Rumpelstiltsken’s feat: cloth and German trade with Iceland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.262Keywords:
Hanse, cloth import, trade, English cloth, Icelandic clothAbstract
Identifying foreign cloth imports in the Icelandic archaeological corpus is difficult at best, yet given widespread similarities in homespun cloth from sites across the country, imported cloth can be identified visually through the presence of refined finishing techniques (such as teaseling, shearing, and fulling) that were uncommon in Iceland and were the products of specialist craftsmen in Europe. This paper examines textile assemblages from deposits datable to the period of Hanseatic trade at three sites, Gilsbakki, Reykholt, and Stóra-Borg that represent two wealthy, interior, parish centres and a moderate-sized coastal farm, respectively. Variations in the number and diversity of imported cloth items within these sites’ assemblages suggest that while Hanseatic material culture was widely spread on Icelandic rural sites, the nature of the material culture sub-assemblages attributable to Hanseatic trade was not obviously a direct function of households’ wealth or proximity to harbours but may have engaged other cultural factors linked to the political and social challenges of the post-Reformation period and the roles of individual households in regional or intra-Icelandic trade.
References
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Andersson Strand, E. 2014. Foreign sanctions: sumptuary laws, consumption and national identity, in early modern Sweden, in T.E. Mathiassen, M.L Nosch, M. Ringgaard, K. Toftegaard, and M. Venborg Pedersen (eds), Fashionable Encounters, Perspectives and Trends in Textile and Dress in the Early Modern Nordic World, 17–27. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
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Bek Pedersen, K. 2009. Weaving swords and rolling heads: a peculiar space in Old Norse tradition. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5, 23–39.
Bender Jørgensen, E. 1992. North European Textiles until AD 1000. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Callow, C. 2010. Iceland’s medieval coastal market places: Dögurðarnes in its economic, social and political context, in J. Brendalsmo, T. Gansum and F.-E. Eliassen (eds), Strandsteder, utvikinglingssteder og småbyer i vikingtid, middelalder og tidlig nytid (ca. 800–ca. 1800), 213–229. Oslo: Interface Media.
Cleasby R. Vigfusson, G. and Craigie, W. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Egan, G. 1987. Provenanced Leaden Cloth Seals. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of London.
Frei, K.M. 2014. Strontium isotope analyses of ancient wool thread samples from Viking Age to Early Modern retrieved from Iceland. National Museum of Denmark. Unpublished report.
Friedland, K. 1983. Hanseatic merchants and their trade with Shetland, in D.J. Withrington (ed.), Shetland and the Outside World, 86–106. Oxford: University of Aberdeen.
Garðarsdóttir, V. 2010. Alþingisreiturinn, vol. 1 and 2. Unpublished excavation report, Reykjavík.
Gjerset, K. 1924. History of Iceland. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Gullbeck, S. H. 2011. Norway: commodity money, silver and coins, in J. Graham-Campbell, S. M. Sindbæk and G. Williams (eds), Silver Economies, Monetization and Society in Scandinavia AD 800–1100, 93–111. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Guðjónsson, E. 1962. Forn röggvarvefnaður. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1962, 12–71.
Guðjónsson, E. 1965. Um skinnsaum, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1964, 69–87.
Guðjónsson, E. 1970. The National Costume of Women in Iceland. Reykjavik: Litbrá.
Guðjónsson, E. 1973. Íslenzk útsaumsheiti og útsaumsgerdir á miðöldum. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1972, 131–150.
Guðjónsson, E. 1998a. Kljásteinavefstaðir á Íslandi og á Grænlandi, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1996–97, 95–120.
Guðjónsson, E. 1998b. Um vefstóla á Íslandi á 18. öld. Nokkrar athugasemdir. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1996– 97, 129–140.
Guðjónsson, E. 1992. Um rokka, einkum med tilliti til skotrokka, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1992, 11–52.
