Bondens mønt i middelalderen: Et kontrasteret billede på baggrund af metaldetektorfund

Abstract

Peasantry and coin use in the Middle Ages: A complex picture based on metal detector finds

The popular picture of Europe’s medieval peasantry is that theirs was a subsistence economy. If they needed goods produced elsewhere than on their own farm, they bartered to acquire them. However, this picture is nuanced by the frequent mentions in the written sources of rents and taxes paid in cash alongside payments in kind. Likewise, recognised as important since the mid twentieth century, church renovation work has brought to light numerous finds of medieval coins. They probably represent accidental losses during offerings in the church. Coins were thus available in the countryside, but were seemingly only used on special occasions and in certain places (for example, for tax payments or in church).

In recent decades, increased excavation activity due to urban and infrastructure development and, not least, the introduction of the metal detector have brought fresh insights because of a new and abundant source material: single finds of coins from the countryside. The finds probably represent accidental losses in the course of widespread coin use in ordinary life in the farms and villages. However, they are not evenly distributed, partly due to modern research methods. The result probably also reflects a historical reality: access to coins and integration into a market allowed the peasantry to become actors in economic life.

In Denmark, metal detecting was legal for private individuals from the outset, and it has always been compulsory to declare one’s finds to the archaeological authorities. This legislation has led to an explosion in the number of finds from a wide range of sites all over the country, which in turn demonstrates active coin use in the countryside in the Middle Ages. In Finland, the recording of metal detector finds began later than in Denmark. Currently, it seems that pre-sixteenth-century coins are rare in the countryside. In Sweden, the rules for metal detecting are very restrictive, and there has been no recent explosion in the number of finds. On the other hand, Swedish professional archaeologists use metal detectors in a systematic way during excavations. This approach has produced a small but welldocumented body of material, which shows that coins were common in rural settlements in what is now the southernmost county of Skåne, but not in central Sweden in the Mälaren region.

In conclusion, coins were more common in medieval Denmark, which then included Skåne, than in medieval Sweden, including Finland. This use of coins gave the Danish peasantry the opportunity to interact more independently with the world outside the village or farm.