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Cultivation.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Traffic. The Gottlanders.
the copper mines, one hundred skeppunds of copper
yearly, which they long continued to collect by their
own commissioners on the spot. At this time the
bailiffs of the mines and the masters of the works
were Germans4. That the copper mines of
Gar-pcnberg also were worked by them appears from
the fact, that Garp was a name formerly given in
Sweden to a German, although the word properly
signifies an arrogant bragging fellow. King Eric
of Pomerania, in 1413, granted to all those who
would settle as miners at Atvidabei’g in
East-Gothland the same privileges granted to those of the
Kopparberg in Dalecarlia ; in the same year also
he took the iron mines of Vermeland under his
protection, and confirmed the charters granted by
queen Margaret. Under Steno Sture the elder
the iron mines of Danemora were discovered ; the
silver mine of Sala apparently not before the time
of Suanto Sture’, about 15105, to which Christian
the Second sent a hundred Fiulanders. Yet
mention is made of older silver mines, as at Tuna,
Wika, and Lofasen in Dalecarlia. The bishop’s
mines, as they are called, in various districts show
that the clergy also engaged in mining. The
principal places of the mining tracts were asylums for
offenders, excluding however traitors, assassins, and
thieves, and this privilege was called the mine-peace.
The different species of grain cultivated are
mentioned in the laws. That of West-Gothland
ordains tithe to be taken of wheat, rye, barley, and
oats. Corn, though a term common to all, was
applied more particularly to barley, which seems to
mark this grain, ripening within six weeks as the
first introduced. Wheat and rye are mentioned in
a papal letter of 14GG, to the bishop of Strengness,
as " new and unheard-of above the forest of
Kol-mord," and to be made titheable without delay 7.
Yet the bishop of Strengness was unquestionably
better informed, for the Sudermanian law of 1327
allows the bishop at the consecration of a church a
train of twelve men and fourteen horses, and orders
a tun of wheat and rye-bread, among other
articles, to be prepared for his use 8. In 1205 the Law
of Upland orders tithe to be taken from wheat and
rye, " as the manner anciently had been." In the
time of Olaus Magnus, the rye of Swedeland was
held the best; it was raised on land cleared by fire,
both in spring and winter. The husbandmen sowed
in the beginning of May, or even later, and reaped
in the middle of August9, generally assisting each
other in the labours of the field, and at the reapers’
feast the marriages of the year were arranged.
When much snow fell, the peasants promised
themselves a plentiful crop. The winter seems to have
been longer and more rigorous, the summer hotter
than in later times, and generally the differences of
the seasons more strongly marked.
Fruit trees were first introduced into southern
Sweden by the clergy, although the laws of Upland
and Sudermania mention them, with some kinds of
vegetables, in the middle portion of the kingdom.
Flax, hemp, peas, turnips, beans, and hops were
cultivated ; in brewing not only hops but the
wild myrtle were used 1. Bee-hives supplied
important articles of produce, encouraged by the
demand for wax tapers by the church, and not less by
the use of mead. Speaking of the entertainment
of a bishop on his progress, the Law of
West-Goth-land says, " let him drink mead with all his clergy."
With other classes candles of wax or tallow were
rare luxuries ; the houses were lighted by wood
fires and pine torches, with one of which in his
hand, the thresher, in past times as now, betook
himself to the barn in the early harvest morn.
Handmills were used for grinding grain; to ply the
mill was the work of the female slave in the house;
in the Law of Upland, windmills and watermills are
also mentioned. Hard and thin bread was used
then as now, which might be kept for several years;
the Yule bread was soft and made very large. Salt,
a condiment indispensable to man, was procured
from abroad ; by the distribution of a supply we
find Christian II. trying to gain the attachment of
the Swedish peasants.
In these days, Sweden could not be said to
possess any commerce, although Gottland was long
the seat of a very extensive trade. This fertile
island had received its inhabitants from Sweden in a
remote age, who soon increasing in numbers were
obliged to seek for new dwelling-places. Some, we
are told in the supplement to the Law of Gottland,
occupied the island of Dago, on the coast of
Esthonia ; others advanced along the course of the
Duna into Russia, and are said to have received
land from the Greek emperor. The Gottlanders,
who acknowledged the superiority of the Upsala
king, and became Christians upon the visit of St.
Eric, submitted themselves in spiritual matters to
the bishop of Linkoping, and engaged to
accompany the king of Sweden in his expeditions with
seven ships, or to pay a yearly tribute instead.
While yet heathens, they possessed, according to
the same account, a considerable trade, and it may
be conjectured, that after the Varangians had
become the rulers of Muscovy, the Gottlanders
profited by the connections which those adventurers
long maintained with the country of their descent,
to carry on a traffic with the Russians. Of this
however the Swedish archives afford no more
ancient evidence than the injunction of Pope
Gregory IX. in 1229, to the bishop of Linkoping
and the Cistercian abbot of Gottland, that the
insular traders should be restrained by the authority
of the church, from holding intercourse with the
Muscovites, the foes of Christianity. Other
testimonies, however, speak both of the antiquity of this
intercourse, and of the early settlement of German
traders on Gottland, whose inhabitants undoubtedly
4 Langebek, on the Norwegian mines, 90. 96.
5 Ibid. 140. 143.
6 According to Olaus Magnus ; it still does so in Norrland.
1 Celse Bullarium, 201. Ex segetibus tritico et siligine
supra Kolmordiam novis et insolitis. That siligo here
means rye is proved by the old Latin notes to the I.aw
of West-Gothland. Compare the Glossary of Collins and
Schlyter.
8 Besides this, a tun of barley bread, two flitches of bncon,
four sheep, eight hens, three lispunds (about 51 lbs.) of butter,
two cheeses, four stockfish, five pounds of wax, and three
casks of beer, with hay and oats for the horses.
9 Olaus Magnus xiii. 8. In chapter iii. it is said that
winter-rye was sown at the end of the dog-days, therefore
shortly before the middle of August, old style. Spring
rye, with wheat, barley, and oats, was sown in fine Tauri
(about the 11th May, O. S.), and reaped in corde Leonis
(about the 6th August). Seed time was thus in middle
Sweden three centuries ago later than at present.
1 Pors, Swed. The myrica gale, or heath myrtle, not the
ledum palustre (wildpors), or wild rosemary, which is noxious.
March beer was held the best.
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