Julkaisutoiminta | Muuritutkimus ky

The Seats of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Finland

Researcher in charge: Doc., Ph.D. Kari Uotila, Senior Lecturer Building Archaeology, Archaeology Dept., University of Turku, 2001, and President, Muuritutkimus Ky,1995

Other researchers

PhD Anna-Maria Vilkuna; Senior Lecturer / History / University of Jyväskylä. Finland

PhD Terttu Lempiäinen. Centre for Biodiversity, Herbarium, University of Turku

PhD Elisabeth Grönlund. University of Joensuu, Karelian Institute, Dept. of Ecology

Ph.lic. Pentti Zetterberg. University of Joensuu, Karelian Institute. Laboratory of Dendrochronology

PhD Isto Huvila; Åbo Akademi

hankkeesta pidetty esitelmä Roomassa 6.12.2006

The aim of the project

The main idea of the project is to use and develop 3d-modeling in different scientific questions (e.g. Uotila 2006), the use of 3d-modeling in simulations, the utilization of research information and create solutions to questions in connection to the application and control of new types of research material. The 3d-model and simulation material will typically differ significantly from earlier research material in the natural and social sciences (the raw data, research reports and published material) in relation to material type, amount and method of application. Control of the material in the research situation, its archiving for future use and, especially, its effective and sufficiently detailed representation require new methods and processes. One objective is a relatively extensive so-called domain analysis, a need mapping, as well as, especially, development of a suitable method for constructing information and development of a complete information-control process on the basis of the data and its use during the project period.

The description of the project

The Seats of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Finland is a multidisciplinary research project combining the latest achievements in the humanities, the natural sciences, the information sciences and teleinformatics. The subjects of research will be Kuusisto Castle (Kustö) in Varsinais-Suomi (Finland Proper) and Häme Castle (Tavastehus) located in the Heart of Häme. The project combines research results of history, archaeology and natural sciences to produce simulated 3d-models of the Finnish Middle Ages (1200-1600^th century). Research results from different science faculties are to be simulated within the framework of a historical context. The multivariate utilization of the different source types will provide an excellent basis for the study and understanding of both long-term and short-term phenomena and processes.

It can be stated that the objective is to examine changes in the environment of the medieval stone castles in the different stages of the castles' construction and occupation. In medieval (1200-1600^th century) history research in Finland, the construction dates of significant structures (churches and castles) have been vigorously debated in recent years. (Drake 2001, Hiekkanen 1994) In this project an attempt will be made to see the castles' construction, in a sense, by way of a mirror or silhouette: how the construction and habitation are seen in the environment and have affected it and how to model that silhouette in 4d.

One can assume that, during the initial castle-construction stage, the emphasis will be on the procurement of good-quality construction material and different large scale pre-industrial production processes, such as the firing of bricks and lime and mortal. One can presume the reflection of these in changes in surrounding nature. When the castle construction has reached a certain level of activity the changes effected by the sphere of the castle on the environment, that is to say how, under medieval conditions, an exceptionally large group of people has affected the environment by their lives. For example, heating a medieval stone castle during a Finnish winterseason (at least 6 month/year) was certainly a considerable undertaking and required a really large amount of wood annually.

One research issue will be to supplement the deficiencies of medieval history sources by examining the construction and everyday acquisitions of the best known 16th and 17th century castles from the standpoint of sources (in this case, Häme Castle) and verify them with the research data obtained from the environment. These results can then be simulated by GIS-analyses for the medieval situation, which has been, in regard to the castles, a significant period of construction and occupation

The history of Castles

Kuusisto Castle was, during the Middle Ages, the castle of Turku's Catholic bishop. The earliest documentation of Kuusisto is from the year 1295. The castle was in possession of the Church continuously to the beginning of the 1520s, when it was transferred in connection with the Reformation from the Church to the Crown. Kuusisto became an agricultural estate under Turku Castle, and agriculture directed toward the castle's needs was practiced thereat.

