The Medieval Household
Daily Life in Castles and Farmsteads: Scandinavian Examples in their European Context
By (author) Eva Svensson With Emma Bentz
This book investigates four excavated Swedish sites – the castles of Saxholmen and Edsholm, and the rural settlements of Skramle and Skinnerud – in order to juxtapose the daily life of nobles in their castles and peasants in their rural settlements.
Recent archaeological excavations in Scandinavia provide us with a fascinating insight into the household and its function as a social focus for people of different medieval social estates. This book investigates four excavated Swedish sites – the castles of Saxholmen and Edsholm, and the rural settlements of Skramle and Skinnerud – in order to juxtapose the daily life of nobles and peasants. The author argues that the practices of everyday life revealed by these sites offer new insights into social traditions, mentalities, and cultural patterns. In particular, she asserts that notwithstanding the huge social gulf between the peasantry and the nobility in medieval Scandinavia, the two social groups shared some fundamental experiences which point to a common cultural milieu. In turn, the author uses daily life as a prism for addressing the formation of common European cultural traits during the medieval period by comparing these excavations with material from comparable sites in Central and Western Europe. By means of this comparison, the author questions the degree to which we may talk about a process of ‘Europeanization’ taking place in this era.
- By (author) Eva Svensson
- With Emma Bentz
Other Titles in this Series
Historic Landscape of Catalonia
Landscape History of a Mediterranean Country in the Middle Ages
Volume 23
Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt
A Study of al-Nabulusi's 'Villages of the Fayyum'
Volume 19
Peasants and Lords in the Medieval English Economy
Essays in Honour of Bruce M. S. Campbell
Volume 16
Scale and Scale Change in the Early Middle Ages
Exploring Landscape, Local Society, and the World Beyond
Volume 6
Conflict, Language, and Social Practice in Medieval Societies
Selected Essays of Isabel Alfonso, with Commentaries
Volume 24
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