Guðjónsson, E. 1994. Um vefstóla og vefara á Íslandi á 18. og 19. öld. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1993, 5–50.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2012a. Some in rags, some in jags and some in silken gowns: textiles from Iceland’s early modern period. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(3), 509–528.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2012b. The Heddle Rods Are Blood-Soaked Spears: Life, Death, Fate, and Female Embodiment through Weaving in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland. Paper presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 14–18 November.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2013. The textile collection from the 1988 Bessastaðir excavation, in G. Ólafsson (ed.), Bessastaðarannsókn II. Kikjugarður og Miðaldaminjar Uppgraftarsvæði 12-15, 93–110. Reykjavík: Skýrslur Þjóðminjasafn Íslands.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2014a. Thorir’s bargain: vaðmál, gender and the law. World Archaeology 45, 730–746.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2014b. Dress, cloth and the farmer’s wife: textiles from Ø172 Tatsipataa, Greenland with comparative data from Iceland. Journal of the North Atlantic 6, 64–81.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2015. Weaving wealth: cloth and trade in viking age and medieval Iceland, in A. L. Huang andC. Jahnke (eds), Textiles and the Medieval Economy, Production, Trade and Consumption of Textiles 8th–16th Centuries, 23–40. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2018. Vaðmál and Cloth Currency in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland, in J. Kershaw, G. Williams and S. Sinbaek (eds), Silver, Butter, Copper, Cloth: Currencies and Value in the Viking Age, 51–277. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hittinger, D. 2008. Auswertung der Tuchplombenfunde der Teerhofgrabung. Bremer Archäologische Blätter 7, 111–144.
Hjálmarsson, J. R. 1993. History of Iceland: from the Settlement to the Present Day. Reykjavík: Iceland Review.
Hoffmann, M. 1974. The Warp-Weighted Loom: Studies in the History and Technology of an Ancient Implement. Oslo: Hestholms Boktrykkeri.
Karlsson, G. 2000. Iceland’s 1100 Years, the History of a Marginal Society. London: Hurst & Company.
Kirjavainen, H. 2009. A Finnish archaeological perspective on medieval broadcloth, in K. Vestergård Pedersen and M. L. Nosch (eds), The Medieval Broadcloth, 90–99. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Maik, J. 2009. The Influence of Hanseatic trade on textile production in medieval Poland, in K. Vestergård Pedersen and M. L. Nosch (eds), The Medieval Broadcloth, 109–122. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
McGovern, T. 1990. The archaeology of the Norse North Atlantic. Annual Review of Anthropology 19, 331–351.
Mehler, N. 2009. The perception and interpretation of Hanseatic material culture in the North Atlantic: problems and suggestions. Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 1, 89–108.
Mehler, N. and Gardiner, M. 2013. On the Verge of colonialism, English and Hanseatic trade in the North Atlantic islands, in P. E. Pope and S. Lewis-Simpson (eds), Exploring Atlantic Traditions, 1–14. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.
Milek, K. 2012. The role of pit houses and gendered spaces on Viking Age farmsteads in Iceland. Medieval Archaeology 56, 85–130.
Minar. J. 2001. Motor skills and the learning process: the conservation of cordage final twist direction in communities of practice. Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4), 381–405.
Munro, J. 2003. Medieval woollens: textiles, technology, and industrial organisation, c. 800–1500, in D. Jenkins (ed.), Cambridge History of Western Textiles I, 181–227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ordoñez, M.T. 2012. Reykholt Textile Analysis Report. Unpublished Textile Report, University of Rhode Island, Department of Textiles, Design and Fashion Merchandising, Rhode Island.
Robertsdóttir, H. 2008. Wool and Society: Manufacturing Policy, Economic Thought and Local Production in 18th-Century Iceland. Göteborg: Makadam.
Sinding, M., Vieira, F. and Hayeur Smith, M. 2017, Unmatched DNA preservation prove arctic hare and sheep wool in Norse Greenland textile from 'The Farm Beneath the Sand'. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 14, 603–608.
Smith, K. P. 2009. Preliminary Investigations at Gilsbakki, Borgarbyggð, Western Iceland: 2008 Season. Unpublished report, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Providence RI.
Snæsdóttir, M. 1991. Stóra-Borg Fornleifarannsókn 1978–1990. Reykjavík: Þjóðminjasafn Íslands.
Sveinbjarnardóttir, G. 2006. Reykholt: A centre of power. the archaeological evidence, in E. Mundal (ed.), Reykholt som makt- og lærdomssenter i den islandsk og nordiske kontekst, 25–42. Reykholt: Snorrastofa.
Sveinbjarnardóttir, G. 2012. Reykholt: Archaeological Investigations at a High Status Farm in Western Iceland. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland.
Þorláksson, H. 1991. Vaðmál og verðlag. Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld. Reykjavík: Heimspekideild Háskóla Íslands.
Þorláksson, H. 2010. Saga Íslands, vol. 6. Reykjavík: Sögufélag.
Tidow, K. and Jordan-Fahrbach, E. 2007. Woollen textiles inarchaeological finds and descriptions in written sources of the 14th to the 18th centuries, in C. Gillis and M.L. Nosch (eds), Ancient Textiles, Production, Craft and Society, Proceedings of the Frist International Conference on Ancient Textiles held at Lund, Sweden, Copenhagen, Denmark on March 19–23, 2003, 97–103. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Walton Rogers, P. 2012. Textiles, wool and hair, in G. Sveinbjarnardóttir (ed.), Reykholt: Archaeological Investigations at a High Status Farm in Western Iceland, 196–217. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland.
