Abstract:

This volume brings together a series of case studies on the social and economic interaction and organisation in the medieval and early modern European countryside. In particular, it focuses on rural and smaller trade and markets that have remained relatively underexposed so far. It provides comprehensive presentations of new research on rural socio-economic interactions and networks, and how these are integrated into regional, trans-regional and even global exchange systems. The volume is characterised by an interdisciplinary scope and a broad geographical range, and provides new insights into the diversities and complexities of trade and rural landscape organisation.

The exchange of goods and services were integrated in cultural patterns and social strategies, which were part of the mechanisms of regionalisation and the formation of common cultures and identities. Markets and trading places were also important in terms of noneconomic aspects of society, with different types of social ties and networks, all essential components for dissemination of innovation and ideas. The volume investigates who benefitted, and who controlled the trade. The more or less unresolved question of how we can identify these smaller and informal trading places is a central topic of discussion in this volume.

Presented research suggests a considerably higher complexity in social and economic organisations and networks in rural areas than has previously been assumed. Both on local and regional as well as temporal scales. Local and regional differences in organisation and trade networks can highlight different modes of social organisation. Recognising how rural trade and markets were organised, and why, is fundamental for an understanding of the complexities of societies and regional variations in Europe as a whole.

Contents

Forword and introduction
Marie Ødegard – Kjetil Loftsgarden – Claudia Theune

Keynote
Meeting in the Dutch lowlands. The search for medieval and post-medieval open-air assembly sites in a northwest European context
Jan van Doesburg – Bert Groenewoudt

1 Overviews of rural markets in selected regions of Europe

Where are all the marketplaces? Southern Finland as an example of medieval and early modern rural trade in Finland
Tuuli Heinonen

Fairs and trade in the late medieval and early modern Danish countryside
Mette Svart Kristensen

Local rural markets in preindustrial Southern Germany
Rainer Schreg

Rural markets in medieval and early modern Hungary – a spatial-quantitative study
Laszlo Ferenczi

Medieval and Ottoman marketplaces in the Raška basin
Uglješa Vojvodić

2 Markets in small towns in central Europe

How much do we know about medieval rural markets in Silesia (Poland)?
Duma, Paweł

Market exchange and rural communities in the medieval Czech lands (ca. 900–1400)
Tomáš Klír – Ivo Štefan

Market places in small towns, the case study of Langenlois, Lower Austria
Claudia Theune – Ute Scholz

Lower Austrian market towns from a bird’s-eye view at around 1700
Ronald Kurt Salzer

3 Production and markets at the periphery of Europe – examples from Scotland and Northen Isles

From seasonal shore market to town: the emergence of Lerwick in Shetland (Scotland) in the 17th century
Mark Gardiner

Trade and markets in early modern orkney (Scotland)
Sarah Jane Gibbon – Jocelyn Rendall – Anne Mitchell – Jennifer Harland

Produce from the isles: the production and export of later medieval and early modern foodstuffs in Orkney and Shetland
Jennifer Harland– Bart Holterman – Ingrid Mainland – Julia Cussans

4 Approaches to the identification of markets and trade

The development and cultural significance of informal rural trade in the coastal and fjord districts of western Norway
Therese Nesset

Seascapes of connectivity. Magnates’ farms and trade in the Oslo fjord region
Christian Løchsen Rødsrud

Mountain markets in medieval Norway – rural trade and its socioeconomic significance
Kjetil Loftsgarden – Marie Ødegaard

Medieval quarrying and rural stone building trade in Hamar diocese, Norway
Kristian Reinfjord

The birth of business – risk management and social relations among farmers in Jämtland and traders in Trondheim 1800−1850
Sven Olofsson

Silver from Sala silver mine – controlled trade or shadow market?
Berg Nilsson, Lena

‘This little potter went to market’: The use of ceramic evidence to study the socioeconomic landscapes of rural markets in medieval Yorkshire (England)
Yannick Signer

Rural marketplaces and fairs in medieval Luxembourg – the examples of Enelter and the Helperknapp
Christiane Bis-Worch – Schoellen, André

Tyrolean garnet. From rural mining in the high mountains to the European gemstone markets
Bianca Zerobin – Roland Köchl

Novel notes: examples of commodity money and fiat money in the Viking Age of Eastern Europe
Monika Maleszka-Ritchie

The village markets of early medieval/Byzantine Cyprus and Greece
Athanasios K. Vionis

6 Transport and trade – connecting producers and markets

Following the herd. Oxen trade and breeding in the Netherlands as an example of rural-urban synergy in the late medieval and early modern periods
Jaap Evert Abrahamse – Rowin van Lanen

Livestock trails and cattle fairs in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula in medieval and post-medieval times
Margarita Fernández-Mier– Pablo López-Gómez– Elías Carballido Gonzaléz

Forgotten trade, forgotten villages. A case study of medieval trade routes and settlement abandonment in Fejér county, Hungary
Máté Stibrányi – Csilla Zatykó

The rural area around Old Buda
Adrienn Papp