included a certain status among the consumers (Nedkvitne 2014, 558). Therefore, it seems plausible to imagine a fisherman-peasant from the north of Norway who exchanged a cargo of dried cod against food like grain, flour, and beer or even imported cloth and other goods. It is conceivable that the business partners affirmed such a deal by sharing a jug of beer. Unfortunately, our artefact cannot tell its story and who held it in his hands. It would be helpful if we had more detailed information about the use of the particular buildings in the Hanseatic Kontor at Bryggen. Yet this is not the case, and so we can just consider the plausibility of different scenarios. For me the two sketched scenes of either Hansards drinking together for leisure or a Hanseatic merchant and a Norwegian customer having a beer in connection with a barter seem definitely worth considering. Even though it is impossible to exclude a large variety of use and discarding of the discussed jug, a connection with the extensive Hanseatic beer trade to the North persists as an interpretation that suggests itself, taking the object’s biography and the historical evidence concerning actors and networks in this trade into account. Finally, I want to focus on another ceramic find, another stoneware jug, which resembles the previously presented vessel very much. Yet this last vessel was found much further north in Norway than all the other discussed objects. It was recovered during an underwater archaeological survey on the seabed in a narrow stream called ‘Martnasundet’ (‘Market-sound’) on the island of Nærøy in North Trøndelag County (Nymoen 1994, 26). It is again

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Figure 2.4. Drinking jug in Lower Saxon stoneware found on the seabed at Nærøy, Trøndelag, Norway. Rørvik, Kystmuseet NORVEG Trøndelag. Late fourteenth century. Photo courtesy of Pål Nymoen, Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo.

a medium-sized, barrel-shaped jug in grey stoneware with a ferruginous reddish-brown wash (Figure 2.4). The vessel is 15.7 cm high, the rim measures 6.5 cm, and the widest diameter of the body is 9 cm. It has dark iron-oxide patches and the flat base which is characteristic of the glazed stoneware from Bengerode in southern Lower Saxony. The jug’s dimensions, shape of the rim, and the strap handle are almost identical to those of the jug from Bergen. The two differ, however, in small details: the frilled foot is formed in a slightly different manner, and the maximum width of the vessel from Nærøy is in the lower part of the jug. These discrepancies are, however, small and the similarities are so striking that I tend to interpret the vessels as originating from the same pottery village, or even from the same workshop. Thus, the first stages in the ‘life’ of both vessels was probably very similar. Yet the vessel from Nærøy obviously had a significantly longer way to its ‘final destination’. So, what happened to this jug and what information is available about the find spot?

41

42

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Other research projects have shown the perspectives of examining harbour sites in the North Atlantic (Gardiner and Mehler 2007), but not much research has hitherto been published about small harbours and trading places, which were an essential part of infrastructure along the long Norwegian coast. One of the commendable exceptions is a master’s thesis from 1994, which examines this topic in detail (Nymoen 1994). All of the following remarks about the find spot are based on that study. The presented jug was recovered from the seabed during an underwater survey, conducted by the Archaeological Museum of the University in Trondheim and a local diving club (Nymoen 1994, 24). The seabed in a narrow sound at the island of Nærøy was covered with ceramic and glass objects, most of them from the early modern period, with the jug being the oldest find. Nærøy is situated approximately 650 km north-east of Bergen and 170 km north-east of Trondheim. A number of written sources mention local market activities here in the eighteenth century (Nymoen 1994, 23). Written documents do not provide clear hints about the existence of a medieval market at this place, though Nærøy had an important twelfth-century stone church with a high-ranked canon as a priest. In the high medieval period, high-ranked clerics were involved in mercantile activities, especially long-distance trade (Nymoen 1994, 20). The place is strategically situated as a sheltered harbour along the main sea-route along the coast, which was of fundamental significance for the Norwegian economy and the reason for the naming of the country. The island may also have worked as a hub between sea trade and the inland. How did this complete jug from the Hanseatic hinterland end up on the seabed in this sound by an island, just 220 km south of the Arctic Circle? The only thing we can be sure about is that the vessel was transported on a boat. Because the object is complete, it was probably not discarded, but got lost during transhipping, which seems a plausible explanation for a complete vessel in a harbour area. Alternatively, the complete jug could also represent the cargo of a sunken boat, of which eventually the ceramic vessel would be the only remaining trace after six hundred years. In the salty Norwegian waters, wooden shipwrecks are rapidly destroyed by shipworms, but an impressive find from Finland shows that Bengerode stoneware vessels were freighted as cargo in the Middle Ages (Tevali 2010). However, it is clear that the find of the Bengerode jug in the ‘Market-sound’ off Nærøy is a very distinct indication of mercantile activity in the area in the decades around the year 1400. To get an idea about the vessel’s movement and to set out actors and networks, we can ask who the possible skipper was on that supposed boat and where he got the cargo. Taking into consideration that trading north of Bergen was not allowed to any foreign merchants throughout the late medieval period, it is not likely that the ‘Market-sound’ at Nærøy was frequented by Hanseatic or other non-Norwegian traders in considerable numbers (Helle 1982, 351). These rules were respected and supported by the Hanseatic administration in the Bergen Kontor at Bryggen, which suggests that violations of this regulation by the Hanse merchants were not very common (Nedkvitne 2014, 310). This means

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

that it is very likely that the jug was shipped as cargo on a Norwegian boat. It is also very likely that the jug was transhipped in Bergen with its staple function for all goods coming from the south. There are several possible interpretations about who may have purchased the stoneware vessel and other commodities in Bergen. As has been outlined above, in connection with reflections about the similar jug found in Bergen, one scenario would be that a fisherman-peasant with a cargo of dried stockfish had sailed southwards and bartered his goods for grain and grain products. Amongst these grain products may have been one or more barrels of the popular hopped beer from northern Germany. Maybe one or more jugs in northern German stoneware followed these barrels, as a kind of trademark or a giveaway from the Hanse merchant? As mentioned beforehand, any boat following the coastal sea-route would have passed the ‘Market-sound’, and the skipper may eventually have jumped at the chance to increase his profits by trading some of the commodities from Bergen on the local market. It may well have been a Norwegian merchant who was performing the intermediate trade between Bergen and the north Norwegian fishing population. This supposed Norwegian merchant may have conducted trading on his own account or on behalf of a wealthy person. An example of the latter was recorded in 1521, when a skipper freighted and traded an amount of flour and beer from Bergen to northern Norway on behalf of the commander of the royal fortress Bergenhus (Nedkvitne 2014, 434). One can imagine that there were similar trade patterns also in the late fourteenth and fifteenth century. Another actor who may have traded goods at the market on Nærøy was the priest of the church on the island, as there are indications that clerics were involved in retail trade in this part of Norway, at least in the sixteenth century. In a letter from 1556, the royal commander in Trondheim, Evert Bild, exhorts the canons of Trondheim diocese to omit further trade with northern Norway (Nymoen 1994, 24; DN xii, 660). This document supports the assumption that the priests from Nærøy may also have been involved in such trade. Assuming furthermore that such mercantile activities of the priests already took place in the fourteenth century, the Bengerode jug from Nærøy may have come there in connection with a cleric’s trade in grain and beer. In fact the Norwegian clergy is mentioned as involved in the stockfish commerce in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2009, 196) It seems at least very likely that the priest, as one of the higher ranked persons in the region, had some interest in beer traded by his parish, as the Norwegian clergy had a long tradition of using beer even in liturgical rituals. The latter is emerging from a thirteenth-century correspondence between the pope and the archbishop of Trondheim concerning the use of beer in both communion and baptism (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2005, 157). Around the year 1500, beer from Hamburg was a frequent beverage in the archbishop’s household (Nedkvitne 2014, 227), which additionally supports the idea that the clergy was involved in the distribution of Hanseatic beer on a regular basis. Following the previously applied model, which connects the use of Lower

43

44

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Saxon stoneware jugs to the distribution of the much sought-after hopped Hanseatic beer, the jug from the seabed of Nærøy could be a physical trace of the mercantile activities of the priest on Nærøy in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Considering all this, I think it is most convincing to imagine the Lower Saxon jug from the ‘Market-sound’ as a commodity traded on behalf of the priest, even if the other sketched alternatives remain possible as well. It is obvious that the presented vessels from Bryggen in Bergen and the ‘Market-sound’ at Nærøy, despite their striking similarities, stand for quite different social phenomena. However, the objects do exemplify the links that existed in late medieval Europe between apparently completely unlike and far-flung people and regions. The individual settings of the find’s context in respectively Bergen or Nærøy is essential for a comprehensive interpretation of the object’s meaning.

Conclusions These reflections about some, at first look, very similar stoneware vessels should have led to insights into a number of different aspects of human life and behaviour, in which the presented things were deeply involved. Some very similar objects, such as the discussed miniature jugs, were obviously used and distributed in a number of quite different spheres of late medieval culture. They interrelate people and places, which will probably not have felt a considerable commonality in their contemporary presence. Yet they may show us similarities in historical environments, which may first come clear when examined from a temporal distance. The presented Lower Saxon stoneware jugs, however, which are almost identical in shape, can be convincingly connected to an important branch of the Hanseatic economy, the trade in hopped beer from the Hanseatic cities. Yet the contexts of the finds indicate that the individual vessels represent very different steps in this economic network. By examining the individual objects, we thus get a closer perception of the various actors who formed these networks. By careful examination of each object and its individual history, specific characteristics of each single object’s biography become appreciable. That way we may get a more comprehensive picture of a bygone reality and get closer to what is the very meaning of our occupation as archaeologists by studying the ‘old things’ (Olsen and others 2012, 3).

Works Cited Primary Sources DN: Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 22 vols (Christiania/Oslo 1847–)

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Secondary Studies Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. by Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 3–63 Aronsen, Elisabeth. 2015. ‘Skrift på vegg og skinn’, in Telemarks historie, vol. i: Før 1814, ed. by Øystein Rian (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget), pp. 221–40 Blackmore, Lyn, and Allan Vince. 1994. ‘Medieval Pottery from South-East England found in the Bryggen Excavation, 1955–68’, in The Bryggen Papers, supplementary series, vol. v, ed. by Asbjørn Herteig (Bergen: Scandinavian University Press), pp. 9–160 von Blanckenburg, Christine. 2001. Die Hanse und ihr Bier: Brauwesen und Bierhandel im hansischen Verkehrsgebiet (Cologne: Böhlau) Borg, Hans-Rudolf, and Arno Beyer. 2010. ‘Die Landschaftsgeschichte des Solling’, in Der Solling im Mittelalter: Archäologie – Landschaft – Geschichte im Weser- und Leinebergland, ed. by H.-G. Stephan, Hallesche Beiträge zur Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 1 (Dormagen: archaeotopos-Verlag), pp. 566–71 Brun, Trude Aga. 1996. ‘Middelalderkeramikk: Et perifert material i det sentrale Nord-Norge’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Tromsø) Bueklev, Ann Monika Jensen. 2006. ‘Middelalderkeramikk- en synkron og diakron analyse av keramikkmaterialet fra Oslogate 6’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Oslo) Cachart, Ray, and David R. Perry. 2017. ‘A Visit to the Abbey Excavations at the Site of Arbroath Abbey Visitor Centre, with contributions by Ruby CerónCarrasco, Ray Chadburn, Adrian Cox, Dennis B. Gallagher, Derek Hall, Mhairi Hastie, David Henderson, Richard Fawcett, K. Robin Murdoch and Catherine Smithpottery’, Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal, 23: 27–108 Carlsson, Kristina. 1982. Importkeramikk i Gamla Lödöse (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International) Cruden, S. 1953. ‘Scottish Medieval Pottery: The Melrose Abbey Collection’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 87: 161–74 Demuth, Volker. 2001a. ‘Weser and Werra Ware in Bergen: Archaeological Perspectives on the Town’s Early Modern Period’, in Ships and Commodities, ed. by Ingvild Øye, Bryggen Papers, supplementary series, 7 (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget), pp. 69–137 ———. 2001b. ‘Undersøkelser av keramikken fra Avaldsnes’, in Maritimarkeologiske forundersøkelser av middelalderhavna på Avaldsnes, Karmøy, ed. by Endre Elvestad and Arnfrid Opedal, AmS-Rapport, 18 (Stavanger: Arkeologisk Museum), pp. 68–74 ———. 2012. ‘Früh- bis spätmittelalterliche Keramik aus einer großen ländlichen Siedlung des 8.–14. Jahrhunderts im nördlichen Harzvorland: Archäologische Funde aus der Wüstung Marsleben bei Quedlinburg’, in Keramik in Mitteldeutschland: Stand der Forschung und Perspektiven, ed. by Regina Smolnik, Veröffentlichungen des Landesamtes für Archäologie, 57 (Dresden: Landesamt für Archäologie), pp. 349–62

45

46

vo l k e r d e m u t h

———. 2015a. ‘If Sherds Could Tell: Imported Ceramics from the Hanseatic Hinterland in Bergen / Norway – Producers, Traders and Consumers – Who Were They and How Were They Connected?’, in Everyday Products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe, c. ad 800–1600, ed. by Steve Ashby, Irene Baug, and Gitte Hansen (Oxford: Oxbow), pp. 339–59 ———. 2015b. ‘Mittelalterliches Steinzeug aus Südniedersachsen in Bergen/ Norwegen’, in Von der Weser in die Welt: Festschrift für Hans-Georg Stephan zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Tobias Gärtner, Stefan Hesse and Sonja König (Langenweissbach: Beyer & Beran), pp. 69–74 Deroeux, Didier, Daniel Dufournier, and Asbjørn Herteig. 1994. ‘French Medieval Ceramics from the Bryggen Excavations in Bergen Norway’, in The Bryggen Papers, supplementary series, vol. v, ed. by Asbjørn Herteig (Bergen: Scandinavian University Press), pp. 161–208 Dollinger, Philippe. 1976. Die Hanse (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag) Drenkhahn, Ulrich. 2015. Die Lübecker Keramikchronologie vom 12. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert, Lübecker Schriften zu Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte, 29 (Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf) Eide, Ole Egil. 2006. ‘Om Utstein klosterets bygningshistorie’, Collegium medievale, 19: 164–76 Ekroll, Øystein. 2005. ‘Bygning og bruk’, in Utstein kloster – og klosterøys historie, ed. by Eldbjørg Haug (Klosterøy: Stiftelsen Utstein Kloster), pp. 215–62 Fischer, Gerhard. 1965. Kongsgård – Kloster – Herregård (Stavanger: Stiftelsen Utstein Kloster) Gaimster, David. 2010. ‘Archaeology of an Age of Print? Everyday Objects in an Age of Transition’, in Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern, Material Culture and its Meanings, ed. by Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 133–44 ———. 2014. ‘The Hanseatic Cultural Signature: Exploring Globalization on the Micro-Scale in Late Medieval Northern Europe’, European Journal of Archaeology, 17.1: 60–81 Gardiner, Mark, and Natascha Mehler. 2007. ‘English and Hanseatic Trading and Fishing Sites in Medieval Iceland: Report on Initial Fieldwork’, Germania, 85: 385–427 Green, Kelly. 2018. ‘Forming Identities, Transcending Boundaries: The Trade and Consumption of Bearded Face Jugs in the North Sea Region, 1200–1350’, Medieval Ceramics, 37–38: 127–49 Grieg, Sigurd. 1933. Middelalderske byfund fra Bergen og Oslo (Oslo: A. W. Brøggers boktrykkeri) Grote, Klaus. 1976. ‘Bengerode, ein spätmittelalterlicher Töpfereiort bei Fredelsloh im südlichen Niedersachsen’, Nachrichten aus Niedersachsens Urgeschichte, 45: 245–304 Hamling, Tara and Catherine Richardson. 2010. ‘Introduction’, in Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern, Material Culture and its Meanings, ed. by Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 1–26