Andersson Strand, E. 2012. Tool and textiles, production and organization in Birka and Hedeby, in S. Sigmundsson (ed.), The Viking Settlements and Viking Society: Papers from the Proceedings of the Sixteenth Viking Congress, Reykjavik and Reykholt 16th–23rd August 2009, 1–17. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press.
Andersson Strand, E. 2014. Foreign sanctions: sumptuary laws, consumption and national identity, in early modern Sweden, in T.E. Mathiassen, M.L Nosch, M. Ringgaard, K. Toftegaard, and M. Venborg Pedersen (eds), Fashionable Encounters, Perspectives and Trends in Textile and Dress in the Early Modern Nordic World, 17–27. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Bek Pedersen, K. 2007. Are the spinning nornir just a yarn?, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3, 1–10.
Bek Pedersen, K. 2009. Weaving swords and rolling heads: a peculiar space in Old Norse tradition. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5, 23–39.
Bender Jørgensen, E. 1992. North European Textiles until AD 1000. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Callow, C. 2010. Iceland’s medieval coastal market places: Dögurðarnes in its economic, social and political context, in J. Brendalsmo, T. Gansum and F.-E. Eliassen (eds), Strandsteder, utvikinglingssteder og småbyer i vikingtid, middelalder og tidlig nytid (ca. 800–ca. 1800), 213–229. Oslo: Interface Media.
Cleasby R. Vigfusson, G. and Craigie, W. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Egan, G. 1987. Provenanced Leaden Cloth Seals. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of London.
Frei, K.M. 2014. Strontium isotope analyses of ancient wool thread samples from Viking Age to Early Modern retrieved from Iceland. National Museum of Denmark. Unpublished report.
Friedland, K. 1983. Hanseatic merchants and their trade with Shetland, in D.J. Withrington (ed.), Shetland and the Outside World, 86–106. Oxford: University of Aberdeen.
Garðarsdóttir, V. 2010. Alþingisreiturinn, vol. 1 and 2. Unpublished excavation report, Reykjavík.
Gjerset, K. 1924. History of Iceland. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Gullbeck, S. H. 2011. Norway: commodity money, silver and coins, in J. Graham-Campbell, S. M. Sindbæk and G. Williams (eds), Silver Economies, Monetization and Society in Scandinavia AD 800–1100, 93–111. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Guðjónsson, E. 1962. Forn röggvarvefnaður. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1962, 12–71.
Guðjónsson, E. 1965. Um skinnsaum, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1964, 69–87.
Guðjónsson, E. 1970. The National Costume of Women in Iceland. Reykjavik: Litbrá.
Guðjónsson, E. 1973. Íslenzk útsaumsheiti og útsaumsgerdir á miðöldum. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1972, 131–150.
Guðjónsson, E. 1998a. Kljásteinavefstaðir á Íslandi og á Grænlandi, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1996–97, 95–120.
Guðjónsson, E. 1998b. Um vefstóla á Íslandi á 18. öld. Nokkrar athugasemdir. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1996– 97, 129–140.
Guðjónsson, E. 1992. Um rokka, einkum med tilliti til skotrokka, Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1992, 11–52.
Guðjónsson, E. 1994. Um vefstóla og vefara á Íslandi á 18. og 19. öld. Árbók hins íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1993, 5–50.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2012a. Some in rags, some in jags and some in silken gowns: textiles from Iceland’s early modern period. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(3), 509–528.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2012b. The Heddle Rods Are Blood-Soaked Spears: Life, Death, Fate, and Female Embodiment through Weaving in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland. Paper presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 14–18 November.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2013. The textile collection from the 1988 Bessastaðir excavation, in G. Ólafsson (ed.), Bessastaðarannsókn II. Kikjugarður og Miðaldaminjar Uppgraftarsvæði 12-15, 93–110. Reykjavík: Skýrslur Þjóðminjasafn Íslands.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2014a. Thorir’s bargain: vaðmál, gender and the law. World Archaeology 45, 730–746.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2014b. Dress, cloth and the farmer’s wife: textiles from Ø172 Tatsipataa, Greenland with comparative data from Iceland. Journal of the North Atlantic 6, 64–81.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2015. Weaving wealth: cloth and trade in viking age and medieval Iceland, in A. L. Huang andC. Jahnke (eds), Textiles and the Medieval Economy, Production, Trade and Consumption of Textiles 8th–16th Centuries, 23–40. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Hayeur Smith, M. 2018. Vaðmál and Cloth Currency in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland, in J. Kershaw, G. Williams and S. Sinbaek (eds), Silver, Butter, Copper, Cloth: Currencies and Value in the Viking Age, 51–277. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hittinger, D. 2008. Auswertung der Tuchplombenfunde der Teerhofgrabung. Bremer Archäologische Blätter 7, 111–144.
