The interesting questions, which remained to be answered for both Visby and Lödöse after my paper in 2011 (Andersson 2011), were whether there were the same traces of primary forging as in Jönköping, and whether it is possible to determine the source of the iron. A grant from the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities provided the opportunity to further explore this issue; the study was undertaken by the Geoarchaeological Laboratory (Grandin et al. 2012).
In this study, a selection of slag from Visby (12th–13th century) and Lödöse (12th– 14th century) was examined (Grandin et al. 2012: 12–17). In a preliminary study, large quantities of slag were examined, and those which potentially belonged to primary smithing were selected for further analyses. Material classified as the residue of secondary forging was rejected, since it did not help in answering the question of origin. The slag examined included material from archaeological investigations in both towns. It of course represents only a small component of all slag finds that have been investigated, but the study nonetheless provided a clear answer on one point, and results that may serve as a starting point for further discussion on the other. It is unfortunate that the Visby material excavated by Nihlén in the 1920s could not be found, and has obviously not been preserved. Nonetheless, in principle the Visby material that was examined came from the same area as Nihlén’s excavations.
The slag from Visby yielded a clear result. It originates from bloomery iron, and was the waste product from primary forging. This means that the smithies received iron originally produced from lake or bog ore, or from red earth, rather than from rock ore. A single isolated find of rock ore from Utö (see above) must relate to a different chronological context. The slag from Lödöse also originated in primary smithing. Some pieces could have been the residues of secondary smithing/artefact smithing, and smithies were probably used for both processes.
The next question relates to the geographical provenance of the iron, and this was much harder to answer. By comparing trace elements in the slag with a reference collection of ore samples and slag from previously analysed bloomery sites (mainly in southern and central Sweden), the investigators tried to ascertain where the iron could have come from. With regard to the location of Visby – centrally positioned in the Baltic – there is of course the possibility that iron from the eastern Baltic was imported, and a number of other gaps remain to be filled. The situations is thus complex, but the conclusion is that there is a certain tendency for a ‘dominance of suppliers from the western part of Sweden for Lödöse, and from the eastern part for Visby’ (Grandin et al. 2012). In sum, it seems that the smithies in Visby and Lödöse acquired their iron from different regions. The reason for this is an interesting subject for further study.
But which actors were behind the development of the iron industry, especially during the 13th century? Jönköping provides us with some clues. As already mentioned, the town received its first charter in 1288, and one of its regulations was intended to concentrate all trade in the town. Jönköping represents part of a rather strong drive towards urbanisation in this period. Together with organising the state, urbanisation was a royal policy, while we know that the king also tried to mark his influence in the mountain mines (Pettersson Jensen 2013, 236–240). According to Kallerskog – and I agree – the king had also, in the case of Jönköping, tried to control and rule the organisation behind the production of bloomery iron (Kallerskog 2009). It was a long time before it became clear that the future lay in iron produced in blast furnaces, so it was of interest to control both processes.
My central question has been what role the towns played in the iron-production process, with some digressions relating to the materials with which urban blacksmiths worked. I have given three examples from the southern part of medieval Sweden, dating to the 13th and 14th centuries. In these cases the blacksmiths of Jönköping, Visby and Lödöse undertook the primary smithing. When we are discussing the 13th and 14th centuries and perhaps earlier centuries, we should probably try to distinguish between blacksmiths who were part of the bloomery process and those who were engaged in manufacturing. Towns appeared to work exclusively with iron originally extracted from ores from lakes, bogs or red earth. The identity of the sources from which the towns acquired their iron ahead of final purification are open to discussion, but the tendency is for most of the iron to originate in areas relatively close to the towns. Rock ore was not a key source of iron in this part of Sweden before the late 14th or the beginning of the 15th century.
The movement of iron processing into the towns must be seen in a broader context, within which the Swedish state was developing, and it was necessary for the king to wrest and maintain control of an important resource. This was more easily achieved in the towns than in the countryside. Jönköping evidently shows that bloomery iron, at least up to the 14th century, was as important as blast iron.
The blacksmiths in the town were one part of a greater network of actors, in which the leading men in the state also had their roles. It is interesting to note that the situating of ironworking within a political context was not something limited to this particular period. Forging persists to the present day, and it is instructive that one major product in the Jönköping area during the 16th and 17th centuries was weaponry manufactured for the Swedish army.
The English text was revised by Alan Crozier.
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