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Heege, Andreas. 2002. Einbeck im Mittelalter (Oldenburg: Isensee) Helle, Knut. 1982. Bergen bys historie, vol. i: Kongssete og kjøpstad: Fra opphavet til 1536 (Bergen: Alma Mater forlag) Herteig, Asbjørn. 1969. Kongers havn og handels sete: Fra de arkeologiske undersøkelser på Bryggen i Bergen 1955–68 (Oslo: Aschehoug) ———. 1985. The Archaeological Excavations at Bryggen, ‘The German Wharf’ in Bergen, 1955–68, Bryggen Papers, Main Series, 1 (Oslo: Norwegian University Press) ———. 1989. The Buildings at Bryggen: Their Topographical and Chronological Development, Bryggen Papers, Main Series, 3 (Oslo: Norwegian University Press) Hofmann, Kerstin P. 2015. ‘In Geschichten verstrickt … Menschen, Dinge, Identitäten’, in Biography of Objects: Aspekte eines kulturhistorischen Konzeptes, ed. by Dietrich Boschung, Tobias Kienlin, and Patric-Alexander Kreuz (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink), pp. 87–124 Hurst, J. G. 1986. Pottery Produced and Traded in North-West Europe, 1350–1650, Rotterdam Papers, 6 (Rotterdam: Foundation ‘Dutch Domestic Utensils’) Irsigler, F. 1996. ‘“Ind machen alle lant beirs voll”: Zur Diffusion des Hopfenbierkonsums im westlichen Hanseraum’, in Nahrung und Tischkultur im Hanseraum, ed. by Ruth E. Mohrmann and Günter Wiegelmann, Beiträge zur Volkskultur in Nordwestdeutschland, 91 (Münster: Waxmann), pp. 377–98 Kienlin, Tobias, and Patric-Alexander Kreuz. 2015. ‘(Objekt-) Biographien und Rekontextualisierung’, in Biography of Objects: Aspekte eines kulturhistorischen Konzeptes, ed. by Dietrich Boschung, Tobias Kienlin, and Patric-Alexander Kreuz (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink), pp. 67–86 Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. by Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 64–95 Liebgott, Niels-Knud. 1978. Danske fund af møntdateret keramik ca. 950–1450 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet) Lüdtke, Hartwig. 1989. The Bryggen Pottery, vol. i: Introduction and Pingsdorf Ware, Bryggen Papers Supplementary Series, 4 (Bergen: Norwegian University Press) Mehler, Natascha. 2009. ‘The Perception and Interpretation of Hanseatic Material Culture in the North Atlantic: Problems and Suggestions’, in ‘Archaeologies of the Early Modern North Atlantic’, special issue, Journal of the North Atlantic, 1: 89–108 Merrifield, Ralph. 1987. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic (London: Batsford) Molaug, Petter. 1975. ‘Middelalderkeramikk fra Oslo: En kilde til kunnskap om handelsforbindelser? Et forsøk på beskrivelse og gruppering av keramikken fra utgravningene på Mindets tomt 1970–1972 med sikte på bestemmelse av proveniens og datering’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Oslo) Mowinckel, Rolf. 1926. ‘Relikviekrukke og pilegrimsmerke’, Oldtiden Bind XI – første Hefte: 77–80 Nedkvitne, Arnved. 2014. The German Hansa and Bergen, 1100–1600, Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, n.s., 70 (Cologne: Böhlau)

47

48

vo l k e r d e m u t h

Nymoen, Pål. 1994. ‘Handelsplasser på kysten: Maritimarkeologisk perspektiv på vareutveksling på senmiddelalderen’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Tromsø) Olsen, Bjørnar, Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmore, and Christopher Witmore. 2012. Archaeology: The Discipline of Things (Berkeley: University of California Press) Oltmanns, Ulrike. 2018. ‘Mittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Spielzeugfunde aus Lübeck’, in Funde aus der Lübecker Altstadt I. Spielzeug und Ofenkacheln, Tonpfeifen und Tuchplomben, ed. by Manfred Schneider, Lübecker Schriften zur Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte, 32 (Rahden / Westfalen: Verlag Marie Leidorf), pp. 9–158 Petersen, Jan. 1941. ‘Senmiddelaldersle salvekrukker fra Rogaland’, Stavanger museums årshefte for 1939–40: 109–14 Prenell, Sara. 2010. ‘“For a Crack or Flaw Despis’d”: Thinking about Ceramic Durability and the “Everyday” in Late Seventeenth- and Early EighteenthCentury England’, in Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern, Material Culture and its Meanings, ed. by Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 27–40 Reed, Ian. 1990. 1000 Years of Pottery: An Analysis of Pottery, Trade and Use, Meddelser, 25 (Trondheim: Riksantikvaren) Schreiner, Johan. 1963. ‘Bremerne i Bergen’, Historisk Tidskrift, 42: 291–315 Stalsberg, Anne. 2005. ‘relikviekrukke-salvekrukke-helligvannskrukkeSPINNEKRUKKE’, SPOR-nytt fra fortiden, 20.40: 42–43 Stephan, Hans-Georg. 1981. Coppengrave: Studien zur Töpferei des 13.—19. Jahrhunderts in Nordwestdeutschland (Hildesheim: Verlag August Lax) ———. 2010. Der Solling im Mittelalter: Archäologie – Landschaft – Geschichte im Weser- und Leinebergland, Hallesche Beiträge zur Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 1 (Dormagen: archaeotopos-Verlag) ———. 2012. ‘Das Pottland: Mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Töpferei von landesgeschichtlicher Bedeutung und Keramik von europäischem Rang in Niedersachsen’, in Aus dem Pottland in die Welt: Eine historische Töpferregion zwischen Weser und Leine, ed. by Cristian Leiber (Holzminden: Verlag Jörg Mitzkat), pp. 9–78 Stylegar, Frans-Arne H. 2015. ‘Spinnekrukke fra 1400-tallet’, 4 March. [accessed July 2018] Tevali, Rikka. 2010. ‘Fancy Jugs for Everyone! Stoneware from the Egelskär Wreck 1996–2007. Archaeology’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Helsinki) Thier, Bernd. 1993. Die spätmittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Keramik des Elbe-Weser-Mündungsgebietes: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte der Keramik, Probleme der Küstenforschung im südlichen Nordseegebiet, 20 (Oldenburg: Isensee) Tøssebro, Christine. 2011. ‘Kulturkontakt, makt og sosial distinksjon i Vinkjelleren i Bergen’, Viking, 74: 193–215

t h e same , b u t d i f f e re nt

Wehmer, Markus. 2019. ‘Steinzeugimporte ins nördliche Thüringen während des späten Mittelalters’, in Keramik in Norddeutschland: Beiträge des 48. Internationalen Symposiums für Keramikforschung vom 14. bis 18 September 2015 in Mölln, ed. by Hans-Georg Stephan, Hallesche Beiträge zur Archäologie des Mittelalters, 3 (Langenweissbach: Beier & Beran), pp. 255–76 Wilke, Detlev, Dagmar Rauch, and Patrick Rauch. 2016. ‘Is Non-destructive Provenancing of Pottery Possible with Just a Few Discriminative Trace Elements?’, STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, 2.2: 141–58 Wubs-Mrozewicz, Justyna. 2005. ‘Hopped Beer as an Innovation: The Bergen Beer Market around 1200–1600 in the European Context’, in Trade, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, ed. by H. Brand (Hilversum: Verloren Publishers), pp. 152–68 ———. 2008. Traders, Ties and Tensions: The Interaction of Lübeckers, Overijsslers and Hollanders in Late Medieval Bergen (Hilversum: Verloren Publishers) ———. 2009. ‘Fish, Stock and Barrel: Changes in the Stockfish Trade in Northern Europe c. 1360–1560’, in Beyond the Catch: Fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900–1850, ed. by L. Sicking and D. Abreu-Ferreira (Leiden: Brill), pp. 187–208 ———. 2011. ‘Rules of Inclusion, Rules of Exclusion: The Hanseatic Kontor in Bergen in the Late Middle Ages and its Normative Boundaries’, German History, 29.1: 1–22 ———. 2012. ‘The Medieval Hanse: Groups and Networks of Traders. The Case of the Bergen Kontor (Norway)’, in Gentes de mar en la ciudad atlántica medieval, ed. by Jesús Ángel Solorzano Telechea, Michel Bochaca, and Amélia Aguiar Andrade (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos), pp. 213–34

49

Sergio Es cribano- R uiz

On How to Keep the Monopoly of Diversity Itineraries of Foreign Pottery in the Basque Country, ad 1300–1700

Introduction With the advent of globalization, interactions on a world scale became common and shaped an archaeological record where objects of multiple origins are found mixed together. The constant flux of things in the past is not always easy to understand in the present. That is why the archaeological record of the recent past (cf. Tourigny and others 2017, 516–17; Azkarate and Escribano-Ruiz 2014, 89) might be understood as an increasingly messy constellation of things, since both the quantity of the artefacts that are constituents of each depositional assemblage (cf. Lucas 2012, 194–96) and their possible provenance grow exponentially over time. Even if empirical identification of this set of materials and things can be difficult, once done it sheds new light on the understanding of material culture and society, on both a local and a global scale. Through this work, I am attempting to show that this epistemic process took place in the specific case of the Basque Country, whose materiality was able to be increasingly defined by its global nature from the sixteenth century onwards (Escribano-Ruiz 2019). Nonetheless, we could go back several centuries to find objects coming from distant European areas, ranging from tools made from different materials to personal adornments, coins, and construction materials (e.g. Arrizabalaga 2009; Arrizabalaga, Álvarez, and Iriarte 2011; Murillo-Barroso and others 2018; Filloy and Gil 2000; Martínez Salcedo 2004; Azkarate 1999; Azkarate, Núñez, and Solaun 2003). In this essay, I will explore an interposed time range, covering the late medieval and early modern period, in which artefacts arrived in the Basque Country from all over the world. Nonetheless, I will only examine those that came from nearby regions of Europe, leaving those that arrived from distant Europe, Asia, or America aside. During the period subject to study, it is quite usual in the Basque Country to find pottery made in neighbouring countries such as France (Ibarra 2009, Sergio Escribano-Ruiz    University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Archaeological Perspectives, ed. by Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, HDL 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) pp. 51-71 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.123735

52

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

195–205; Escribano-Ruiz and Solaun 2016, 545–48) and Portugal (Escribano-Ruiz and others 2015, 210–11), although we might also find examples originating from more distant places such as Germany (García Camino 1992/93, 260) or even China (Gereñu 2011, 161). Apart from domestic pottery that will be dealt with in greater detail in this text, we find some other ceramic products such as clay pipes or tiles from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France (López Colom 1996). Glass produced in France (Cajigas, Martinez Izquierdo, and Savanti 2007, 253) and coins from France, Portugal, England, Greece, Italy, Central Europe, and the Netherlands (San Vicente 2013, 377; Gereñu 2011, 99; Ibáñez Artica, Guereñu, and López Colom 1995) complement the most typical trans-European sets of materials found in the archaeological record. Even if this is an issue that urgently demands to be studied systematically in greater depth, currently available information is more than enough for us to speak of the existence of underlying networks that allowed there to be so many ‘foreign’ objects in Basque markets and households. Throughout the text, I refer to them as imports, in allusion to specific products coming from different sociocultural settings. In the case of pottery, these imports changed the value of the already-existing material world and transformed the production framework in different regions of the Basque Country. Who was at the end of this induced technological innovation practice? What were their intentions? Moreover, how did this novelty move a holistic chain of practice? I shall consider these questions in the text. That is why I refer to this process as a comprehensive itinerary — understood here to refer to the cycle that expanded from the first time an import was consumed to the moment in which its ability to affect the individual within a specific society ceased. In doing so, I try to meet the need pointed out by K. Barad, in which she demanded a robust account of the materialization of human and non-human bodies and material-discursive practices (2003, 810). Throughout this work, several conclusions are drawn about pottery evolution in one of the historic territories of the Basque Country — Araba — between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. The pottery record from Araba has been analysed and interpreted over the course of my PhD (Escribano-Ruiz 2014) with a view to understanding it and providing both the material record and its social context with a historical account. Part of its content had already been presented at the second thematic conference of the Association Internationale pour l’Étude des Céramiques Médiévales et Modernes en Méditerranée, entitled ‘In & Around: Ceramiche e comunità’ and held in Faenza in 2015, the details of which were later published (Ferri, Moine, and Sabbionesi 2016; Escribano-Ruiz 2016a). In this essay, I will put a stronger focus on the reasons behind the changing patterns of pottery consumption we have characterized in the Basque Country from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. This transformation could be considered too as a bypass effect of the movement of imported goods across Europe — a process that will be studied more in depth in the second half of the essay.

