Understanding Norwegian urbanisation
Norwegian urbanisation did not produce the hierarchical networks and diversification of trade or production that were characteristic of the urban landscape elsewhere (for instance in England).14
FIGURE 5.1 Map of medieval Norway’s towns.
Source: Richard Holt, �What if the sea were different? Urbanization in medieval Norway’, Past & Present 195, Issue suppl 2, 2007, pp. 132–147, at p. 134.
These differences have spurred a scholarly debate in Norway on what constitutes a town and which urban sites could justly be defined as such in the middle ages. To tackle the discrepancy, scholars have sought to highlight the functional, topographical and administrative-legal qualities of urban settlements as qualifiers to classify them as towns.15 In some instances, scholars have been reluctant to put a settlement in any urban category and have instead suggested several non-urban labels, such as �fishing station’ or �densely populated area’.16 The pre-eminent Norwegian historian in the field, Knut Helle, used expressions such as �townlike place’ (bylignende sted) when describing one of these sites.17 Norwegian scholarship customarily divides urban sites into towns; small towns; and markets, some with permanent settlements. Terminology in the source material from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries justifies this division to some degree, with kaupstadir (�town’), smaar kaupstader (�small town’) and kaupstefna (�marketplace or centre of commerce’).18 The latter two categories signify what in this chapter are termed �market towns’, on the basis that they should be studied as part of the Norwegian urban landscape, being understood in a sense as �urban’ by medieval spectators.
Other terms signifying �town’ include kaupang19 and bæ.20 Helle, together with Arnved Nedkvitne, suggested in 1977 that a useful approach when studying Norwegian towns is to follow the medieval notion of what was urban.21 Even so, Skien, which survived as a town into the modern age, only received its town privileges in 1358, even if the same royal letter granting those privileges described the customs j bynom j Skidu (�in the town of Skien’), confirming that it was already considered to be a town before this date.22 Privileges were not a necessary criteria for what constituted a town in medieval Norway. Moreover, the medieval and the modern ideas of what constitutes a town do not necessarily correspond. A traditional definition is that a town is the densely populated hub of a larger area that has specialised functions for its surroundings and a continuous existence.23 In a publication on the multifaceted nature of Norwegian town history, archaeologist Reidar Bertelsen argued that the status of an urban site in Norway was not comparable with that of insular or continental towns.24 Pointing to the functions of Norway’s northernmost medieval urban site, Vágar, Bertelsen rejected the distinctions in status made by historians such as Helle between those places earning the status of �town’ and those found to be too small and short-lived.25 All these urban locations meet the definition of a town, according to Bertelsen. The termination of a town’s existence at a later point should not exclude it from a historical discussion of urbanisation. Helle also admitted the constraints of using a narrow town definition when studying the medieval urban history of Norway.26 Following Bertelsen’s approach, this chapter seeks to analyse the sources of urban legal culture in Norway’s smaller towns. Their relative lack of size, and the length of time for which they existed, make the legal culture within them an interesting object of study, because they represent the intrinsic urban development in Norway. When determining the status of a town one should consider of first importance its function within its own lifetime rather than its continuity through time.Even in Scandinavian terms Norway was not very urbanised. From 1319 to 1343, Norway and Sweden entered into a bilateral union, and in 1380, Norway fell under the Danish crown. All three kingdoms entered into the Kalmar Union in 1397, which created an uneasy political situation throughout the fifteenth century. The union between Norway and Sweden did not produce legal unification other than that the administrations of their legislative enterprises mutually inspired each other.27 Nevertheless, the development of law and of urbanisation in Sweden was comparable to the urban-legal development in Norway. In or around the late 1340s, King Magnus Eiriksson (1319–1364) issued the Code of the Realm for Sweden and afterwards, in the 1350s, he similarly promulgated a Town Law for the realm.28 The Swedish realm counted 42 towns in the middle ages, according to Hans Andersson.29 By contrast, the Danish experience to a large degree followed the continental urbanisation process in the middle ages, and Denmark had approximately 110 towns, with somewhat fewer at the beginning of the sixteenth century.30 The Norwegian towns of any notable size were Niðaros, Bergen, Stavanger, Tønsberg, Oslo and Hamar. The documented market towns in the late middle ages were also few in number. Listed from north to south, the market towns that existed in the fourteenth century were Vágar, Veøy,31 Borgund,32 Kaupanger,33 Skien,34 Sarpsborg, Oddevold, Konghelle and Marstrand, the latter three of which are now part of modern-day Sweden.35 All the Norwegian towns but Hamar were situated along the coast with access to the sea shipping.36 The four market towns north of Bergen had strong connections with this major export town as suppliers of goods such as stockfish and other marine products, together with iron and stone.37 Exchange relied on trade networks comprising elite families holding properties in both Bergen and a northern town. The importance of the supplies coming into Bergen is revealed in the privilege granted to the Hanseatic towns in 1294: it forbade foreign merchants from sailing ultra Bergas uersus partes boreales (�beyond Bergen to the northern parts’) as part of a general policy to control trade.38 Only domestic traders were allowed to collect domestic products, which possibly also reduced direct foreign influence through trade on the local legal culture in the market towns.