Häme Castle was established as a base for the Swedish royal power in the midst of a prosperous Häme settlement at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. The castle retained its position as administrative center of Häme Province until the 1630s, when it was transferred to provincial management under governors and the national authority moved from the castle to the newly-established town of Hämeenlinna.

Earlier source and research data, which are available from Häme and Kuusisto Castles, provide a good point of departure for study of the habitat. The multiple ways in which the settlements, castle construction and everyday activities affected the environment will be illustrated by the aid of the research results. In addition to the castles' role in representing the state with their physical being, they were also significant economic centers where the affairs of several dozen persons were managed on a daily basis and large-scale agriculture was practiced.

Objectives and methods

The habitat of the medieval person will always be modeled at Kuusisto and Häme Castles by way of his immediate environment to the broader environmental whole. Thus the models will move from the medieval houses and yards to the nearby fields and meadows, from which they will progress to the broader agricultural totality. With the aid of the research results of the humanities and natural and social sciences, it will be possible to model and simulate different variables and their effect on the environment and on people's everyday choices. Thus we will be able to uncover, for example, rapid and local climatic changes and their effects on the people’s livelihood and ways of life.

In order to obtain the greatest possible benefit from their environment, the castle builders started an active and systematic crop cultivation activity in their new area of settlement, where the people had brought along plant and animal species from their original home areas. These new, imported species, in turn, became naturalized in the area. The basic elements of the landscape were fields, meadows, slash-and-burn fields, forests, mills, neighboring villages, highways, trails and water routes. With the aid of research information, it will be possible to bring out the historical dimensions preserved in the landscape, if often perceived with difficulty.
The only locality that has been rather well studied so far by natural scientific methods is the city of Turku, from which completed scientific data may thus be obtained for an environmental model. The macrofossil analysis soil samples from the cellar of Häme Castle, taken by Doc. Terttu Lempiäinen, have already shown encouraging results. For example, several dozen seeds of henbane, commonly used as an analgesic in the Middle Ages, were found in the analysis. There is no previous knowledge of henbane utilization at the Häme Castle.

Macrofossil analysis has proven especially useful in conjunction with pollen analysis. Pollen-analysis studies aim to provide as detailed as possible information about vegetation changes, especially land-use related changes in forest cover, cattle grazing and crop cultivation, during the study period. The first task in the present project will be to review the already existing and available pollen data sets in the study areas. Preliminary lake study sites for paleoecological reconstructions in Varsinais-Suomi (Finland Proper) are Lake Kaukjärvi (Kalanti) and Lake Pitkäjärvi (Laitila), where data and dating information are available. Former Lake Kuusistonjärvi (Kaarina) and Lake Kakskerranjärvi (Turku) will be analyzed during the present project. In the Häme area, three or four suitable lake sites will be selected at a 1-10 km radius from Häme Castle. The intention is to find lakes with annually deposited sediment layers that provide reliable datings for the vegetation and land-use signs, which will be identified in the pollen analysis.

The University of Joensuu's dendrochronology laboratory will make tree-ring information for the Turku and Hämeenlinna areas available to the project. The regionally representative annual tree-ring calendar for the region of Turku and Hämeenlinna covers the entire medieval 500-year period. The annual tree rings include new, and annually precise, information for the period for which written sources are very scarce.

Pine-tree annual-ring data starts in the Turku region in the year 1012 and in the Hämeenlinna region in the year 1094, so they cover the research period, 1100 to 1600. The data collected from both research areas are, however, used very seldom in other than ordinary dating. Thus, there is great research potential in the data. To this can be added, as entirely new material, graph data being prepared for oak. The dated wood material also indirectly reveals variations in human activity according to the date of felling: for example, in the 1350s and 1360s a lot of trees were felled, while again, during the 1340s, for example, hardly any trees were felled.