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

The (R)evolution of the Late and Post-Medieval Pottery Record in Araba The conclusions drawn from this work are based on the study of sets of pottery from eight sites in total, spread over four localities within the historic territory of Araba: Ocio, Salinillas de Buradón, Peñacerrada, and Vitoria-Gasteiz. Added to the sites from which those pottery contexts (Escribano-Ruiz 2017, 290–91), or typological assemblages (cf. Lucas 2012, 195–96), originate are a further seven sites where there has been evidence of pottery production. These have been identified thanks to prospecting for local potters’ workshops in the villages of Egileta, Hijona, Ollerías, and Ullibarri de los Olleros (Escribano-Ruiz 2009). Therefore, I used a geographic scale that enabled analysing and characterizing consumption patterns within a regional market, defined by a radial distance of no more than 40 to 50 km (González-Ruibal 2003, 85). Studying this specific area enabled us to analyse pottery consumption in two differing settings from a geographic standpoint, which also evidence greatly differing social, political, and economic dynamics. The first is represented by the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz as a large city and major centre of consumption. In contrast, the second is represented by localities further to the south, namely Salinillas de Buradón and Peñacerrada, together with Lanos Castle in Ocio — walled villages and small centres of consumption (Figure 3.1). The systematization of the pottery record shows that it was constantly and steadily changing over the period studied. However, it also shows that each studied locality evidenced its own evolution, which cannot be extrapolated to the other villages studied. Generally speaking, the inertia of the thirteenth century continued throughout the next century with consumption mostly dominated by unglazed pottery. Yet trends became disparate in the case of the walled villages of Ocio and Salinillas de Buradón in comparison to those documented in Vitoria-Gasteiz. The last-mentioned locality evidenced quite a higher percentage of glazed pottery (10%) than that from Ocio and Salinillas, within whose contexts its presence accounted for no more than 1 per cent. There was an exponential increase in glazed pottery consumption during the fifteenth century, and in this case, trends were also bipolar: Ocio and Salinillas now boasted the percentages evidenced by Vitoria in the fourteenth century (10%), while its consumption in Vitoria tripled (30%). Conversely, the sixteenth century provided a more unified consumption scenario and was characterized by an increase in white-glazed pottery — above all in the second half of the century. During the seventeenth century, this trend was consolidated in the villages of Salinillas and Peñacerrada, but not in Vitoria, where white-glazed consumption remained similar to that of the sixteenth century. The sequence outlined shows that the pottery evolution did not follow a linear trajectory, nor was it shared by the entire area subject to study. Rather, there was contingency; there were broken lines and diversions. A kind of co-evolution that

53

54

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

Figure 3.1. Geographic area studied in this chapter. Sites are marked with dots and geographic references by diamonds. Source: Google Earth. Compostion by the author.

Figure 3.2. Overall percentages of pottery consumption in Araba according to general types of pottery. Source: the author.

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

linked knowledge, resource, and power structures existed, which materialized in contingent trajectories (McGlade 2006, 109) by means of a rhizomatic process (cf. Deleuze and Guattari 1997, 9–32). Having said this, it is clear that there was a general pattern, a constant movement that gave rise to changes, which can only be perceived if analysed on a broad timescale. A quick glance at the graph showing this evolution in Araba (Figure 3.2) proves that there was a drastic change in the value of each type of pottery between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Transvaluation of Pottery Consumption in Araba I make use of the term transvaluation to refer to the change that took place in pottery consumption in the period subject to study, since I understand this movement as a key interpretative foundation. Apart from constituting the enabling process that gave rise to changes in the pottery record, it was historically predetermined by the fact of constituting a response to a concern or established order in which the new would also define the old (cf. Balandier 2003, 11). I shall analyse and discuss this change, movement, or transvaluation process in the text that follows. Messages Given out by Pottery

As part of the analytical process, I paid special attention to the finish and decoration of each piece — not so much owing to its potential for classifying the pottery, but rather because of its interpretative potential. I believe the pottery’s finish and decoration to be two of the most influential aspects of the consumer’s sensory perception. The concept of synaesthesia, which can be considered as ‘the virtual process by which all senses come into operation simultaneously’ (García-Raso 2009, 52), enables assessing the message that reaches the consumer through all their senses, but in a unified way. In this respect, the fact that visualization of an active colour may trigger other senses such as sound, smell, and touch is highly significant (Young 2006, 173). Hence, when we see the white colour of a bowl, we might, for instance, recall the smell and taste of the food it contained or the music we were listening to while we were eating. Applying the sensory approach when studying the pottery record enables linking containers to the messages they give out that the consumer unconsciously receives. Moreover, the more the elements that boost the sensory activity of a container’s user, the stronger the message given out by the product and received by the consumer should be. For this reason, in assessing the potential of each product and production in order to foster synaesthetic processes, I have attempted to evaluate the communicative potential of each type of pottery on a sensory level. The results have shown that the exclusive examples tended to be more expressive on the sensory level than the more mundane ones. This communicative potential explicitly materialized in the type of pottery that was decorated with aristocratic and Christian iconography. The stamped

55

56

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

or applied decoration that contains fleur-de-lys is a clear example of aristocratic iconography, and this has been present in the pottery record in Araba since the fourteenth century. The Islamic influence is very apparent in this case, as the new typologies that started to appear in Araba during this period feature characteristics which can only be found in the Islamic world, such as glaze or the aforementioned decoration. Explicit Christian imagery became incorporated following a long, steady process that was consolidated towards the sixteenth century. The pottery ‘became Christianised’ slowly and steadily, as denoted by motifs bearing crosses, the IHS monogram, and specific wares used to contain holy water, which were incorporated into the record during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These examples show that pottery acted as a medium through which producers and consumers functionally and symbolically constructed and reconstructed their world (Dobres 2000, 127). They also show that a person holding a jug bearing the Jesuit monogram or a jug bearing a fleur-de-lys represented a heterogeneous entity that transcended both the person and the object, whereby both message and messenger were brought together. They are a further example that highlights the fact that the material and human worlds were and are interconnected (Witmore 2007). I have also documented more subtle, non-verbal, implicit forms of communication, which highlights the silent yet convincing way in which the material nature of things influences social relations. This occurs, for instance, when certain sectors of society appropriate some specific types of pottery, which are associated with certain new and different technological features. Glazed pottery consumption represents the concept of exclusivity in the studied period, a type of non-verbal communication that cannot materialize through words. The condition of common object does not prevent pottery from being able to be transformed into a key object in political or religious subject matter, or from having a major repercussion on relations and principles that are highlighted in society lifestyles. Conversely, as values do not stand on their own, members of a society need to regularly receive non-verbal messages that recall and consolidate them (Lemonnier 2012, 166–67). The omnipresence of mundane objects thus becomes the most effective support, even more so if they can be redefined so as to retain and/or increase their communicative potential. The Capacity of Pottery for Social Action

From the twelfth century onwards the archaeological record indicates the existence of a specific type of pottery of greater technical quality, the consumption of which tended to be restricted to a small social group. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, this role was played by glazed pottery, while during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was white-glazed pottery (Figure 3.3). And I believe that such luxury pottery was able to be used in the same way in which a briefcase can be used in a room to enable the receiver’s competitiveness to be triggered. This occurs in experiments conducted using situational objects, which have shown that the latter may define and

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

Figure 3.3. Some examples of imported glazed (left) and white-glazed (right) pottery. Source: the author.

guide the behaviour of human beings (Kay and others 2004). Used within a specific social situation, exclusive crockery may have issued messages that offer a sample of its owner’s material resources, taste, and cultural capital. This was even more the case as social inequalities increased after the fourteenth century, when the table became a privileged scenario at which to represent them (Serrano 2000, 158). The explanation I put forward to justify the importance of luxury crockery is in some way related to the model that some have referred to as the trickle down effect (Gerrard 2012, 417), even though I would prefer to relate it to more explicit concepts such as the material construction of social inequality (González-Ruibal 2003, 89) or resilience (Walker and others 2004; Sauer 2015, 9–13). Combining both concepts, in what I shall refer to as the appropriation of diversity model, enables sensing a specific dynamic in its evolution linked to the constant existence of an exclusive type of pottery that helps to make a social distinction and remind one of inequality. If we recall the standpoint of power strategies, we will then subscribe to the fact that power and domination need to be produced, invented, and composed, and to do so objects are used which, among other things, give rise to inequalities and power (Latour 2005, 96–108). I believe that the potential of pottery for increasing given differences and either maintaining or questioning the established social order is precisely one of the main sources that generated changes in the pottery record at different moments in history.

57

58

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

When applying the appropriation of diversity model, I assume that pottery may serve as an indicator of the social and economic status of its consumers. Yet I am clearly defending this not as a passive reflection, but rather as an active agent in strategies used to maintain status, reinforce it, and even claim a higher one. In some places and within historical contexts such as in Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century, it has been shown that luxury crockery was one of the tools used by the bourgeoisie to attain their aristocratic aspirations (Lima 1995). Experiences like these lead me to think that pottery consumption might have constituted a major form of communication in power strategies within Araba society — a process that involved creating differences that slowly yet constantly helped in the material construction of social inequality. In this sense, we might consider innovation in certain types of pottery to be a response to aristocratic demand (cf. Wickham 2009, 845) which, once it had passed through the regional production fabric, went on to become an accessible product for most of society. This is what happened, for instance, in the city of Annapolis, Maryland, where tableware spread in an orderly manner throughout the eighteenth century from the rich to the poor, albeit at an uneven rate (Leone 2010, 89–90). The concept of pottery transvaluation also reinforces the contingent value of the historical context, as glazed pottery was not subject to the same material discourse in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in Vitoria-Gasteiz as in Salinillas de Buradón. This notion of movement likewise refers to a transformation process that derives from the dialectic process that takes place between the structure of a society and the capacity for action of the individuals within it (Dobres 2000, 146–47). To ensure there is transvaluation of the record, certain distribution mechanisms are required that may enable exotic types of pottery to be acquired. These types of pottery need to generate an exclusive consumption desire which, in turn, may trigger a capacity for individual or group action that takes the form of demand. However, it is also in turn impossible to ensure a productive structure to meet that demand. This is why I am taking into consideration the fact that the dialectic process which took place between the demand for certain products and the adaptation of the means of production to such a requirement proved to be the main agent in the change we have documented in the pottery record in Araba.

Traces of Itinerant Pottery in the Basque Country: A Comprehensive Itinerary After describing the pottery record over a long period of time and arguing the reason for this transvaluation, in this section we shall focus on the biography of imported objects, their circulation (Pitts 2017) and effects. To this end, I have pursued the itinerary concept that attempts to allude to a specific material situation, which takes shape following movement of materials, ideas, and techniques throughout geographic and epistemic areas (Smith

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

2016, 31). Pottery is produced in order to be consumed outside its place of production, whereby movement is an essential feature in its biography. For this reason, I have preferred to use the more analytical concept of itinerary, which covers places in which such objects have been located or were in use, the routes along which they circulated, and the reasons why they were moved ( Joyce and Gillespie 2015). In accordance with this conceptual framework, we shall be analysing how imported pottery ended up in Araba and what consequences this had both on the regional productive fabric and on the sociocultural context of its consumption. From Regional Networks to Globalization

In our interpretative model of the pottery record, the importing of pottery plays a key role, as it had a decisive influence on consumption dynamics and triggered renewal of the record which, in turn, entailed the renegotiation of social values in terms of the different types of pottery. In pursuit of this model, imported pottery would become the prototype to imitate in the sphere of regional production, above all when this involved types that were not being produced in the local vicinity. J. L. Solaun (2005) demonstrated that the first glazed pottery consumed in Araba originated from foreign workshops, from Mudejar regions immediately to the south or south-east of the province of Araba, such as Navarre and Teruel. According to this author, they were commercialized through long-distance distribution networks, most likely via weekly markets which, like that of Estella, acted as regional centres for the redistribution and transit of imported goods (Solaun 2005, 379). Similar imports from France, Spain, or Germany have been identified in England (Gerrard and Gutierrez-González 2018; Gutierrez 2018, 889–90), which would seem to confirm the existence of an Atlantic circuit. Evidence also exists to suggest trade between England and the ports of northern Spain, mostly on the Basque coast, from the twelfth century onwards (Gutierrez 2018, 889–90). However, the absence of glazed pottery during that century on the Cantabrian coast would appear to reflect the fact that it remained outside such distribution circuits, having to wait until the second half of the thirteenth century or fourteenth century for the first glazed examples to be recorded that originated from south-east France, such as Sadirac, Bergerac, and Saintes. Thus, despite its proximity, it would seem that until the late Middle Ages, the Cantabrian coast of the Basque Country and Araba formed part of different distribution circuits, being linked to the Atlantic and Mudejar regions respectively (Escribano-Ruiz and Solaun 2016). However, from the fourteenth century onwards, and especially in the fifteenth century, there was evident commercial growth regarding pottery. The imports arc was expanded to a significant extent throughout the length and breadth of the Iberian Peninsula, spreading from Barcelona, Teruel, Manises, Sevilla, and Guadalajara (Escribano-Ruiz 2014). Significantly, production in Araba also formed part of exchange networks on different scales — regional,

59

60

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

supraregional, and even intercontinental. Attention should be drawn to the possible correlation of some production within Araba with that recovered from Basque fishing settlements in Canada (Escribano-Ruiz and Barreiro Argüelles 2016). The growing geographic scale of such exchanges, which expanded from initially local/regional circuits to a global market, provides us with a progressive topography in which relations would gain more importance than the geographic areas themselves (Casella 2016). I do not intend here to enter the debate about the conceptual framework via which this study may be covered, but rather to provide evidence of the incredible expansion both of the spatial framework and the intensity of relations between individuals and things in the area and period of study. In this sense, it is interesting to highlight the fact that this case study does not show any direct correlation or linear evolution between globalization and the increase in imports. For instance, the pottery record was more global in the fifteenth century than the seventeenth century (Escribano-Ruiz 2014), although the mark of globalization had become very apparent by the nineteenth century, with more international than local pottery being found in rural areas (Escribano-Ruiz 2019). Conversely, and as we shall see below, there was a direct correlation between the emergence of those imports and the transformation of pottery production cycles in the area under study. From Imports to Exports

In the course of studying the Araba pottery record within an extensive chronological framework, we have been able to document the trajectory of a specific type of pottery, from the time it was first imported to when it started being produced on a regional level. On the one hand, the first glazed pottery produced in Araba is recorded from the fourteenth century, a century and a half later than the first glazed production documented there thus far. On the other, the first white-glazed pottery from Araba was produced two centuries after the first recorded one, in the fifteenth century. It would therefore seem that there was a long period from when a new type was first consumed until its production became established within the local productive fabric of between 150 and 200 years. Significantly, we have ascertained that many of the forms produced by local workshops reproduced ones that had previously been imported. This is the case of the first glazed jugs, which were first imported from Navarre and then went on to become one of the typical forms of different regional production in Araba. The same occurred with a type of bowl, whose first documented example was from Valencia and was then incorporated into the repertoire of practically all regional production (Figure 3.4). Both the issue with new glazed types and that of forms suggest that pottery in Araba had the mechanisms in place to imitate foreign production, and it would therefore seem that we might find what some authors refer to as the material mimesis process (Ajmar 2017).

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

Figure 3.4. First imported glazed jars ( Jarro 11-XII) and local production ( Jarro 11-XXXI, Jarro 11-XXXVII). First imported glazed bowl (right, top) and local production (right, bottom). Source: the author.

