| The Villages
| | By the end of the Viking Age, many settlements moved closer together and formed the villages, which for a great part, are still here.
With the enormous change in agriculture, this was a radical change, compared to earlier times, which made it possible for Harald Bluetooth to unite Denmark in one realm. |
The Settlements
Through many archaeological excavations in the Scanian villages along the Sound, we have been able to determine that most of the medieval villages date back to the end of the Viking Age, i.e. the end of the 10th century – beginning of the 11th century. The same pattern is evident in many places in the rest of Denmark. The explanation must be that a strong central government took over at this time and introduced a new organisation, which covered the then important villages. It is probably not wrong to note that the beginning of this restructuring began through Harald Bluetooth´s conquest of the Sound region, in all probability in the end of the 970´s.
In earlier times the settlements were scattered in the landscape, but now all farms were placed close to each other in so-called “town streets”. From the Malmo-area there are many examples of so-called pit houses. Characteristically they are 4x5 meter in size with a roof post in every house end and was dug approximately 1 meter into the ground. These pit houses are often seen far from the settlements in the “town streets”, despite the fact that they are contemporary with these.
An example of a farm in a town street from the 11th century is the large long house, which was found in Tygelsjö village just south of Malmo. Usually the long house faced east. Heavy post holes show that the walls were plank walls; the house had a width of six meters and a length no less than 30 meters. Angle dug post holes outside the walls show that the roof´s rafters went down in the ground. The pitch makes 8 metres of roof height probable.
In Lockarp, another of the villages in the present Malmo, a whole magnate farm from the 11th century has been excavated. North was the large hall building with bow shaped long walls. South of his four houses form a group in an open square with large living quarters in the south. In the middle of the square there was a building with a smaller part jutting out towards the east, probably a wooden chapel. In all probability the archaeologists have found the first magnate farm in the new town, which was created on the place a thousand years ago. This is the oldest mission time and you may ask yourself why the graves are missing. Perhaps they had already built a church farther away; perhaps they did not bury the Christian way as we know it. We don´t really know.
Long House | 
Reconstruction | 
Excavation | 
Interpretation |
Place Names
Place names are often our oldest evidence of settlement in a certain area. Most often they consist of two words, which have been joined together – prefix and suffix. For most of our medieval villages it is evident that their present names with changes in the form of simplifications and misconceptions can be evidenced in written source material from the 12-14th centuries.
In south western Scania the suffix is often ”-ie”, for example Fosie, Hyllie, Fuglie etc. This is a remnant from the original suffix, which has been ”hög”(hill). The village Fosie is in the year 1369 Fos-(h)øghe, Hyllie is in the year 1303 Høll-(h)øghe and Fyglie is Fyæl-(h)øghæ. Even the place name Malmo belongs to this category of villages, which have been named after högar (hills). Before Malmo was founded, probably in the1250´s, there was a village with the same name. In the end of the 12th century it is mentioned as Malm-(h)öghe.
The large concentration of ”hög”-names in the coast areas of south western Scania has probably to do with the widespread occurrence of burial mounds from the Bronze Age, which is found in this area. The prefix of the village names may sometimes be personal names that are the names of the magnates, who founded the villages in the late Viking Age, for instance Fose in Fosie. The excavated magnate farm in Lockarp must thus have been the magnate Locke´s estate. The suffix ”arp” has been interpreted as a question of a new crop.
The place names researchers have tried to date the suffixes. Below is an example of this:
”Löv”/”lev” = pre Viking Age. Interpreted as something left behind or something handed down, that is a gift or heritage. Example: Anderslöv and Gislöv and for instance Skuldelev near Roskilde in Seeland.
”Inge” = mostly dated to pre Viking Age. Interpretation unsure. Example: Kämpinge and Vellinge. In north Seeland examples are Skævinge och Helsinge.
”Arp”/”torp” = post Viking Age – Middle Ages. Example: Maglarp och Sjörup.
However it must be pointed out that it is extremely difficult from place names alone to give a reliable dating when a fixed settlement has come into existence in a certain area.
The Villages and the Sea
The farms in the medieval villages, the so-called “town streets” are almost all situated along the Scanian coast a few kilometres inwards. At the same time the village fields stretch like lengthy intestines to the coast. This strange pattern is most evident along the coast line from Malmo to Trelleborg.