During the period of the project, additional tree-ring information will be gathered at Häme Castle, some of it by means of the funding obtained. In preliminary studies, it has already been confirmed that there are nearly one hundred objects at Häme Castle suitable for dating. The main scientific benefits of dendrochronological studies in this project are: 1) precise datings of wooden material will give an exact absolute time-scale for human activities and events in the natural environments, 2) precisely dated annual rings give exact annual data of variations in climatic growing conditions (mainly temperature of the growing season) in the study areas Varsinais-Suomi and the Heart of Häme, 3) the fluctuations in the number of dated trees gives knowledge of the changes in the amounts of trees used by man.

The information of written sources on agriculture's annual yields gives indirect indication of possible variations in climate. According to the yield information contained in Häme Castle's account books, for example, an exceptionally good rye harvest was gathered at the castle in the 1550s. On the Crown farms located in Varsinais-Suomi and Uusimaa, moderate harvests were also gathered during these years, but they were, however, clearly smaller than at Häme Castle. An analysis of annual pine-tree growth rings can clarify whether the conditions for growth were exceptionally good at Häme Castle during the years in question. Additionally, good or bad crop periods may also in some cases be detectable by pollen-analysis methods.

Literature

Grönlund, E.. Palaeoecology of land use and settlement history of Laitila

Kalanti area, Finland Proper, SW Finland. Arkaeologiske Rapporter fra Esbjerg

Museum 1:177-188.1996.

Lempiäinen, T. Plant macrofossils from graves and churches.

In: Nordic Archaeobotany – NAG 2000 in Umeå (Ed. Karin Wiklund) –

Archaeology and Environment 15: 144-161, Umeå 2002.

Pukkila, J & Uotila, K. From Ancient Monument to Virtual Model – GIS as a content production tool in 3D visualization.. Mäntylä. Sari (ed.) Rituals and Relations. Studies on the history and material culture of the Baltic Finns. The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters 336. 2005.

Uotila. K. Die Bischofsburg Kuusisto und ihre nächste Umgebung im Mittelalter. (English summary) Archaeologia Medii Aevii Finlandiae V, Castella Maris Baltici 3-4. Gdansk 2001. pp 185-192.

Uotila. K. The collapse of defence in Finnish castles around 1500. Chateau Gaillard XIX (Graz 1998). Caen 2000. s. 297-303.

Uotila et al 2002a. Changes in Natural and Human Landscape from 500 BC to 1500 AD - Modeling large landscape areas in prehistoric and medieval South-West Finland. Uotila; Petteri Alho; Jouko Pukkila, Carita Tulkki. Niccolucci, F. and Hermon, S. (eds.) Multimedia Communication for Cultural Heritage. Proceedings of the workshop held in Prato, 1 October 2001. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2002. s. 119-126.

Uotila et al 2002b. Uotila, Kari, Alho, Petteri, Pukkila, Jouko & Tulkki, Carita 2003: Modeling Natural and Human Landscape in Prehistoric and Medieval Southwest Finland from 500 BC to 1500 AD – Computer Based Visualization. Doerr, Martin & Sarris, Apostolos (eds.), The Digital Heritage of Archaeology, CAA2002. BAR, International Series: 191-194.

Uotila, K. The changing roles of outer baileys in Finnish castles.Chateau Gaillard XXI (Maynooth 2002). Caen 2004.

Uotila. K. 2006. Vyborg Castle and Town Wall : 3D Modelling in Castle Research. Kari Uotila. Chateau Gaillard XXII. Grenoble - Voiron 2004.Caen 2006.

Vilkuna, A-M. Financial Management at Häme Castle in the Mid-Sixteenth Century (1539 – about 1570). At Home within Stone Walls: Life in the Late Medieval Häme Castle. Archaeogia Medii Aevi Finlandiae VIII. Saarijärvi 2003.

Zetterberg, P., Eronen, M. and Briffa, K.R. Subfossil forest limit pines from northern Finland: evidence on climatic variability, growth variations and prehistoric human activities betveen 165 B.C. and A.D. 1400. In Ohta, S., Fuji, T., Okada, N. Hughes, M.K. and Eckstein, D. (eds.) Tree Rings, from the past to the future, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Asian and Pacific Dendrochronology. Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute Scientific Meeting Report, 1:134-144. 1995.