The case I am presenting here shows the capacity of local economies to adapt (Gerrard and Gutierrez-González 2018, 975) and their skill in producing the type of pottery products desired at any given time. It would seem evident that the technique was imported, that the first groups were foreign, and that local glazed production copied forms that already existed within the record. Yet how was that point reached? We might consider that it was down to the migration of artisans — a very customary process among the pottery guilds. The move by families from some localities to others had been documented since the sixteenth century. This was very common, for instance, in La Rioja (Martínez Glera 1991, 38–41), although it was also a very common process among the Basque workshops that produced what was referred to as Popular Pottery during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Ibabe 1995). This in turn might have justified the direct import of the more empirical aspects of production (glaze and formal repertoire), although it would not explain the reason for the move. Did potters move of their own free will? In this case, a relatively common model could come to mind based on direct learning — personified in the apprentice who moved to a workshop to learn certain techniques and, once they had acquired sufficient technical knowledge, would return. Or were they forced to do so? This was the case, for instance, with Chinese prisoners of war who became conveyers of technology (Smith 2016, 47).

61

62

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

Another possibility could have been that local workshops attempted to directly imitate the technique. Cases of industrial espionage existed that would have made that possible, such as in the case in which members of the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País (the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country) attempted to adopt the creamware formula. The document pertaining to china or English crockery that is preserved in the Provincial Historical Archive of Araba (DH.1080-44) is highly illustrative in this respect, insofar as it provides details of both its composition and manufacturing method. Cases such as that of Valencia also prove highly explanatory, where orders were placed in which it was requested that a specific part be imitated, which was then delivered by hand by way of a sample (López Elum 2005, 21). Additionally, other, more complex cases exist such as that involving the Englishman John Dwight who, in his attempt to imitate chinaware, ended up producing another type of high-quality pottery in the form of stoneware, in the second half of the seventeenth century (Green 1999, 2–6). All the cases taken into consideration here are likely in our case study, although for the time being, we can only reflect on the possible transfer mechanisms of glazed technology. I cannot even suggest that all or at least several formulas were used in Araba workshops. In contrast, I do note a common pattern, a model, an objective: trying to produce the most exclusive type of pottery at the time in Araba. That is why I suggest that, as in the case of the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País, it was most likely the oligarchy that urged or helped local workshops to produce new types of pottery. They were the chief interested parties in buying and showing off that type of pottery and the only ones who had the financial clout needed to defray the costs of the changes that involved streamlining technology in regional workshops. And indeed, as I have shown, the consumption of exclusive pottery was far more intense when the social competitiveness context was greater (Escribano-Ruiz 2016a). The fact that over one hundred years passed between the time when new types of pottery started being manufactured and its consumption became widespread would also seem to point in that direction. We have seen how the production timescale on a regional level subject to study was slowly and progressively transformed. Therefore, unlike in other cases (Gutierrez 2018, 899), there was no prompt response from local workshops — precisely because the aim of the aristocracy was to ensure that restrictive consumption was maintained — in taking possession of the diversity of pottery offered by the market. Thus, the onset of production of new types of pottery on a regional level was followed by a period of stasis and continuity, which came to an end with the widespread consumption of these types of pottery, paving the way for a new cycle of restrictive production and consumption that took the form of new types. Imported products were always present in the origins of this process (glazed pottery, white-glazed pottery, creamware). This process shows that, as in other examples (Hahn and Weiss 2013, 6), local culture was transformed by transnational exchanges and relations. I should recall, nonetheless, that every locality subject to study

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

had its own consumption dynamics, and the role of imported pottery differed in each locality or timescale. From Matter to Materialization

Throughout the European history of consumption, there has always been a preference for exotic goods. Their singularity — or at least exclusivity — made them obvious consumer elements (Hahn and Weiss 2013, 5). While some authors have wondered about the point of exotic pottery (Gerrard and Gutierrez-González 2018, 975–76), others are clear that within certain historical and social contexts this was owing to its potential capacity for communication (Gutierrez 2018, 901) and social action (Escribano-Ruiz 2016a). However, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that the import of exotic pottery came to form part of a more profound and complex social process. The drastic changes that European societies went through in the later medieval and modern eras must also have been reflected in the production and consumption guidelines for pottery in any given place. And one might also think the opposite: that imported objects would become conveyers of those changes throughout Europe, insofar that we may well wonder whether exclusive pottery consumption meant a change in mentality on the part of Basque diners — whether this might have made them feel, for instance, more individual, modern, or cosmopolitan. One of the more obvious conclusions to be drawn from a study of the pottery record from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries is that pottery became widespread and progressively started to perform many more functions (Escribano-Ruiz 2014). From the fourteenth century onwards, the number of products made of pottery steadily increased in the same way that its capacity to assist in different activities did. This is particularly apparent in the case of the villages of Ocio and Salinillas, whose record in the fourteenth century was confined to forms used for cooking or storing foodstuffs, although this did not extend to other functional series until the sixteenth century. The case of Vitoria is more complex, as it evidenced a considerable functional repertoire from the fourteenth century onwards, although there was a marked absence: pottery destined for the consumption of solids and semi-liquids was not represented until the sixteenth century, but it would prevail from that time onwards. This same process has also been noted in Ocio and Salinillas de Buradón at the same time, and I have linked this to the replacement of wooden crockery with that made of pottery. In some instances, reference is made in fourteenth-century documentation from Navarre to wooden crockery (Castro, Idoate, and Baleztena 1988), and all cases are linked to elements destined for the consumption and serving of solid or semi-liquid foods (mugs, chopping blocks, bowls). The only earthenware vessels mentioned are, precisely, pots and jugs. In short, it would seem that between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the use of pottery in the household steadily increased, and even

63

64

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

ended up incorporating functional series produced using other materials such as wood. Yet we have also documented the opposite process. There was a sharp decrease in the amount of pottery linked to cooking, above all that destined for the stove, towards the seventeenth century — something that took place in all localities with a pottery record dated to that era, but especially of note in Vitoria. I link this to an inverse process, which means that pottery products were replaced by similar ones made of metal. We are aware of the preference felt for metal cooking cauldrons since the Middle Ages in England (Gerrard 2012, 419), for instance, and it is also documented that copper was the material preferred by Basque sailors for cauldrons, with which they would melt down whale blubber on the Canadian coasts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Azpiazu 2008, 73–75). Although one of the functional series (cooking) decreased in percentage terms, there were many more functional series and forms that would become incorporated into the record after the sixteenth century (chandeliers, apothecary jars, inkpots, holy water vessels, chamber pots, vases, glasses, etc.), and it is clear that the use of pottery gradually became more widespread. This process was no isolated phenomenon, but rather would seem to have been a response to a large-scale process, as took place at the same time in England (Gaimster and Nenk 1997, 188). The widespread consumption of pottery products that we witness during the period subject to study represents an obvious move preceding the Industrial Revolution, characterized among other things by the success of synthetic products. Pottery not only transformed raw materials into artificial products, but also in the case we are studying here emulated products made using natural elements, such as wood, ultimately taking their place on the market. The moment when their consumption became widespread also coincided with the growing atomization of European society in general, and Basque society in particular — an essential feature of capitalist societies. Sets of plates and bowls played their part in this strategy that would foster individual behaviour, as it implied the use of a set of dishes per person. Thus, people became separated and their conduct standardized around the dining table (Leone 2010, 89), within a process that extended through the movement of crockery across Europe throughout the Modern Age. From Distinction to Class Memory

As I have stated, pottery imports can be interpreted within specific social and historical contexts as status markers of their owners and in terms of a social hierarchy. This has also been considered in the case of Mediterranean imports in some German Celtic cultures, which helped the nobility to distinguish themselves from the rest or, within the context of modern colonialism, in which the desire to consume imports was the result of emulation, with a view to eliminating a sense of backwardness (Hahn and Weiss 2013, 5). We have identified this same practice in pottery production in the Basque Country in recent times. The porcelain factory in Bidania tried to establish itself as a social

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

benchmark in the early twentieth century, insofar as its promoters considered recovering popular Basque pottery by emulating French production and employing the main Basque artists of the time in their project (Aguirrezabala 2017). This case demonstrates the fact that in the Basque Country pottery was still being conceived as a way of appearing modern and advanced even in the twentieth century. The key was to emulate accurately, as was the case between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Relating pottery to art and identity leads me inevitably to refer to taste and social distinction practices. In accordance with postulates by Bourdieu in this respect, not only do we think that exclusive pottery was used to mark and maintain social barriers, but also that its use was regulated on a cultural basis. The link between cultural practices and social origins was influenced by the education process, which in practice implied greatly differing cultural spheres of activity that were directly related to social hierarchy. This education leads us to concepts involving lifestyle and cultural tastes in which the lowest classes are aesthetically dominated, as they are compelled to define themselves according to dominant aesthetics ( Jenkins 2006, 88–98). One of the preferred places in which such lifestyles and cultural tastes were reproduced was precisely in terms of conduct at the dining table, where crockery was always present. The indisputable attachment of exclusive imported pottery to the dining table highlights the importance of pottery destined for food consumption in social distinction strategies. As I have already mentioned, when social inequalities increased after the fourteenth century, the dining table became the privileged stage on which to enact them. Around that time, refinement in terms of taste, aroma, and colour of food and the advent of ‘good manners’ started to develop as distinguishing features, no longer depending only on quantity but also on quality and forms of consumption (Serrano 2000, 158). It is within this context in which crockery became part of the world of codes of conduct, in which it played a discreet yet fundamental role. These collective events around the dining table came about through transcorporeal, sensory interactions, and their repetition produced a stratigraphic memory (Hamilakis 2013, 413–14). Thus, the memory became linked to crockery, which, by its being embodied in a class identity, went on to represent the social memory of Basque families until the twentieth century (Escribano-Ruiz 2016b).

Final Considerations Throughout this work I have proposed that the change in the fourteenth- to seventeenth-century pottery record in Araba happened because pottery consumption proved useful in strategies of empowerment of the local oligarchy and the growth of inequality. Of course, this is not the conclusion I would like to have reached, although I believe that, whether we like it or not, we should seek out what is actually operating in regulatory, decisive terms precisely at the point where intellectual pride would least like to find it (Nietzsche

65

66

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

2008, 35). This proposal might also appear to be excessively deterministic in nature, as it defends the fact that certain laws exist, which are adhered to in human interaction with their social, material, and environmental milieu. However, I’m not suggesting that human instinctive conduct may produce the same results within different times and places. Rather, this is a recurring human type of behaviour that is represented within all historical contexts in which it may adopt different forms of expression (Paynter and McGuire 1991, 5–7) and, therefore, give rise to a range of diverse consequences. I am also aware of the fact that our approach to society as hierarchically structured and governed by perpetuated inequality may diminish the human capacity for action. Nonetheless, I believe that post-processual ideas have tended to overrate human manoeuvrability and, paradoxically, overlooked its context or specific nature ( Johnson 1999, 35; Hicks 2003, 318), since individuals act under circumstances that are passed down and over which they have no immediate control (Shanks 2007, 292). In the same vein, the approach to power relations also demands research into historically specific interactions, albeit also according to the larger-scale structural variables within which they are contained (Stein 1998, 9). For all the aforementioned reasons, I have argued throughout this work that humans are conditioned by an interaction between the capacity for individual action and social structure — between practice and habitus (Voss 2008, 18). According to the interpretative model proposed here, the joint, interactive existence of certain types of human behaviour, which are constant in some cases and changing in others in terms of holistic interaction with objects and nature, would be what would have shaped the different historical scenarios in which the different societies that populated our past acted. I hope to have demonstrated that, within the specific historical background subject to study, pottery was an active discursive agent used by the oligarchy in Araba in its strategies in which it pursued domination and the creation of inequality. In doing so, they would have tried to construct a favourable social dynamic over which, however, they exerted no direct control. And all this happened in close relation to the consumption of foreign pottery in this specific setting of the Basque Country. Pottery imports were the instigator of changes in a process, followed by a series of long-lasting consequences that have been characterized here as a comprehensive itinerary.

Works Cited Aguirrezabala, Edurne. 2017. ‘Bidaniako portzelana fabrika’ (unpublished undergraduate dissertation, University of the Basque Country) Ajmar, Marta. 2017. ‘The Renaissance in Material Culture: Material Mimesis as Force and Evidence of Globalization’, in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, ed. by Tamar Hodos (London: Routledge), pp. 669–86

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

Arrizabalaga, Alvaro. 2009. ‘The Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition on the Basque Crossroads: Main Sites, Key Issues’, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte, 18.3: 39–70 Arrizabalaga, Alvaro, Esteban Álvarez, and Maria Jose Iriarte. 2011. ‘Spondylus sp. at Lezetxiki Cave (Basque Country, Spain): First Evidence of its Use in Symbolic Behaviour during the Aurignacian in Europe’, in Spondylus in Prehistory: New Data and Approaches. Contributions to the Archaeology of Shell Technologies, ed. by Fotis Ifantidis and Marianna Nikolaidou, BAR International Series, 2216 (Oxford: Archaeopress), pp. 11–16 Azkarate, Agustin. 1999. Necrópolis tardoantigua de Aldaieta (Nanclares de Gamboa, Álava), Memorias de yacimientos alaveses, 6 (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Diputación Foral de Alava) Azkarate, Agustin, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz. 2014. ‘De la Arqueología Histórica a la Arqueología del Colonialismo: Una reflexión desde la experiencia europea’, in Arqueología de los primeros asentamientos urbanos españoles en la América Central y Meridional, ed. by Fernando Vela (Madrid: Mairea Libros), pp. 87–109 Azkarate, Agustin, Julio Núñez, and Jose Luis Solaun. 2003. ‘Materiales y contextos cerámicos de los siglos vi al x en el País Vasco’, in Cerámicas tardorromanas y altomedievales en la Península Ibérica: Ruptura y continuidad, ed. by Luis Caballero, Pedro Mateos, and Manuel Retuerce, Anejos del Archivo Español de Arqueología, 28 (Madrid: CSIC), pp. 321–70 Azpiazu, Juan Antonio. 2008. La empresa vasca de Terranova (Donostia: Ttartalo) Balandier, Georges. 2003. El desorden: La teoría del caos y las ciencias sociales (Barcelona: Gedisa) Barad, Karen. 2003. ‘Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28.3: 801–31 Cajigas, Silvia, David Martinez Izquierdo, and Florencia Savanti. 2007. ‘Excavación en Zaharra nº 2–4 de la ciudad de Orduña: Resultados, evolución y usos del solar desde el siglo xiii al xix’, Kobie (Paleoantropología), 27: 231–300 Casella, Eleanor Conlin. 2016. ‘Horizons beyond the Perimeter Wall: Relational Materiality, Institutional Confinement, and the Archaeology of Being Global’, Historical Archaeology, 50.3: 127–43 Castro, Jose Ramon, Florencio Idoate, and Javier Baleztena. 1988. Catálogo del Archivo General de Navarra. Sección Comptos: Documentos, adicionales (Iruñea: Diputación Foral de Navarra) Deleuze, Giles, and Félix Guattari. 1997. Mil mesetas: Capitalismo y esquizofrenia (Valencia: Pre-textos) Dobres, Marcia Ann. 2000. Technology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers) Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio. 2009. ‘Alfares alaveses: Prospección visual y recogida de materiales’, Arkeoikuska, 8: 216–23 ———. 2014. ‘Genealogía del registro cerámico alavés de época preindustrial (siglos xiv al xvii)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of the Basque Country, UPV-EHU); available at

