Symbolic ecclesiastical representations in the High Middle Ages landscape: A single-case study in northern Scandinavia

ABSTRACT

A regional examination of representations of geographical ecclesiastical features (boundaries, churches, and land use) in northern Scandinavia during the High Middle Ages was performed, using a peripheral parish as a single case. The analysis was based on historical maps, processed using microhistory and retrogressive approaches, and guided by theories of territoriality and landscape. The results showed that some churches were built on outfields, that landownership and prehistoric burials were clustered in two different areas, and that parish boundaries were often located in uninhabited forests between settlements and were sometimes moved. These results are discussed within the context of symbols, relations, and identity, which are complementary to explanations of centrality such as minimum travel distance. The author concludes that this indicates that, based on kinship networks, farmers from the settlement areas built the churches on jointly owned or managed land, which symbolises their collective effort – their sense of ours. Furthermore, settlement desertion during the agrarian crisis is probably the reason behind later changes in parish boundaries.

EDITORS:

• Kerstin Potthoff
• Catriona Turner

KEYWORDS:

• church
• identity
• kinship
• parish
• symbol

Acknowledgements

Most of the data concerning Hälsingland were gathered jointly with Dr Ulf Jansson (Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University) in 1992 and 1993. I thank Professors Ulf Sporrong, Michael Jones and Stefan Brink for reading and commenting on an earlier version of the manuscript. I also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

ORCID

Hans Antonson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7828-3640

Notes

1. The following dates are used for periods mentioned in this manuscript: Viking Age (in Sweden) – AD 700–1050; Early Middle Ages – AD 500–1050; High Middle Ages – AD 1050–1300; Late Middle Ages – AD 1300–1500.

2. All translations from non-English sources were made by me.

3. The Swedish word ledung is (among other meanings) a medieval military term for fiscal boundaries.

4. A Thiessen polygon grid is a spatial web, the boundaries of which are based on the distance from some central points (in this case, churches). Within a polygon, any location (in this case, Viking Age burial grounds) will lie closer to the polygon’s central point than to other polygons’ central points.

5. The debate on the top-down, bottom-up approach was continued between Stiltberg (2011) and Andrén (2011).

6. FMIS (informationssystemet om fornminnen) is a digital database for archaeological remains and monuments in Sweden and is managed by the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet).