Todderup. The Excavation of a ”torp” and the place of torps in history

Abstract

Todderup. The Excavation of a "torp" and the place of torps in history

Archaeological traces of medieval rural settlements are relatively little known in Denmark. This is because the medieval farmsteads often lie beneath existing villages. Sometimes, however, signs of a medieval rural settlement turn up in open country.

In 1988 pottery from the 13th-14th century was found during field reconnaissance near Tilst, which lies in eastern Jutland 7 km NW of Århus (fig. 1). The place is named Todderup. Placenames ending in -rup, -drup, or -strup are derived from the word "torp", and can be dated to the early Middle Ages with the meaning of assart made by hiving off from an existing village. An excavation at the site was carried out by Moesgårds Museum in the autumn of 1991. Two buildings were found, and also a post granary, and two wells. In the southern part of the excavated area a boundary ditch was encountered (fig. 2).

Buildings 1 and 2 were indicated by irregularly placed wall posts but there were no post­holes at the ends. Both structures had postholes down the middle of their eastern part. The post granary lay east of house 1 and survived as four large postholes arranged in a square measuring 3x3 m. One of the wells (fig. 3) was built of oak. It could be seen during excavation that it had been allowed to silt up, for the sides had tended to collapse inwards. The other well (fig. 4) was built of large stones, and was filled up with similar stones, showing that it had deliberately been made unusable. The boundary ditch (figs. 2 and 5) was about a meter wide, with a depth of nearly a meter measured from the original surface. On the side nearest the houses there may have been a bank. It can be identified as a boundary ditch because it followed exactly the course of the boundary between True and Todderup tithings as indicated on the cadastral map of 1840 (fig. 15). The pottery from the ditch showed that it was of the same age as the settlement.

The locality is a small rise in a low, slightly irregular area of sand and stones. The habitable area was bounded naturally on the east, south, and west by ponds and damp, low areas. Trial trenches on the north showed the absence of further settlement in the area (fig. 6).

The chronology of the finds is taken from the publication "Arhus Søndervold" (1). The Todderup finds (figs. 7-14) correspond to pottery horizons 2 and 3, which cover the 13th and 14th centuries respectively.

Owing to the limited preservation of constructional details it is not possible to identify the function of the buildings. Similar structures were found during the excavation of Medieval farms at Klemmenstrup (12) and Varpelev (13) in southeast Zealand. It is likely that the two buildings stood consecutively. There were indications that building 1 had burnt down, and building 2 may have been erected as its slightly larger successor. In it there were clear indications of the replacement of posts, and this suggests a period of use of some duration. The similar ground plans of the two buildings supports the hypothesis that they succeeded one another.

Also the wells appear to have been consecutive. The wooden well has been dated dendro­chronologically to the year 1230 (17). The stone well contained pottery from the 13th and 14th centuries and can be regarded as the successor of the wooden well, as its pottery was clearly later than the early 13th century. The deliberate filling up of the stone well suggests that it was the last one at the site.

Summing up, the excavations showed that Todderup was founded around 1230, and apparently was only a single farmstead. Building 1, together with the wooden well, and possibly the granary, comprised the first phase. At a certain point building 1 burned down and was replaced by building 2, which apparently had a longer use-life. When the wooden well fell into decay, it was replaced by the stone well, which remained in use until the end of the settlement, and the well was filled up with large stones when the site was abandoned.

Todderup is named in Århus Cathedral Chapters Register of Lands from about 1313 (18), but there is no mention of dues, which suggests that the place may have been waste at that time. It seems then that the settlement was in existence for at most a century.

It is known from archaeological excavations that villages in the Iron Age and Viking Period moved slowly about (20). Towards the close of the Viking Period this movement ceased and the villages became stationary. This however would restrict the size of a settlement if we assume that a central placing of the farms in the cultivated area was desired. As the population grew in the early Middle Ages, the limits of the fixed villages became too restricted, and the problem could only be solved by establishing daughter settlements, the so-called "torps".

The establishment of torps in northwestern Europe began at around A.D. 500 in central Germany. Thence it spread during the later Iron Age and Viking Period north to Scandinavia and west to England. By about 800 the phenomenon had found its way into southern Jutland, and during the ensuing three to four centuries the greater part of Denmark became peppered with small secondary settlements of this kind. In the High Middle Ages there were probably about 4000 torps, some of which quickly vanished again however. Today there are about 2200 torp settlements in Denmark (22). Their founders used their own name as the first element in the name of the new settlement. There are very few female torp names. The first element of the placename Todderup is derived from the man's name, Thorbjørn (29).

The older of the Scandinavian law compilations, namely Valdemar's Zealand Law (c. 1150), the Skåne Law (c. 1190), the Jutish Law (1241), and Erik's Zealand Law (c. 1250) give a certain amount of information about the legal situation of torps. The compilations contain chapters of very different ages, and many older, orally transmitted rules were recorded in writing alongside new laws.

According to both the Danish and the Swedish laws the first to be done when establishing a torp village was to convert the new toft land by oath to separate land. Then the inhabitants had three years to get the torp on its feet. If no objection was raised by the parent community during this period, the inhabitants had acquired prescriptive title to the new settlement. The right to recall those who had left applied even if only a single person remained in the old community (34,35). Also the Swedish law compilations show that the parent village had priority over the torp (36). That three years gave rights in perpetuity seems to indicate that the sections in the Jutish Law dealing with torp settlements came into existence prior to the adoption of the canon law requirement of 40 years' custom for the acquisition of traditional rights. On the other hand the chapters in question are sufficiently late for common field agriculture to be mentioned in connection with the founding of torps.

According to the Jutland Law the land the torp was to cultivate could be shared with the parent settlement. A torp settlement could be established merely by moving a small number of farms from the parent village out to newly sworn house plots in the cultivated fields.

Of course new land could also be brought under the plough. According to the Skåne Law all the inhabitants of a village were entitled to a share, even if the land being brought under cultivation was outfield, i.e. forest or moor (37).

When originally founded, the torps were distinctly smaller than the parent villages. In the law compilations they are mentioned as settlements with only one or very few households (39). According to a Swedish text a settlement must have at least six households to be accounted a village (40). The results of the excavations at Todderup agree with the description of the torps as very small settlements.

According to research on Funen the torps were geographically no less favourably situated than the parent villages. Indeed they are often located on the best soils (44). In Vendsyssel the torps are found usually to be located in lowlying areas (47), and this may have been intentional. There are studies of abandoned torps that show that sometimes they were established on excessively wet soils. In the case of Todderup there was genuine rough pasture, and this did not give the best conditions for arable farming.

Disagreement about the boundaries between village lands is known already in the earliest compilation, Valdemar's Zealand Law of about 1150. The problem of the boundary between village and torp is first mentioned in the Skåne Law of about 1190 (54). This law is clearly inspired in this matter by Valdemar's Zealand Law. In the Jutland Law of 1241 legal provisions about boundaries have undergone a considerable development. Mention is made of the actual physical marking out of boundaries by people called sandemænd, who used stakes, ditches or heaps of stones (56,57,58). Sandemænd were chosen by the bishop and settled the matter according to their best knowledge.

If a torp was abandoned there would arise a need to redistribute its lands. Erik's Zealand Law tells us that if there was disagreement about who had the right to an abandoned torp, twelve men should witness by oath on the question of ownership (60). The land could not be freely recultivated by just anybody.

Broadly speaking the introduction of legal rules relating to the setting up, recultivation and abolition of torps took place between the final century of the Viking Age and the recording of the Jutish Law in 1241.

Annette Hoff & Jens Jeppesen