67

68

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

———. 2016a. ‘Cerámica y comunidades de poder: La transvaloración del registro cerámico alavés entre el siglo xiv y el xvii’, in In & Around: Ceramiche e comunità. Secondo convegno tematico dell’AIECM3, ed. by Margherita Ferri, Cecilia Moine, and Lara Sabbionesi (Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio), pp. 219–27 ———. 2016b. ‘Desde una arqueología inclusiva, por un pasado mejor: Un ensayo epistemológico y axiológico’, Complutum, 27.1: 21–30 ———. 2017. ‘Estrategias cuantitativas para el estudio de cerámica arqueológica: Una propuesta desde el caso de la cerámica histórica alavesa’, Munibe, 68: 289–300 ———. 2019. ‘The Centrality of the Margins: Global Intersections of a Basque Rural Area during the Recent Past’, World Archaeology, 51.2: 273–90 Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio, and Sarai Barreiro Argüelles. 2016. ‘Travelling Ceramics: Basque Networks and Identities in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence’, in Contact in the 16th Century: Networks Among Fishers, Foragers and Farmers, ed. by Brad Loewen and Claude Chapdelaine, Mercury Series in Archaeology (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press), pp. 31–56 Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio, Brad Loewen, Agustin Azkarate, Cristina P. Barrachina, Julio Nuñez, and Yves Monette. 2015. ‘Basque Fishing Crews’ Pottery in Canada: A Transatlantic Evaluation of Ceramic Remains Left by an Early Modern Global Enterprise’, in Global Pottery: Historical Archaeology and Archaeometry for Societies in Contact, ed. by Jaume Buxeda, Marisol Madrid, and Javier G. Iñañez, BAR International Series, 2761 (Oxford: Archaeopress), pp. 205–21 Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio, and Jose Luis Solaun. 2016. ‘La introducción y normalización de la cerámica vidriada en el Cantábrico Oriental a la luz del registro cerámico de Vitoria-Gasteiz (siglos xii–xv)’, in Actas do X Congresso Internacional a Cerâmica Medieval No Mediterrâneo, Silves 22 a 27 outubro ’12, ed. by Maria José Gonçalves and Susana Gómez-Martínez (Silves: Câmara Municipal de Silves & Campo Arqueológico de Mértola), pp. 534–48 Ferri, Margherita, Cecilia Moine, and Lara Sabbionesi (eds). 2016. In & Around: Ceramiche e comunità. Secondo convegno tematico dell’AIECM3 (Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio) Filloy, Idoia, and Eliseo Gil. 2000. La romanización en Álava: Catálogo de la exposición permanente sobre Álava en época romana del Museo de Arqueología de Álava (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Diputación Foral de Álava) Gaimster, David, and Beverly Nenk. 1997. ‘English Households in Transition, 1450–1550’, in The Age of Transition: The Archaeology of English Culture, 1400–1600, ed. by David Gaimster and Paul Stamper (Oxford: Oxbow Books), pp. 171–95 García Camino, Iñaki. 1992/93. ‘Urbanismo y Cultura Material en el Bilbao Medieval (aportaciones desde la arqueología)’, Kobie (Serie Paloantropología), 20: 235–66 García-Raso, Daniel. 2009. ‘De la basura a las nuevas tecnologías: Base bibliográfica para un estudio de cultura material contemporánea’, Arqueoweb, 12: 164 pp.,

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

Gereñu, Marian. 2011. Arqueología de los siglos xvi, xvii y xviii en Gipuzkoa (Donostia: Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia) Gerrard, Christopher M. 2012. ‘Mirada al Norte: Los estudios de cerámica medieval desde una perspectiva británica’, in Atti del IX Congresso Internazionales sulla Ceramica Medievale nel Mediterraneo, ed. by Sauro Gelichi (Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio), pp. 415–22 Gerrard, Christopher M. and Jose Avelino Gutierrez-González. 2018. ‘Looking South: Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages’, in The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain, ed. by Christopher M. Gerrard and Alejandra Gutierrez (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 964–81 González-Ruibal, Alfredo. 2003. La experiencia del otro: Una introducción a la etnoarqueología (Madrid: Akal) Green, C. 1999. John Dwight’s Fulham Pottery: Excavations 1971–7, English Heritage Archaeological Report, 6 (London: English Heritage) Gutierrez, Alejandra. 2018. ‘Trade and Other Contacts in Late Medieval Britain’, in The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain, ed. by Christopher M. Gerrard and Alejandra Gutierrez (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 887–908 Hahn, Hans Peter, and Hadas Weiss. 2013. ‘Introduction: Biographies, Travels and Itineraries of Things’, in Mobility, Meaning and the Transformation of Things, ed. by Hans Peter Hahn and Hadas Weiss (Oxford: Oxbow Books), pp. 1–14 Hamilakis, Yannis. 2013. ‘Afterword: Eleven Theses on the Archaeology of the Senses’, in Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology, ed. by Jo Day (Carbondale, IL: Center for Archaeological Investigation), pp. 409–20 Hicks, Dan. 2003. ‘Archaeology Unfolding: Diversity and the Loss of Isolation’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 22: 315–29 Ibabe, Enrike. 1995. Cerámica popular vasca (Bilbao: BBK) Ibáñez Artica, Miguel, Marian Guereñu, and Maria del Mar López Colom. 1995. El hallazgo monetario de la iglesia de San Esteban (Oiartzun: Oiartzungo Udala) Ibarra, Jose Luis. 2009. ‘Fragmentos de producciones alfareras recuperados en la ermita de Kurtzio (Bermeo. Vizcaya)’, Kobie (Serie paleoantropología), 28: 171–220 Jenkins, Richard. 2006 [1992]. Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge) Jervis, Ben. 2017. ‘Assembling the Archaeology of the Global Middle Ages’, World Archaeology, 49.5: 666–80 Johnson, Mathew. 1999. ‘Rethinking Historical Archaeology’, in Historical Archaeology: Back from the Edge, ed. by Pedro P. A. Funari, Martin Hall, and Siam Jones (London: Routledge), pp. 23–36 Joyce, Rose Mary, and S. D. Gillespie. 2015. ‘Making Things out of Objects that Move’, in Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice, ed. by Rose Mary Joyce and S. D. Gillespie (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press), pp. 3–19 Kay, Aaron C., Christian S. Wheeler, John A. Bargh, and Lee Ross. 2004. ‘Material Priming: The Influence of Mundane Physical Objects on Situational Construal and Competitive Behavioral Choice’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 95.1: 83–96

69

70

s e rgi o e s c r i b an o - r u i z

Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reensamblar lo social: Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red (Buenos Aires: Manatial) Lemonnier, Pierre. 2012. Mundane Objects: Materiality and Non-Verbal Communication, UCL Institute of Archaeology Critical Cultural Heritage Series, 10 (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press) Leone, Mark. 2010. Critical Historical Archaeology (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press) Lima, Tania Andrade. 1995. ‘Pratos e Mais Pratos: Louças Domésticas, Divisões Culturais e Limites Sociais no Rio de Janeiro, Século XIX’, Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material, 3: 129–91 López Colom, Maria del Mar. 1996. Pipas de arcilla halladas en Gipuzkoa: Aproximación a su catalogación arqueológica y tipológica (Donostia: Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia) López Elum, Pedro. 2005. La producción cerámica de lujo en la Baja Edad Media: Manises y Paterna (Valencia: Amigos del Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de las Artes Suntuarias González Martí) Lucas, Gavin. 2012. Understanding the Archaeological Record (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Martínez Glera, Enrique. 1991. La alfarería en La Rioja: Siglos xvi al xx (Logroño: Consejería de Cultura, Deportes y Juventud) Martínez Salcedo, Ana. 2004. La cerámica común de época romana en el País Vasco: Vajilla de cocina, mesa y despensa procedente de los asentamientos de Aloria (Álava), Forua (Bizkaia) e Iruña/Veleia (Álava) (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco) McGlade, James. 2006. ‘Ecohistorical Regimes and la Longue Durée: An Approach to Mapping Long-Term Societal Change’, in Complexity and Co-evolution: Continuity and Change in Socio-economic Systems, ed. by Elizabeth Garnsey and James Mc Glade (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), pp. 77–114 Murillo-Barroso, Mercedes, Enrique Peñalver, Primitiva Bueno, Rosa Barroso, Rodrigo de Balbín, and Marcos Martinón-Torres. 2018. ‘Amber in Prehistoric Iberia: New Data and a Review’, PLoS ONE 13.8: e0202235 Nietzsche, F. 2008 [1887]. Genealogía de la moral (Madrid: Alianza editorial) Paynter, Robert, and Randall McGuire. 1991. ‘The Archaeology of Inequality: Material Culture, Domination and Resistance’, in Randall H. McGuire and Robert Paynter, The Archaeology of Inequality (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 1–25 Pitts, Martin. 2017. ‘Globalization and China: Materiality and Civilité in PostMedieval Europe’, in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, ed. by Tamar Hodos (London: Routledge), pp. 566–79 Ribeiro, Artur. 2019. ‘Against Object Agency 2. Continuing the Discussion with Sørensen’, Archaeological Dialogues, 26.1: 39–44 San Vicente, Jose Ignacio. 2013. ‘Trueque, unidades de cuenta y circulación monetaria en Gasteiz (siglos viii–xii dC)’, in Arqueología e Historia de una ciudad: Los orígenes de Vitoria-Gasteiz, ed. by Agustin Azkarate and Jose Luis Solaun, vol. i (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco), pp. 357–80

o n h ow to ke e p t h e m o no po ly o f d i ve rsi t y

Sauer, Jacob J. 2015. The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Araucanian Resilience (New York: Springer) Serrano, Fernando. 2000. ‘La casa y la mesa de la Reina Blanca de Navarra (1433)’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 30.1: 157–233 Shanks, Michael. 2007. ‘Arqueología simétrica’, Complutum, 18: 292–96 Smith, Pamela H. 2016. ‘Itineraries of Materials and Knowledge in the Early Modern World’, in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London: Routledge), pp. 31–61 Solaun, Jose Luis. 2005. La cerámica medieval en el País Vasco (siglos viii–xiii) (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco-Gobierno Vasco) Stein, Gil J. 1998. ‘Heterogeneity, Power and Political Economy: Some Current Research Issues in the Archaeology of Old World Complex Societies’, Journal of Archaeological Research, 6.1: 1–44 Tourigny, Eric, Sarah Newstead, Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, B. Nyiri, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith, and Timo Ylimaunu. 2017. ‘Global Post-Medieval/Historical Archaeology: What’s Happening around the World?’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 51.3: 515–23 Voss, Barbara L. 2008. The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco (Gainesville: University Press of Florida) Walker, Brian, C. S. Holling, Stephen R. Carpenter, and Ann Kinzig. 2004. ‘Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social-Ecological Systems’, Ecology and Society, 9.2: art. 5; Wickham, Chris. 2009. Una historia nueva de la Alta Edad Media: Europa y el mundo mediterráneo, 400–800 (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica) Witmore, Christopher. 2007. ‘Arqueología simétrica: Un manifiesto breve’, Complutum, 18: 305–13 Young, Diana. 2006. ‘The Colours of Things’, in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. by Chris Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer (London: Sage), pp. 173–85

71

Jette Linaa

Memorable, Modern, or Mundane? Investigating the Place of Porcelain and Majolica in Homes and Hearts in Early Modern Denmark

Introduction Porcelain is a marker of globalization of almost mythical proportions, and studies of porcelain have been used to shed light on globalization, commercialization, and the onset of modernity in many scholarly works ranging from material culture studies to investigations into gendered collecting practices and social history (Bischoff 2014; van Campen 2014; van Campen and Eliëns 2014; Gerritsen and Riello 2016; Kristensen 2014; McCants 2008; Pitts 2017; van Gent 2016). Porcelain fascinates us with its mixture of exclusivity, the sensual experience it offers, and the deep-set knowledge that a fragile item, which would not survive being dropped on the floor, has survived a journey halfway round the world. The early modern period was likewise deeply fascinated by porcelain: As early as 1611, the historian Jan Isaacsz Pontanus wrote a famous description of the town of Amsterdam where he noted the amount and use of porcelain, stating that ‘the abundance of porcelain grows daily’ and that it was ‘in nearly daily use with the common people’ (Pontanus 1974; Volker 1971, 23). Pontanus, who was born in Elsinore as son of the Dutch envoy and lived in the city for large parts of his life, wrote in the early days of the Dutch golden age, the glorious seventeenth century where the Dutch fleet commanded the seas and where Dutch trade was the leading economic power in the world. The Dutch activities, especially after the foundation of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), opened the West to the wonders of the rest of the world and led Europe into the onset of an emerging consumer culture, a culture characterized by commercialization, commodification, and mass consumption that trickled down into the deep layers of early modern society and changed people’s lives forever (Brook 2013; Finlay 2010; Pitts 2017 with references). The changes manifest as shiploads of porcelain being sold in the Netherlands, starting with the first sale from the Portuguese vessel Jette Linaa    MOMU/Aarhus University Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Archaeological Perspectives, ed. by Magdalena E. Naum, Jette Linaa, and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz, HDL 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) pp. 73-111 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.123736

74

j e tte l in a a

San Jago in Amsterdam in 1602 and continuing onwards. According to the VOC-historian Tys Volker, a veritable stream followed in the wake of this, with almost 10,000 pieces of porcelain being shipped to Amsterdam in 1610, a number that grew to 25,000 in 1615, 40,000 in 1616, 64,000 in 1623, and 250,000 in 1636 (Volker 1971). No wonder that Pontanus was overwhelmed. These floods of porcelain, as observed by Pontanus and the scholars mentioned above, transformed porcelain from rare and precious to mundane and common practically overnight, at this moment changing the culture, drinking habits, habits of socializing, spending habits, and even whole world views forever as it spread to large parts of the population. This is, as remarked by Martin Pitts, frequently, but perhaps not entirely truthfully, seen as a confirmation of Norbert Elias’s civilizing process: the gradual trickle-down of manners, habits, and, indeed, material objects from the upper to the lower layers of society (Pitts 2017 with references). The question is whether this is at all true, or whether significant deviations, haltered developments, loose ends, and real crises lie buried under the paving of this veritable motorway of modernity. The aim of this chapter is not to question whether Pontanus’s description of Amsterdam was accurate, but to investigate how this apparent onset of modernity was acted out in the North by means of porcelain and majolica. This follows in the wake of several investigations into the role of porcelain and majolica in the Netherlands and neighbouring countries, among them Martin Pitts’s investigation referred to above as well as Inneke Baatsen, Bruno Blondé, and Carolien de Staelens’s (2017) analysis of the role of majolica in Amsterdam. Anne Gerritsen and Georgio Riello’s (2016) study of the use of global material culture in the Netherlands is crucial, too, as is Anne McCants’s (2008) analysis of how far exotic goods, such as coffee, tea, silk, and other Eastern commodities, spread in the middle classes during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an analysis that is based on inventories from Britain and the Netherlands. The present analysis of the spread of this apparent vehicle of globalization and modernization in the North is necessary because the expected narrative of a wide-ranging spread contrasts dramatically with the fact that finds of early and mid-seventeenth-century porcelain in archaeological contexts — and any other setting in Denmark, for that matter — are few and far between. The combined number of sherds found in Denmark amounts to about twenty-five, and investigations of corresponding periods in the Baltic Countries and our neighbouring countries have demonstrated that porcelain and majolica are just as rare then as, if not rarer than, in early modern Denmark (Carlsson 2020; Carlsson and Rosén 2002; Kristensen 2014; Linaa 2012, 2016, 2020b; Rosén 2004; Russow 2006; Samariter 2013). So why do we not find the porcelain and the majolica? Is the lack caused by problems with representation, a lack of excavation at core sites, or unknown waste-disposal patterns? Or is it, as will be investigated in this chapter, because porcelain and majolica actually were very rare, because the supply was limited, the goods were not sold on the open market, and the access depended on specific networks and communities? If

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

this hypothesis is true, then the globalization that these goods have hitherto been thought to symbolize did not occur at that point, and porcelain and majolica were still, in the first half of the seventeenth century, magic instead of mundane. The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to clarify what we know about early modern porcelain and majolica in the North. The framework of this study and the sources will be presented first. This is followed by a study of when and how porcelain and majolica came to the Elsinore and how it was used in the early modern home. The next part aims to analyse the owners of porcelain and majolica according to their wealth, occupation, and descent and to study the persons who did not own porcelain, which is just as important. This is followed by a discussion of the evidence, and, finally, the conclusion will deconstruct the myth of porcelain and majolica as a symbol of modernity and reassemble its status in the early modern mind.