Hjálmarsson, J. R. 1993. History of Iceland: from the Settlement to the Present Day. Reykjavík: Iceland Review.
Hoffmann, M. 1974. The Warp-Weighted Loom: Studies in the History and Technology of an Ancient Implement. Oslo: Hestholms Boktrykkeri.
Karlsson, G. 2000. Iceland’s 1100 Years, the History of a Marginal Society. London: Hurst & Company.
Kirjavainen, H. 2009. A Finnish archaeological perspective on medieval broadcloth, in K. Vestergård Pedersen and M. L. Nosch (eds), The Medieval Broadcloth, 90–99. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Maik, J. 2009. The Influence of Hanseatic trade on textile production in medieval Poland, in K. Vestergård Pedersen and M. L. Nosch (eds), The Medieval Broadcloth, 109–122. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
McGovern, T. 1990. The archaeology of the Norse North Atlantic. Annual Review of Anthropology 19, 331–351.
Mehler, N. 2009. The perception and interpretation of Hanseatic material culture in the North Atlantic: problems and suggestions. Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 1, 89–108.
Mehler, N. and Gardiner, M. 2013. On the Verge of colonialism, English and Hanseatic trade in the North Atlantic islands, in P. E. Pope and S. Lewis-Simpson (eds), Exploring Atlantic Traditions, 1–14. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.
Milek, K. 2012. The role of pit houses and gendered spaces on Viking Age farmsteads in Iceland. Medieval Archaeology 56, 85–130.
Minar. J. 2001. Motor skills and the learning process: the conservation of cordage final twist direction in communities of practice. Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4), 381–405.
Munro, J. 2003. Medieval woollens: textiles, technology, and industrial organisation, c. 800–1500, in D. Jenkins (ed.), Cambridge History of Western Textiles I, 181–227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ordoñez, M.T. 2012. Reykholt Textile Analysis Report. Unpublished Textile Report, University of Rhode Island, Department of Textiles, Design and Fashion Merchandising, Rhode Island.
Robertsdóttir, H. 2008. Wool and Society: Manufacturing Policy, Economic Thought and Local Production in 18th-Century Iceland. Göteborg: Makadam.
Sinding, M., Vieira, F. and Hayeur Smith, M. 2017, Unmatched DNA preservation prove arctic hare and sheep wool in Norse Greenland textile from 'The Farm Beneath the Sand'. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 14, 603–608.
Smith, K. P. 2009. Preliminary Investigations at Gilsbakki, Borgarbyggð, Western Iceland: 2008 Season. Unpublished report, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Providence RI.
Snæsdóttir, M. 1991. Stóra-Borg Fornleifarannsókn 1978–1990. Reykjavík: Þjóðminjasafn Íslands.
Sveinbjarnardóttir, G. 2006. Reykholt: A centre of power. the archaeological evidence, in E. Mundal (ed.), Reykholt som makt- og lærdomssenter i den islandsk og nordiske kontekst, 25–42. Reykholt: Snorrastofa.
Sveinbjarnardóttir, G. 2012. Reykholt: Archaeological Investigations at a High Status Farm in Western Iceland. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland.
Þorláksson, H. 1991. Vaðmál og verðlag. Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld. Reykjavík: Heimspekideild Háskóla Íslands.
Þorláksson, H. 2010. Saga Íslands, vol. 6. Reykjavík: Sögufélag.
Tidow, K. and Jordan-Fahrbach, E. 2007. Woollen textiles inarchaeological finds and descriptions in written sources of the 14th to the 18th centuries, in C. Gillis and M.L. Nosch (eds), Ancient Textiles, Production, Craft and Society, Proceedings of the Frist International Conference on Ancient Textiles held at Lund, Sweden, Copenhagen, Denmark on March 19–23, 2003, 97–103. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Walton Rogers, P. 2012. Textiles, wool and hair, in G. Sveinbjarnardóttir (ed.), Reykholt: Archaeological Investigations at a High Status Farm in Western Iceland, 196–217. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland.
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Published
2020-01-06
How to Cite
Hayeur Smith, M. (2020). Rumpelstiltsken’s feat: cloth and German trade with Iceland. AmS-Skrifter, (27), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.262
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Part II: The commodities of trade