Medieval streets

Abstract

Medieval streets

The article presents a research project concerning medieval streets undertaken by the author from 1.12.98 to 30.4.99. Data from archaeological investigations in the streets of Danish medieval towns carried out in connection with construction projects over the last fifteen years or so provided the background for the research. Nine towns -Aalborg, Horsens, Næstved, Odense, Ribe, Roskilde, Svendborg, Viborg, and Århus- were chosen, all of which were included in the Medieval Town Project. This project began in 1977 and involved the registration of all sources concerning the towns in question, including information on earlier investigations (fig. 1) and data from written sources. In all these towns, around 130 recent street investigations had been carried out and documented according to modern standards. New information from these and facts from the Medieval Town Project files were the background material for the investigation.

Most archaeological investigations in streets apply to present streets and have to be carried out while the construction work is going on. Therefore, the conditions for archaeological observation are usually not at their optimum (fig.2). Mostly, these investigations consist of section measuring in ditches following the longitudinal direction of the street. Most finds are stray finds, and the streets are generally difficult to date.

Streets are defined as roads running through a settlement (town or village) as opposed to roads running through the open countryside. Unlike the roads, streets could not be moved if they were damaged. Also, the streets were influenced by the increase in culture layers, which characterised the towns. Generally, the traffic was heavier on the streets than on the roads, and to reduce the wear and tear they were therefore provided with a surface (fig. 3).

The street surfaces were of different types. The main material was either wood or stones laid out as stone layers or stone paving. In the stone layers, the stones were firmly pressed into the underlying soil, which was often the subsoil (figs. 2, 4, and 5). The original topsoil and perhaps also culture layers had thus been removed before the stones were spread out. Most streets in the towns were given a surface like this around 1300, but earlier and later cases exist. Because of the increase in the culture layers, the subsoil could not be used continually as the immediate support for the street surface. Stone paving were stones individually placed close together on an underlay, most often sand (figs. 6-8). This underlay also made it easier to create a street profile with gutters and footpaths (figs. 9-10). Stone paving was first used for road surfaces during the first half of the 14th century when they eventually replaced stone layers in the main streets. However, stone paving was not common until the 15th century, at which time they were also equipped with gutters and footpaths.

Wood paving can also be divided into two types. One is a bridge-like construction in which the plank deck is resting on battens supported by posts placed in pairs (figs. 12- 13). The other is a plank deck resting directly on the ground or on battens resting on the ground (fig. 14). Wood paving was used only for small marshy parts of the streets, mainly before c 1300. Exceptions are Ribe, where all the investigated medieval streets had a wood paving of the bridge type during the 13th century, and Roskilde, the main street of which has a similar structure from the mid-15th century. In both cases the reason for choosing this construction was a soft soil consisting of several metres thick unfermented dung layers. Finally, brushwood was used locally as street material, or as a support for stone layers. This type is rare (fig. 15). Apart from stone paving, these street surfaces have also been found in connection with roads from the prehistoric times onwards.

However, the street sections also consist of layers of earth. Archaeo botanical investigations of some of these from Roskilde showed that they were slowly accumulated rubbish layers, for instance manure from stables or the emptying of la trines (figs. 11, 16-17). The conditions in Roskilde were probably similar to those of most other towns. The finds from two street investigations in Roskilde were also analysed (fig. 19). The conclusion was that the reason why so few finds were made was not the method used for excavating -which was mainly machine digging- but the fact the layers originally consisted of evil-smelling rubbish from town farms, which was removed from the farm as quickly as possible and therefore did not contain large amounts of scrapped items. Also the pressure from the traffic caused the total crushing of some items, such as pottery sherds, if they were scattered in the streets. The finds from streets generally differ from the finds from plots by being to a higher extend workshop waste (such as tools), many horseshoes and not much pottery (fig. 18).

The streets were subject to the town authorities (fig. 20) but the individual plot owners were responsible for the road surface and the maintenance of the street outside their property (fig. 23). To these duties was added the obligation of removing rubbish from the street. We know these duties from the town laws. However, the enforcement of them demanded an overall effort from the town authorities -the town bailiff who represented the privileged lord (usually the royal power), the town council, and the Lord Mayor. Continuous street paving is known mainly from a c 1300 and 15th century context. These dates coincide with the periods characterised by other developments in the towns, such as the town laws and town privileges and the development of an independent government -and with the royal influence. In most places there was obviously a decline in the enforcement of the individual townsman's duties to the community during the 14th century: the layers on top of the street paving grew steadily, and no new paving was made. This was increased by the fact that the population grew and the towns expanded during this period -which was also a time with a weak royal power.

From the middle of the 15th century and the early 16th century, the removal of refuse was better organised. This meant a decline in the culture layer increase and resulted in the rare occurrence of street paving from this time or later, as the street level was no longer raising. On the contrary, the later street paving was removed when the road had to have a new paving and underlay, and the stones were reused. This happens even today.

During the late 15th century, the towns were subject to major changes. The closing down of church institutions following the reformation intensified these. Streets were abolished or widened (figs. 21-22), and squares were established, thus to a high degree creating the present street pattern of the town centres.

Hanne Dahlerup Koch