History of Research This analysis is performed within the framework of the cross-disciplinary research project ‘Urban Diaspora: Migration and Materiality in the Early Modern Period’, which is funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research/Humanities (2014–18). The project, which takes its starting points in the Danish cities of Elsinore and Aalborg and the Swedish town of Nya Lödöse, was published in 2020, and the present essay presents some further results and considerations arising from it. The final publication includes a number of studies of the archaeological and historical records, as well as studies of the social networks in the towns (Appel 2020; Appel and Linaa 2020; Atzbach 2020; Enghoff 2020; Karg and Flensborg 2020; Linaa 2020b, 2020c). Several papers on conflicts and communities in Elsinore have been published elsewhere (Linaa 2018, 2019, 2020d). The part of the project out of which this essay is born — the study of inventories in Elsinore — follows in the footsteps of decade-long international research on the materiality mentioned in early modern inventories. The bestknown publications include Mary Parker and Brenda Burr’s All My Worldly Goods (1991) and Greig Parker’s Probate Inventories of French Immigrants in Early Modern London (2016). These works focus on inventories from Britain, but also inventories from the Netherlands have formed the basis of large-scale investigations by many researchers. A significant source of inspiration in this respect comes from Luxury in the Low Countries, a reflection on Dutch material culture that includes considerations of the exchange of luxury goods and the social practices surrounding their use (Dibbits 2010; Egmond 2010; Rittersma 2010). Another close parallel is the already mentioned essay by Inneke Baatsen, Bruno Blondé, and Carolien de Staelen (2017) on the social and economic significance of crystal glass and majolica in sixteenth-century Antwerp. This essay is crucial in several aspects: it is based on probate inventories, it

75

76

j e tte l in a a

deals with two artefact types that are well-documented historically as well as archaeologically in Elsinore, and it takes into account that quite a few of Elsinore’s inhabitants originated in Antwerp. Martin Pitts’s much referred-to contribution based on inventories is, of course, crucial, too (Pitts 2017). A study of porcelain and majolica encompasses a survey not only of inventories, but also of the social practices in which the objects were entangled and the human–object relations in which they were embedded. The social practices include practices involving the interpersonal exchange of specific objects between more or less socially equal partners, whether family, kin, friends, or business partners, as well as the exchange of hospitality between such partners. Here, Irma Thoen’s volume Strategic Affection? on gift exchange in the Netherlands (2007) as well as Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos’s book (2008) on the many practices surrounding gift-giving in early modern England have also been fundamental. Since this essay is, in its essence, a comparison of living culture and consumption in Denmark and the Netherlands, an insight into the Dutch homes is a prerequisite. Such are found in Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Houses (Loughman and Montias 2000), but also in works by Anne McCants, Jan van Campen, and Thijs Weststeijn (van Campen 2014; McCants 2008; Weststeijn 2014). If we adopt a broader perspective, consumer culture studies focusing on the Dutch golden age of course include Simon Schama’s Embarrassment of Riches (1987). Also Consumption and the World of Goods edited by John Brewer and Roy Porter, which contains contributions by Jan de Vries on household economy, Peter Burke on conspicuous consumption, and Simon Schama on commodities (2015), has provided the present study with important information. Similarly, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe’s History of Global Consumption (2014), Harold J. Cook’s Matters of Exchange (2008), and Paula Findlen and Pamela Smith’s Merchants and Marvels (2002) have been of great value. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, especially the chapters on home, possessions, and diet by Dominique Margairaz, on shopping by Evelyn Welch, and on the standard of living by Carole Shammas (2012) have likewise been significant. Finally, the early modern world itself has been given a voice in the shape of the Dutch Schoolmaster David Beck’s published diary from the year 1624, which offers profound, first-hand insights into the home and the heart of an early modern man (Beck 1993). As we will learn, the inventories of Elsinore are mainly unpublished and under-researched, but a few scholars have provided entrance points. The decade 1571 to 1582 has been published by the historian Michael Dupont (2014). Unfortunately, no porcelain or majolica is mentioned before the 1590s, but Dupont’s work gives valuable insight into the procedures and the typical contents of homes at the time. The years 1571–1620 form the basis of another valuable contribution, Jørgen Olrik’s volume on early modern domestic culture Borgerlige Hjem i Helsingør (1903), which presents an extract from the inventories, including fourteen complete inventories. Several recent

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

Figure 4.1. Elsinore and the Sound, c. 1590. Georg Braun (1551–1622) and Franz Hogenberg (1540–1590): Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Köln c. 1590. Royal Danish Library.

volumes are entirely or partially based on studies of the inventories. A study by Poul Eller on the prints and pictures in homes during the period 1621–60 gives an insight into the cultural climate (1975), and part of the inventories forms the basis for a study of the book culture in the seventeenth century by the historian Charlotte Appel (2001) and another on the history of wine consumption by the historian Annette Hoff (2018). But even though several scholars have included material from the inventories in their analyses, the substantial part of the overwhelming number of inventories still lies unused in the Danish National Archives.

The Scene and the Sources This analysis takes its starting point in the Danish city of Elsinore (Figure 4.1). Elsinore was the most important hub for maritime contacts between the Baltic countries and the West since the introduction of the Sound Toll in 1426 (Degn 2017). Since that year, every ship passing the Sound, on whose shore Elsinore is located, had to anchor in the city’s port to be inspected by customs officers and to pay the dues, and consequently, hundreds, even thousands, of ships anchored here every year, turning the city into the largest hub for shipping and maritime trade in the North. This immense amount of activity is clearly visible in the Sound Toll books (Soundtoll Registers Online

77

j e tte l in a a

Number of passages

Passages of ships through the Sound 1568-1660 18000 16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1560

1580

1600

1620

1640

1660

1680

Year

Figure 4.2. Yearly passages of ships through the Sound, 1568–1660. Notice the high number of ships passing in the 1590s and the steady decline in the seventeenth century. The disturbances caused by the wars in the 1620s and the late 1650s are apparent in the diagram. Source: Soundtoll Registers Online 2009. Number of inhabitants of Danish and immigrant descent in the city of Elsinore 1560-1645 700 600 No. of taxpayers

78

500 400 300 200 100 0

1560

1580

1600

1645

Danes

277

322

613

602

Migrants

75

158

276

143

Figure 4.3. Numbers of immigrants and Danes living in Elsinore, 1560–1645. Notice how the number of immigrant taxpayers rises from 20 per cent in 1560 to 33 per cent, or about 2300 persons, if family members are included, in 1600 only to decline to 19 per cent, or about 1200 persons, in 1645. Source: Helsingør Bys Skattebøger, the Danish National Archives.

2009); in the 1650s, almost five thousand ships passed through the Sound and more than a hundred ships paid the dues during every day of the high season. Because of this traffic and the business opportunities it facilitated for merchants, shippers, shipmasters, innkeepers, and artisans, Elsinore developed into, if not the largest, then certainly the richest and most cosmopolitan city in early modern Denmark in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Figure 4.2). The business opportunities in the town attracted a large number

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

Figure 4.4. Reconstruction of the cadastral map of Elsinore, 1645. Plots under the ownership of migrants are shaded. Source: Helsingør Bys Skattebog, 1545. Map: Department of Archaeological IT, MOMU/AU.

of immigrants: Many were Dutchmen, and among these were quite a few refugees from the Dutch war of independence in the 1560s (Figure 4.3). The many immigrants left their mark on life in the city, and their influence can still be seen today in the architecture and art of the city. Many of the immigrants settled in the eastern part of the town (Figure 4.4), which was constructed from the 1570s onwards and demolished in 1658; the area has been subject to extensive archaeological excavations in the last decade and has yielded quite a few finds of porcelain and majolica of a remarkably early date (Appel 2012; Linaa 2012, 2020b).

The Probate Inventories The probate inventories of Elsinore are preserved from 1571 onwards. The inventorying process that is known in detail does not deviate significantly from any other inventorying process in early modern Europe, although local variations often make direct comparisons difficult (Bager 1977; Neubert 1992; Parker 2013). The process employed in Elsinore has been dealt with in detail by the historian Michael Dupont (2007), who has shown that the

79

80

j e tte l in a a

process was marked by a high degree of continuity, as it was regulated by royal decrees. In 1605, King Christian IV stated that all estates should, from that date onward, be subject to a probate inventory taken by the town bailiff and the town accountant or town scribe (Diplomatarium Helsingoranum 1861, 83 no. 98; Secher 1887, 178–79). This decree shows directly in the rise in the number of inventories taken. Another decree of 1623 regulates the process further (Secher 1897, 79–90). As a consequence, probate inventories were taken by the town bailiff, the town scribe, and, usually, four council members with the assistance of artisans with specialist knowledge; for example, the local painter Caspar Kegelhof acted as a particular appraiser for the vast collection of paintings in the early modern homes (Eller 1975). The group of people involved in the inventorying process shows a remarkable continuity: Over the course of the eighty years of interest here, only nine town bailiffs and thirty-six council members were active, most of them for more than a decade. This continuity in the inventorying process allows us to assume that the inventories, no matter how biased, are at least comparable through time. The inventories list the assets and liabilities of deceased individuals: real estate, cash, assets, receivables, and debts along with the names of the debtors and creditors and the character of the goods and services delivered. This information forms the basis of an analysis of the social networks between townspeople, which is presented in another publication by the ‘Urban Diaspora’ project (Linaa 2020c). Many inventories end with a registry of the possessions that were handed over to each creditor or heir in order to cover the debts, and this allows us to reconstruct how items circulated through networks of credit within the city (Linaa 2020c). In many other cities, the possessions were sold at public auction and the profit handed over, but in Elsinore the actual items were handed over to creditors and heirs and were theirs to sell privately or use as they wished (Berg 2012; Eller 1975, 33–36). If we look further into what the written inventories represent, many of them reflect goods accumulated throughout a lifetime. Only rarely are we told when specific objects were acquired. Furthermore, items left behind by a poor individual may represent the sad remnants of a prosperous youth, as fluctuations in the payments of tax point in the direction of variations in wealth during the course of a lifetime (Tønnesen 1985; Vesterskov Johansen 1984, 271–74). It is also entirely possible that the objects listed in an inventory were not acquired and used by the owner at all, but by his wife, children, or servants, whom we know from tax records as well (Helsingør Skattebøger, the Danish National Archives). This adds another layer to the complexity of the early modern household. We may well assume that the poor are underrepresented in the inventories. As Greig Parker and Anne McCants state, inventories tend to underrepresent the lower ranks of society, and we can expect this to be the case in Elsinore, too (McCants 2006; Parker 2016, 13). As we will see, the change in administrative praxes in 1605 meant that the number of inventories taken increased because

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

more people were included. But even though the poor may proportionately be underrepresented, they are nevertheless represented in comparatively large numbers. Most of the people whose goods were subject to the inventorying process seem to have been relatively poor, and very few were truly wealthy (see below). The gender profile is likewise unbalanced: Only about one fifth of the inventories concern the estates of women, which probably reflects that most of the heads of households were male, and that many women did not leave behind either assets or debts.