The village structure on the map forms two lines of villages, both of them parallel to the coast. The line closest to the coast consists of the villages Hyllie, Bunkeflo, Vintrie, Naffentorp, V:a Klagstorp, Tygelsjö and Gässie. The internal line consists of the villages V:a Skrävlinge, V:a Kattarp, Hindby, Fosie Lockarp, Glostorp och Hököpinge. In spite the fact that the villages in the latter line are situated several kilometres fro the coast, three of them, through narrow plots of land have contact with the Sound coast; Hindby, Fosie och Hököpinge. Moreover V:a Skrävlinge and V:a Kattarp before the emergence of Malmös in the middle of the 13th century in all likelihood have had fields by the coast. This is evident by the severing of the beach areas, which are caused by Malmö´s southern areas.
The picture is clear. At the time when Söderslätt´s present villages were created a thousand years ago, the coast wasn´t attractive for the settlement itself, whereas the same coast had such great importance that they created direct access to the beach for most of the villages.
Thus it is evidently the sea that was important for the early villages. They could have their ships here, they could fish and trade simple natural products. In the area, which is shown on the map, there are also a number of smaller farm harbours. These are not mentioned until the 16th century, but surely they have a long history. During the reign of Christian II to the year 1523 the king tried to stop the trade in the harbours south of Malmo, because he found them illegal. With mayors and councils in Malmo his strategy was to create comprehensive trade privileges for Malmo and Copenhagen. That the harbours south of the city were banned and at the same time mentioned by name, indicate that they had such a large amount of trade activity that they were considered an economic threat.
Village Borders |
The Village and Its Fields
The villages, which were created after Harald Bluetooth´s conquest of western Scania around 980, were gathered in “town streets”, i.e. the settlement itself was concentrated in a small area. Characteristic of the location of these farms is that there are great supplies of fresh water inside the town street itself. Here we always find the ”watering”, i.e. large water ponds with access to running water. This may indicate the development of a large livestock. The stabling of the animals in the winter has required ample access to fresh water.
In the first account of western Scania´s peasant community, which has been preserved for posterity, the priest Ivan relates in the year 1124 among other things that “man´s occupation was hunting and fishing and grazing cattle. From these come all their fortunes, since farming is unusual for them.” Ivan was sent out by bishop Otto of Bamberg to the archbishop of Lund, which is why his account must be about the coastal area by the Sound. This eyewitness gives another development account than you´d normally expect, namely that the cultivated field was in minority and the cattle fields the majority.
The researcher Sven Rosborn has analyzed the old maps and the property circumstances in the village Hyllie in the present southern Malmö. Hyllie can probably be seen as a good example of a western Scanian village´s general development from late Viking Age to the Middle Ages. Map 1 shows the village’s ”town street” as it looked in 1702. The 33 farms are placed in two rows. In the middle a brook flows from a larger water source in the north to a smaller one in the south. Every farm has its so-called “croft”, i.e. a small narrow field in direct connection to the farm. In these crofts they have probably grown the more daily used products such as cabbage, turnips etc. The letter A on the map indicates a fortified magnate estate, which has been established in the 13th century. The hatched farms belong to the nobleman’s estate.
Map 2 shows a reconstruction of the village before the noblemen settled here in the 13th century. The farms are fewer and the crofts much bigger. The village probably looked like this, when it was established around the year 1000.
Hyllie´s fields and meadows in the year 1702 is seen on map 3. The village’s field was divided into three large areas the so-called furlongs. A furlong was always fallow, i.e. only two were cultivated each year, while the third was used for grazing. By continuously changing the furlong that was fallow, the manure from the cattle gave plenty nourishment to all the furlongs in three year intervals.
Every furlong was divided into different fields and meadows and these were in turn divided into smaller fields, the so-called ”tegar”. These tegar are characteristically long and narrow, perhaps only ten metres wide, but more than five hundred metres long. This way the farmer didn´t have to turn the heavy plough too many times. The plough was introduced as early as the 11th century in connection with the emergence of the villages. In Löddeköpinge it has been possible to establish archaeologically the use of the plough as early as the 1000th century. The introduction of the plough in Scania thus seems to have been connected to the time of Harald Blueetoth´s conquest.
Hyllie 1702 | 
Hyllie before 1300 | 
Hyllie 1790 |
|