Everyday Products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800-1600

The medieval marketplace is a familiar setting in popular and academic accounts of the Middle Ages, but we actually know very little about the people involved in the transactions that took place there, how their lives were influenced by those transactions, or about the complex networks of individuals whose actions allowed raw materials to be extracted, hewn into objects, stored and ultimately shipped for market. Twenty diverse case studies combine leading edge techniques and novel theoretical approaches to illuminate the identities and lives of these much overlooked ordinary people, painting of a number of detailed portraits to explore the worlds of actors involved in the lives of everyday products - objects of bone, leather, stone, ceramics, and base metal - and their production and use in medieval northern Europe. In so doing, this book seeks to draw attention away from the emergent trend to return to systems and global models, and restore to centre stage what should be the archaeologist’s most important concern: the people of the past.

Table of Contents:
List of contributors Preface 1. Everyday products in the Middle Ages. Crafts, consumption and the individual in northern Europe c. AD 800–1600: an introduction Gitte Hansen, Steven P. Ashby and Irene Baug 2. ‘With staff in hand, and dog at heel’? What did it mean to be an ‘itinerant’ artisan? Steven P. Ashby 3. Itinerant craftspeople in 12th century Bergen, Norway – aspects of their social identities Gitte Hansen 4. Urban craftspeople at Viking-age Kaupang Unn Pedersen 5. Crafts in the landscape of the powerless. A combmaker’s workshop at Viborg Søndersø AD 1020–1024 Jette Linaa 6. Bone-workers in medieval Viljandi, Estonia. Comparison of finds from downtown and the Order’s castle Heidi Luik 7. Consumers and artisans. Marketing amber and jet in the early medieval British Isles Carolyn Coulter 8. The home-made shoe, a glimpse of a hidden, but most ‘affordable’, craft Quita Mould 9. Fashion and necessity. Anglo-Norman leatherworkers and changing markets Quita Mould and Esther Cameron iv Contents 10. Tracing the nameless actors. Leatherworking and production of leather artefacts in the town of Turku and Turku Castle, SW Finland Janne Harjula 11. Ambiguous stripes – a sign for fashionable wear in medieval Tartu Riina Rammo 12. Silk finds from Oseberg. Production and distribution of high status markers across ethnic boundaries Marianne Vedeler 13. The soapstone vessel production and trade of Agder and its actors Torbjørn P. Schou 14. Actors in quarrying. Production and distribution of quernstones and bakestones during the Viking Age and the Middle Ages Irene Baug 15. The role of Laach Abbey in the medieval quarrying and stone trade Meinrad Pohl 16. Iron producers in Hedmark in the medieval period – who were they? Bernt Rundberget 17. What did the blacksmiths do in Swedish towns? Some new results Hans Andersson 18. The Iron Age blacksmith, simply a craftsman? Roger Jørgensen 19. Bohemian glass in the north. Producers, distributors and consumers of late medieval vessel glass Georg Haggrén 20. 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? Volker Demuth 21. Marine trade and transport-related crafts, and their actors – people without archaeology? Natascha Mehler

About the Author :
Gitte Hansen is an associate professor in medieval archaeology at the University Museum of Bergen. With the point of outset in a broad specter of 11-13th century urban material culture, her research focuses on different aspects of the identities of ‘ordinary people’ in the Middle Ages. She is particularly interested in craftspeople and consumers of affordable crafts that lived their lives in the Scandinavian area with bordering regions. Steven Ashby is a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, University of York with specialism in the archaeology of portable material culture and the use of animal products in craft and industry in the medieval period. He is particularly interested in the relationship between the various regions of Britain and Scandinavia before, during, and after the Viking Age. Irene Baug is a postdoctoral researcher in archaeology in the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen. Her research interests deal with social, socio-political and economic aspects of the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. Her research has mainly focused upon utilization of different outfield resources – such as production of different stone products c. AD 700-1500, and distribution and trade of these products within Northern Europe. Her work is based on own archaeological fieldwork, artefacts studies and multidisciplinary cooperation.

Review :
"...the archaeological analysis takes scholars to topics that are otherwise ignored by textual sources."-- "The Medieval Review" "Occasionally in the case of edited books on feels a bit short-changed... Here, however, at a pretty affordable price, a full 21 papers are offered, nearly all linked closely to the 'Individual' of the volume's title, and all adding often fascinating and informative insights into production and consumption... the whole volume will, I am sure, bring alive to all readers many of these 'everyday' craftspeople, products and process of the early to late medieval North European world."--Neil Christie ", MSRG31" "So much archaeological research on the medieval period purports to be about people but is actually about processes and '-isms'. In this volume, however, while the broad concepts and issues are never farm from the surface, real people making everyday items are at the forefront, and their decisions, practices, skills and knowledge - plus something of the hustle and bustle of daily life - emerge vividly from the detailed accounts presented in individual chapters, most of which are well supported by illustrations."--Dawn Hadley