Methodology This analysis is based on a sample of 1527 probate inventories. The inventories are unpublished and untranscribed, but accessible through the website of the Danish National Archives. During this project, the complete set of inventories from 1571–1609, 1620–29, and 1640–49 have been surveyed, and the names, occupations, and descent of the deceased have been registered. The net worth of their assets was also registered in cases where valuations were included in the inventories; in about a third of the cases no valuations were given. If present, the number of, type of, worth of (if registered), and location of porcelain, majolica, glass, stoneware, clay pots, and a large number of other objects have been registered as well. In order to bring the objects into an analysis of the social, occupational, and ethnic communities of the town, the net worth, occupation, and origin of the deceased have been noted as have the debtors and creditors, who are frequently mentioned in the inventories, in order to be able to analyse the social networks of the deceased. As stated above, the social analysis is based on calculations of the net worth of the assets, that is, household and personal items, such as jewellery, furniture, paintings and prints, clothing, beds and bedding, pots and pans, silver and pewter items, etc., while real estate and debts have been omitted. The net worth thus reflects the sum that the deceased had invested in portable goods based on the appraisal values, and this essay takes this as a proxy for individual wealth. However, the appraisal values in the inventories must not be mistaken for market prices — actually, they have been proven to be lower in other comparable analysis — and many other proxies could be applied from different source material, for example, tax payments or the value of real estate (Murhem and others 2019 with references). The approach adopted here is the same as that applied by historian Charlotte Appel in her study of reading and book markets in seventeenth-century Denmark (2001), which renders these two analyses directly comparable, and this approach is very similar to the one applied by the historian Ole Degn, who analysed the social differences in seventeenth-century Ribe, another Danish town (Degn 1981, 211–17). The closest international parallel to this analysis is the previously mentioned analysis of the majolica and porcelain in Antwerp. The calculations from that analysis were, in the absence of appraisal values, based on social categories

81

82

j e tte l in a a

Figure 4.5. Porcelain dish from the VOC ship Witte Leeuw that stranded in 1613. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Figure 4.6. Italian majolica dish with a blacksmith and a cupid in a landscape, workshop of Piero Bergantini, 1521–1523. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

established by means of another proxy: the number of rooms within the home (Baatsen, Blondé, and de Staelen 2017). In the present essay, the social categories of poor, middle, and wealthy class are based on the net worth of the deceased. The category ‘poor’ is defined as the lower quartile of the total population reflected in the inventories, ‘wealthy’ as the top quartile of the same population, and the ‘middle class’ is thus the ones who fall between the two extreme quartiles. A second, and more detailed, way of dividing the population is to add calculations of the very poor (the poorest 10%), the very wealthy (the upper 10%), and the top 1 per cent, the very richest, an approach that has been applied in some cases as well in this essay. After carrying out detailed analysis of specific decades, the inventories were classified into fixed wealth brackets specifying the sum total, in accordance with Degn’s methods, for example, 0–39 sldr (sletdaler), 40–99 sldr, 100–199 sldr, and so forth (see Figures 4.13, 4.14, 4.15, 4.16, below). The occupational profile of the deceased deserves further attention. Frequently, an occupation is mentioned in the inventories, such as shipmaster or merchant, but in other cases, an apparently occupational name is used about a person with an entirely different occupation. For example, Isak Kurvemager (basket-weaver) was not a basket-weaver, but the Dutch envoy of the town. Both Tønnesen’s volume on the foreign inhabitants of Elsinore 1550–1600 (Tønnesen 1985) and a volume on the register of civil servants of Elsinore by V. Hostrup Schultz (1906) have been invaluable for the identification of occupations, as has a number of letters and royal decrees (Bricka and others 1885). The analysis of the descent of the deceased is methodologically more challenging. Lists of strangers such as the ones we know from early modern England were not kept in Denmark, so information on individuals’ descent has to be gathered from a wide range of sources. Among these are letters and decrees granting individuals the right to stay in Elsinore (Bricka and others 1885), lists of citizenships (Bill-Jessen 2005), genealogical information in registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials in the city (Elsinore Cathedral Parish; Elsinore St Mary Parish), and any place of birth, relatives, or descent mentioned in the inventories themselves. Again, Allan Tønnesen’s biographies on about four hundred immigrants in Elsinore has been invaluable to the present study (Tønnesen 1985).

Types of Majolica and Porcelain Translation between the written and the material record is not in any way a straightforward process: The scribes in early modern Denmark used a not necessarily very consistent classification of their own, and consequently, porcelain and majolica appear under many different names. The terminology for porcelain is relatively homogeneous; the most common term is ‘Indian bowls’, which in turn reveals that bowls were for a while the most common type of porcelain items (Figure 4.5). Only in 1650 does a porcelain mug with

83

84

j e tte l in a a

a silver lid, worth the extortionate sum of six daler, appear in the inventories (Hels. SkP 06.05.1650). The inventories record a total of fifty-six bowls of porcelain, but the total number must have been higher, as numerous inventories mention ‘some Indian bowls and plates’ without specifying a number. The terminology used for majolica is more varied. We hear about a total of 157 majolica items, and the significant variation within this category is reflected in the valuations. Some are described as just ‘stone bowls’, but occasionally more details are added: we hear about ‘white Dutch dishes’ (Hels. SkP 31.07.1649), ‘Dutch Dishes’ (Hels. SkP 21.05.1627), ‘blue and white Dutch dishes’, ‘Dutch stone dishes’ (Hels. SkP 12.06.1650), and ‘small Dutch dishes’ (Hels. SkP 02.04.1646), all with varying valuations. Five small Hollands (Dutch) stone dishes are ascribed the value of one mark in 1650 (Hels. SkP 12.06.1650), while, for example, the shipmaster Joen Jacobsen stores ‘Spanish bowls and dishes’ worth 1 daler in his home (Hels. SkP 03.07.1648). The latter description most likely refers to the Portuguese and perhaps also the Italian majolica dishes found in the excavations of Elsinore (Linaa 2012, 2020b) (Figure 4.6). The types that are gathered under the designation ‘Dutch’ in the inventories may have been genuine Dutch majolica, or at least the types that the appraisers, some of whom were of Dutch origin, accepted as Dutch, while the others may have been Portuguese majolica. However, the excavations in the city have produced a not insignificant number of sherds of Italian majolica, so it is possible that the Mediterranean majolica was considered to be Iberian no matter the place of production. Besides majolica and porcelain, hundreds of stoneware mugs, drinking glasses, clay pots, coconut cups, and mounted ostrich eggs were recorded into the database as well, but these are presented in another context (Linaa 2020a).

The Acquisition of Porcelain and Majolica Porcelain and majolica reached the North with maritime traffic. In the late sixteenth century, the porcelain appears for the first time along with spices, oil, and sugar, so-called Indische godz (Indian goods). What might be porcelain is recorded in the Sound Toll Books as early as 1587, where the shipmaster Petter Hornneman from Danzig carried a chest of Indianische Fadt (Indian dishes), possibly porcelain, along with a cargo of salt, oil, incense, pickled ginger, sugar, and cloves on his ship going through the Sound (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009, record ID 4687994). Unfortunately, the destination of passing ships is not noted at this time, so we never learn where Petter Hornneman embarked on his journey or what his destination was. This was a time when transport of goods described as Indian frequently appears in the Sound Toll Books. In 1601, the shipmaster Jann Simenssen from Amsterdam passed the Sound with a mixed cargo of cloth, sugar, lemons and figs, rice and spices, and forty pounds of Indian silk (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009, record ID 880674): this cargo is a testament to the richness of Amsterdam, flowing

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

to the North. This was before the Dutch VOC, founded in 1602, and its predecessors from 1595 sent their ships all over the world (Gøbel 2017). The goods must have travelled from the trading station of Batavia (now Jakarta) to Lisbon on Portuguese ships to be brought to Amsterdam and then to the North from there. A good deal of the shipmasters carrying such goods were Dutch, such as Jann Simenssen, but shipmasters from other places and cities took part in the lucrative trade, too. We know that because the shipmaster Peter Wiedemann from Lübeck carried Indian godz on his ship as he returned from Lisbon to Lübeck in 1607 (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009, record ID 4219654). Shipmasters from Elsinore were also active: The Dutch-born shipmaster Jorris Jansen, whose inventory was taken in Elsinore in 1597, was involved in the salt trade in Cadiz and died in Spain (Tønnesen 1985, 118). Jansen’s wife later married another Dutch-born shipmaster, and at his death, the home had ‘some Indian cups and plates’, items that may have been brought home by Jorris Jansen (Hels. SkP 18.05.1599). Jorris Jansen was not the only shipmaster from Elsinore to trade with Spain: twenty-five shipmasters from Elsinore called at ports in Portugal and Spain between 1590 and 1610 (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009). The traffic between the Netherlands and Elsinore was also intense. Between 1590 and 1610, thirty-eight shipmasters based in Elsinore called at Amsterdam 231 times, carrying cargoes of wine and salt, hops, and what is described as ‘Dutch goods’; this may well have included majolica (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009). According to the names, the majority of these shipmasters seem to have been of Dutch origin. This early wave of porcelain and majolica is clearly visible in the inventories, but the modes of acquisition remain a bit of a mystery, because neither type appears in shop inventories from Elsinore prior to the end of the seventeenth century. A number of complete shop inventories from grocers, merchants, apothecaries, and wine merchants from 1593 onwards are included, but porcelain and majolica are nowhere to be found, although the shops are brimful of stoneware mugs and jugs. Even Peter Bruun, a merchant specialized in drinking glasses and other tableware, with customers in Malmø, Copenhagen, Helsingborg, and Halmstad, does not carry porcelain or majolica in his shop or have it in his home (Hels. SkP 11.07.1648). Instead, the shops are bursting at the seams with spices and cloth and ribbons and mirrors and an incredible number of small goods, including the blue, white, or brown stoneware mugs with lids or without that are so frequently found in inventories and archaeological records. The earliest shops recorded were owned by merchant Johan Petersen (Hels. SkP 03.10.1593), merchant Nille Jansdatter Bohmlos (Hels. SkP 03.11.1620), merchant Maricke Gieldsacks (Hels. SkP 04.07.1603), merchant Anne Dirik Piper in 1606 (Olrik 1903, 129–34), grocer Arnt Behmen (Hels. SkP 03.11.1620), small trader Valentin Kort (Hels. SkP 08.03.1630), merchant Claus Emmertsen (Hels. SkP 19.06.1641), grocer Peter Brun (Hels. SkP 11.07.1648), and haberdasher Trine Blaa Kepperich (Hels. SkP 18.09.1649). It is possible, of course, that porcelain and majolica were sold in the shops whose inventories

85

86

j e tte l in a a

were not taken, for one reason or other, just as it is possible that it was sold from market stalls or off incoming ships. If this is the case, no record of such practices has survived. However, nothing so far indicates that these types of goods were commercially available on the open market and for sale in shops. How the majolica and porcelain were transported may be suggested by the fact that such items have a tendency to show up in chests belonging to shipmasters, which may indicate that these people carried them as their personal belongings. If we enter their homes and study their chests and cupboards, we find a chest left behind in the care of Jan Jannsen by a shipmaster, Hans Hanis of Lübeck, who died in Spain in 1599 (Hels. SkP 15.06.1599). The chest contained items of clothing, silver spoons, a brass pot and cauldron, a pewter mug, a stoneware jug, and a majolica dish. The fact that the dish was kept among mixed goods suggests that, at this point, the plates were brought to town not as large-scale cargoes with thousands of items, as appears to have been the case in Amsterdam, but as the personal property of people involved in maritime trade. The inventory of captain Johan Semb, taken in 1618, presents a similar case. Semb is probably identical to the captain and fortification engineer of the same name who was employed by King Christian IV in the 1620s to lead a refortification of the harbour in Copenhagen (Lind 1889). In 1618 Semb owned eighteen ‘Indian’ bowls and plates (Hels. SkP 19.04.1618). Perhaps the Dutch-born Johan Semb brought a supply of porcelain to give away or sell privately on his way northwards. He may even have been employed by the VOC at some point; quite a few of the Dutch-born seamen from Elsinore were (Bredsdorff 2009; Gøbel 2017). The notion that porcelain in Elsinore was not commercially available on the open market, but gifted or traded privately, is supported by the fact that private trade and exchange of porcelain items was a well-known phenomenon in the Dutch VOC. The company repeatedly regulated the private trade of its officers (Volker 1971, 16). Most telling is the fact that porcelain is not listed among the goods for which cargo duties were specified before 1651: this year, a decree by King Frederik III specifies duties for porcelain for the first time (Secher 1918, 6, 44, 55, 57). No decrees specify duties for ‘Indian goods’ prior to 1651, so it does seem that porcelain was not regarded as a commercially valuable cargo before the middle of the seventeenth century (Soundtoll Registers Online 2009). A comparison between the inventories and the porcelain from archaeological excavations shows that these sources corroborate each other. Excavations in Elsinore have revealed porcelain that was produced around 1600 but deposited in the 1640s and 1650s. Excavations in Copenhagen have revealed porcelain dated to the very late sixteenth century, but deposited some 100–150 years later (Kristensen 2014). So in both cities, the porcelain items seem to have been treasured heirlooms that were used for long spans of time. The production dates accord with the dates given through the inventories, and the discrepancy between production dates and deposition dates suggests that the early porcelain circulated as heirlooms for decades in the cities (Figure 4.7).

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

Nr. of objects

Porcelain. Date of production, deposition and appearence in inventories 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Elsinore date of production Elsinore date of deposition Copenhagen date of production Copenhagen date of deposition Elsinore inventory date

1590s

1600s

1610s 8

1

1620s

1640s 4 2

1650s

1700s

10

4 5

2

10

18

14

19

Figure 4.7. Overview of production dates and deposition dates of archaeologically recovered porcelain in Elsinore and Copenhagen. The number and date of porcelain items in the probate inventories are added. Notice how the production and deposition dates corroborate with the dates in the inventories. Source: Probate Inventories of Elsinore, the Danish National Archives; Kristensen 2014; Linaa 2020b.

Porcelain and Majolica in the Homes This section aims to present where majolica and porcelain were kept in the houses and how many such objects individual people owned. As mentioned, the inventories taken together specify 56 bowls of porcelain and 167 majolica plates plus an unknown number that is not counted, but only noted as ‘some’. Most of the homes possess only one or two vessels at most prior to 1630, but from this year onwards, and certainly in the 1640s, large numbers of porcelain and majolica dishes are found in many homes. In 1648, Christian Preuss, a customs official with the Sound Toll, leaves behind a set of seventeen confectionary bowls of porcelain, while another customs official, Hans Pedersen, leaves behind twenty-four bowls, obviously a set (Hels. SkP 25.02.1648; 15.09.1645). However, the councillor Peter Holst owns most of all: he leaves behind a total of thirty-four bowls of varied size and quality — some large bowls valued at two marks each and the small bowls worth half a mark each (Hels. SkP 21.10.1646). This tells us that an increased flow of porcelain and majolica into the city around the middle of the seventeenth century did not result in porcelain becoming available to other social groups. As we shall see in more detail below, the proportion of poor and middle-class households in possession of porcelain and majolica hardly rises, but actually diminishes between 1600 and 1650 — and only in the 1640s does the number of porcelain owners rise among the wealthy (see Figure 4.9, below). These households were now able to acquire whole sets of items of different quality and size for different purposes, instead of the one or two dishes they were previously

87

88

j e tte l in a a

able to obtain. However, the fact that the aforementioned Peter Holst and quite a few other owners of majolica and porcelain in the city left behind heterogeneous assemblages tells us that the items were not acquired on the same occasion, for example, as a set bought from a single shipload. Instead, they were probably acquired on various occasions over a long period of time. Having looked briefly at the number of vessels, it is now time to look at where they were kept in the homes. The many inventories that list the items of a home room by room give valuable information on the uses of porcelain and majolica vessels in various social practices, both in the 1590s and in the 1640s. Most inventories at this time list the possessions of the deceased according to material, for example, pewter, silver, textiles, and so forth. However, a few differ, and through these we learn that the shipmaster Seichen Cornelis kept two Spanish plates in the parlour of his home (Hels. SkP 09.12.1603). The same year, the very wealthy Maricke Gieldsacks, who ran a thriving merchant business, kept her three porcelain bowls in the office facing the shore — Maricke lived in the eastern, now demolished, part of town in a large property. We also learn that she kept her pots and pans, buckets, and drinking glasses in the kitchen. These were probably plain, because she also had a crystal glass in the office, as if this more precious item is on display. Maricke’s estate is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the use of material culture in the early modern home. Porcelain and majolica seem to be stored in the representative rooms right through the first decades of the seventeenth century as well. The very wealthy merchant Johan Kraft, who specialized in trade in cloth, kept his two majolica plates in the parlour in 1620 (Hels. SkP 05.09.1620). Likewise, the immensely wealthy Frouken Timmerman stored her porcelain bowls in the living room (Hels. SkP 18.09.1620), while the Dutch-born wine merchant Willum van Gieritzheim displayed his porcelain dishes on a shelf above the door in a room that is called ‘the great hall’ — possibly a dining hall. This seems to be a very novel way of presenting the contents of the home, and certainly indicates that van Gieritzheim appreciated his bowls and saw them as central to how he presented his house. He was a wealthy man and left a substantial estate that included such luxuries as twenty-four gilt drinking glasses, a mirror in a gilt frame, and a painting depicting the stock market in Amsterdam (Eller 1975, 143). Van Gieritzheim made a living by trading wine and spices from the Netherlands, and judging from the list of debtors in his inventory, it seems that half the town was among his customers, figuratively speaking. They included well-known people such as mayors Poul Leyel and Didrik Mahr and merchant Johan Thor Mölln. According to the tax records, Willum van Gieritzheim lived in the town’s first quarter near the castle of Kronborg, as did the other individuals who owned porcelain (see below). The homes and lifestyles of Willum van Gieritzheim, Maricke Gieldsacks, and the rest of the wealthy immigrants in town do not seem to have differed from what could be expected in contemporary homes in Amsterdam. In 1629, the Amsterdam office of goldsmith Sijmen Sijmenss and his wife was furnished with a painting of the stock market, while a gilt mirror and four

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ?

Italian wine glasses adorned the front reception room (Loughman and Montias 2000, 137–38). The decidedly presentation-orientated use of porcelain and Iberian majolica continues into the 1640s. Now the items begin to be used for the serving of confectionary (confectionary shows up in the shop inventories from the 1620s onwards) — a practice that is frequently referred to in the inventories — or for display in the more official rooms of the house. The customs official Christian Rasmussen used his porcelain bowls in this way in 1650. Others served the same purposes, but in the more intimate and exclusive settings within the house: the private chambers of the master of the household. These rooms were sometimes described as bedchambers, other times as private chambers, and given the rituals surrounding hospitality in the seventeenth century, these multifunctional chambers most likely served as the settings for meetings with business associates and the like. The customs official Hans Piper kept his Iberian majolica plates in his private bedchamber, obviously for his personal use or for use among a select group of guests, as did the widow Margrethe in 1644 (Hels. SkP 29.02.1644; 25.11.1641). However, intimate locations need not indicate that the items were hidden from view. The immigrant Katrine Wibrandt kept her Spanish majolica plates in her parlour facing the street (Hels. SkP 08.05.1647). Most illuminating is the inventory of the home of the widow Engel Sniders, taken in 1647 (Hels. SkP 21.05.1647). Engel kept her Spanish majolica plates in the parlour, but her Dutch plates were held in the kitchen — the same location where we find ordinary clay plates and pots (Hels. SkP 13.07.1644). It seems that the townspeople were able to tell Iberian and Dutch majolica apart and embedded them in different practices: one for display, the other for household use in the kitchen. The official or public use of the rooms equipped with the majolica plates and the porcelain is underlined by the fact that, for instance, the private chamber of Hans Piper was equipped with a bed and benches, a table and chairs, while the walls were hung with a large number of paintings. Hans Piper was not the only one who practised hospitality involving choice tableware in his bedchamber: Diderich Mandtke (Hels. SkP 21.12.1644) similarly kept his nine porcelain bowls in his bedchamber. This room, too, was multifunctional and equipped with a bed and bedside table, chairs, and a large number of paintings. It seems that all through the first half of the seventeenth century, porcelain and majolica are tied to conspicuous functions in the home. However, customs official Laurids Randulff used his porcelain bowls in an entirely different way. Laurids Randulff was a wealthy man — he belonged to the wealthiest top 10 per cent in the city, as did the other customs officials — and his home was well equipped with tables and benches, books and mirrors, beds and bedding, and all the other items that characterized a wealthy household. However, the content of Randulff ’s scullery was very different from those of his fellows in the city: The room was furnished with tables, chairs, and a wicker bed for the maid, and the drinking glasses were stacked here along with other tableware, including fourteen stone bowls, possibly

89

j e tte l in a a Total net worth of households 1571-1650 No. of households = 1527

600 500 No. of inventories

90

400 300 200 100 0 No.

No value

0-39

525

402

40-99 100-199 200-399 400-799 222

130

116

80

8001499 33

150019

sldr Figure 4.8. The social profile of Elsinore 1571–1650 in seven economic categories. Notice how the poorest category includes 40 per cent of the inhabitants and by far outnumbers the wealthiest. Source: Probate inventories of Elsinore, the Danish National Archives.

majolica, seven Ostindian bowls, which were definitively porcelain, and six Spanish containers for potted plants, which can be identified as Portuguese majolica containers (Hels. SkP 17.12.1640; 16.06.1642). The term Ostindian to describe the porcelain items is extraordinary, as remarkable as the humble placement of the items: we are very far from the official display of similar items in bedchambers, parlours, and halls of the other people whose items we have looked into. Keeping these items in such an inconspicuous location indicates that the Danish-born Laurids Randulff did not share the social practices of his immigrant neighbours. He did not display his porcelain and Spanish majolica ostentatiously in his personal chamber or in his hall — it does not seem that he used them for representational purposes at all. Quite extraordinarily, he left the handling of these vessels to the maids. The items that were so treasured by the other people whose homes we have looked into were in Randulff ’s case stripped of their symbolic content and handled not by the highest ranking, but by the lowest ranking. This is a social practice we never see in the migrant homes.

Porcelain and Majolica in Various Social Groups Having analysed the probate records of Elsinore, we are now able to give an overview of the social profile of the city (Figure 4.8). In the following section,

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ? Ownership of porcelain and majolica Household %. 1003 households

30 25 Per cent

20 15 10 5 0

1590-99

1600-09

Poor (upper quartile)

Figure 4.9. Ownership of porcelain and majolica among social groups in Elsinore across four time periods. Notice how a greater number of poor people own such goods between 1590 and 1600 compared to later in the sixteenth century. Source: Probate inventories of Elsinore, the Danish National Archives.

the analysis of the wealth of porcelain owners and the value of their homes is used in a review of the spread of items among various social groups within the city. For this purpose, inventories that do not specify a value cannot contribute with information. It will come as no surprise to anyone remotely familiar with the early modern period that the poor by far outnumbered the rich: By today’s official standard of poverty (possessing less than half of the median value), 22 per cent of all householders fell below the poverty line. This number places early modern Elsinore on the same level as some countries in sub-Saharan Africa of today (OECD Data). The real number of poor may well have been much higher, given that the poor tend to be underrepresented in probate inventories (Parker 2016, 13). This is not the place to attempt to reconstruct the actual number of poor people in the city, but the inventories certainly confirm that the gap between rich and poor was significant. As noted, 22 per cent of the population of the city lived below the modern poverty line, that is, half the median. The difference between rich and poor indicated by the inventories is striking: the mean value of a deceased person’s possessions was 184 daler, while the mayor Johan Willumsen, who died in 1623, left behind goods worth 6252 daler, about thirty-four times more. However, even a person owning goods worth 184 daler was well off compared to Jens, a weaver, who in 1623 fled the city because of debts and left behind values amounting to two daler (Hels. SkP 21.04.1623; 23.01.1623). This economic or social profile is not in any way unique for Elsinore, as many studies have revealed similar desperate poverty in other Danish and Dutch towns (e.g. Degn 1981, 1996, 2008; McCants 2007, 2008; Riis 1981; van de Pol and Kuijpers 2005)

91

92

j e tte l in a a

If we move on from this brief analysis of the social realities of the city to the material at hand, porcelain and majolica appear in the inventories in the 1590s, as does stoneware, and from then until 1649, where this investigation stops, such wares appear in varying quantities among rich, average, and poor householders (Figure 4.9). In 1590–1600, the estates of 184 householders go through the inventorying process. Eleven of these (6%) leave behind porcelain or majolica. In the first decade of the seventeenth century, the number of probate inventories is about the same, 173. From 1620, the number rises to 508, reflecting the change in inventorying practices in 1606 as well as the rapid population growth in the city during the first decade of the 1600s. In the decade 1640–50, 364 households go through the inventorying process. Now 8 per cent of these leave behind porcelain or majolica. This small increase in percentage shows that even though porcelain and majolica must have flooded into the city around this time, the proportion of townspeople who actually had access to these goods hardly increased. In other words, we cannot actually conclude that porcelain was spreading to wider groups of the population in the 1640s compared to the situation in the 1590s. A closer look at the spread of porcelain across various social groups within the city during these two decades will prove the point. The figures are constructed based on the number of inventories that list porcelain or majolica. In Figure 4.9, the actual number of porcelain and majolica vessels in each inventory is not taken into consideration, because we will deal with this later. Therefore, the figure shows which social groups had access to these wares in the periods in question. Even just a glance at Figure 4.9 reveals that the social profile of the owners of the goods does not change at all — and if it does, it actually narrows. This is a surprise, because we would expect that an increased flow of porcelain and majolica into the city in the seventeenth century would result in such goods spreading to lower social groups, but that is not the case. In 1590, four out of fifty-six members of the two lowest social groups left behind porcelain or majolica vessels, while only two out of fifty-nine of the same groups left behind porcelain or majolica in the 1640s. There is thus no increase: If anything, porcelain and majolica seem to become less common among the lower classes in the 1640s than it was in the 1590s. If we then look at the upper social levels, we see that 15 per cent of the householders within the top quartile — that is the richest 25 per cent of the city — owned porcelain or majolica in the 1590s, while 7 per cent owned the goods in the 1620s, a significant drop. In the 1640s, the share increases to 25 per cent within the top quartile, so it seems that porcelain spread among the wealthy in the city in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, but it did not to any significant degree trickle down to the poor or even the middle classes. The conclusion is that porcelain and majolica become less, not more, accessible to the general population of the city during the course of the seventeenth century. Especially the poor get less access to the goods, while they spread among the wealthy in the second quarter of the 1640s. These items, then, enter the town in waves and not in

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ? Wealth and ownership of majolica and porcelain among members of various occupations. No. = 84 100

Percent

80 60 40 20 0

Shipmasters

Merchants Poor

Artisans Middle

Costum officials

Mayors and councillors

Upper

Figure 4.10. Ownership of majolica and porcelain among the occupational groups of the city. Source: Probate inventories of Elsinore, the Danish National Archives.

a steadily increasing stream. These waves correlate to some degree with the historical events in the town: The involvement of Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War in the 1620s was followed by an economic crisis in the city, a crisis that was deepened by frequent outbreaks of disease that made the usual death rate of less than a hundred persons a year rise by 400 per cent (Pedersen 1926, 105). Such events, both international and local, probably disrupted the maritime trade, as is clearly visible in the number of ships passing through the Sound (see Figure 4.2). The disruptions on the international scene are directly visible in the Sound Toll Books, where the number of Dutch ship passages falls from 7086 in 1620 to 3319 in 1629 — a drop of 54 per cent. That must have been felt in a city totally dependent on shipping and supplies from the maritime trade, and this may be the reason why porcelain and majolica seem to be rarer in the city at a time where you would otherwise think that such items would flow freely. In the 1640s, the number of ship passages rises again, but it never reaches pre-war levels. This, however, may also be because the ships now have a higher tonnage, so the total amount of goods may have increased, while the number of ships decreased. It does seem that the presence of porcelain and majolica in the city correlates with the number of Dutch ships passing: The number of ships passing reaches an all-time high in the decades around 1600. This was a time where, as we have seen, both rich and poor in the city had access to the goods, while the fall in the number of ships passing in the first half of the seventeenth century correlates with the seeming decrease in access to them. The number of immigrants in the city actually also corresponds with the number of passing ships. The inhabitants of Elsinore really do seem to have been dependent on the maritime traffic.

93

94

j e tte l in a a

Porcelain and Majolica in Occupational Groups The correlation between the presence of porcelain and majolica and the passage of ships is unsurprising, as we know that the goods were transported on the ships passing through the Sound. Furthermore, the goods are frequently found in the ownership of shipmasters and others connected to the maritime trade, as we have seen. If we compare the numbers of householders owning global goods with the total number of individuals belonging to the professions, we see the importance of maritime contacts (Figure 4.10). Eighty-five per cent of the householders directly involved in maritime trade left global goods, while 94 per cent of the householders who had other occupations — either craftsmen, military personnel, or servants — did not. If we look at the occupations of the people owning porcelain and majolica, 75 per cent were directly involved in maritime trade and activities. This indicates that direct maritime connections were a prerequisite for the acquisition of the goods. There could also be a simple correlation between occupation and wealth, with wealth being the crucial factor for the possession of majolica. This may be the case with the merchants, since merchants were generally wealthy when measured by their net worth. The merchants, and all other inhabitants, could have, and certainly did have, considerable liabilities as well, but since such liabilities do not affect the net worth calculations applied here, they can be left out of the equation for now. To go further into this point, we have to look at the wealth distributions of members of different occupations in order to see which of these did and did not own porcelain and/or majolica (Figure 4.10). The case of customs officials and mayors and councillors are rather straightforward — all were wealthy (wealthy is defined here as being placed in the bracket above the upper quartile). This is probably because mayors and customs officials were elected or appointed among members of the urban elite. If we then consider the artisans, we see that, in this group, wealth does correlate with ownership of global goods: Only a few artisans from the lower or middle brackets own global goods, while significantly more of the wealthy artisans do. However, the most interesting cases concern the merchants and shipmasters: In both groups, we see that members of the lower, middle, and upper classes alike owned porcelain and majolica. Here, it therefore seems that the occupation itself and the maritime networks that followed, rather than the financial wealth of the householders, constituted the critical factor in terms of having access to or desiring the goods. In conclusion, it is hardly surprising that a link between the wealth of the individual householder and possession of global goods appears among the craftsmen, while merchants and shipmasters seem to have come into possession of these goods through their occupational links and not through their (greater or lesser) wealth. This is yet another indicator of the importance of maritime contacts and maritime-based networks when the issue is the acquisition of global goods such as porcelain and majolica.

m e m o r ab l e , mo d e rn, o r mu ndane ? Ownership of global goods among householders of Danish origin. No. = 1037 400 350

No. of inventories

300 250 200 150 100 50 0

No info

Very poor (