From: mcdaniel@grex.ann-arbor.mi.us (Tim McDaniel)
Subject: Re: Drifting Away...
Keywords: iron, bronze, "vin"
Organization: GREX Public Access Unix +1 313 761 3000
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:21:12 GMT

In article <atterlep.724035351@vela> atterlep@vela.acs.oakland.edu 
(Cardinal Ximenez) writes:
>David Schroeder <ds4p+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>What can you kind folk tell me about shovels *in general* in period?
>>  Were some made of steel?  
>  Probably not until later in period, since in the 10th and 11th century
>iron tools were a rarity--even prosperous French manors had only a few axes.

I just started "A History of Norway", Karen Larsen, Princeton
University Press, 1948.  It describes how the Bronze Age (1500BC-500BC)
never really took hold in Norway, since the metals needed are not found
in Scandinavia.  Afterwards, about 500BC-500AD, Norway sort of went
back to the Stone Age, but with heavy iron imports.  Pages 20-21:

"The flourishing culture of Norway, which began in the last years of
the Roman Era and continued until the late Middle Ages, was based on
the smelting of native iron.  In certain sections of the country ...
bog iron was found to be plentiful in the soil of the shallow lakes and
marshes.  When the process had been learned, it was a rather simple
matter for the farmers about the country to smelt their own iron.  Sod
rich in ore was piled up and left to dry.  Simple blast furnaces, if
they can be called by so pretentious a name, were built in the region
where the ore was found. ... Charcoal was the fuel and this led to a
destructive use of the forests, so that in some places they disappeared
almost completely. ... Refining of iron was a seasonal occupation and
people moved up from the farm to the smelting site and stayed there
until their work was done, just as they did for hunting, fishing, or
grazing. ...

"The abundance of iron is astounding, and it was used in a profusion
such as was not known either before or after this age.  Norway was much
better supplied than were some of the more important countries in
Europe, for example France in the time of the Merovingian or
Carolingian rulers.  The inventory of one of Charlemagne's large
manors, on which there were fifteen houses, lists only twenty articles
made of iron, including kettles, kitchen implements, and tools.  It
would be a poor farm indeed in Norway, even two or three centuries
earlier, that was not better equipped.  As there were no specialized
occupational classes, the men on the farm were their own blacksmiths.
They became skillful smiths and produced a great variety of articles,
some of which had not been made of iron in earlier times. ... But the
most epoch-making tool was the iron axe ..." (as noted by His Eminence,
the Cardinal. :-)

An interesting note was on page 19:  "The early farm names from this
period [late Roman] are often a combination with the syllable 'vin',
meaning an open place in the forest."  Why are scholars so sure that
"Vinland" means "wine land"?  Did "vin" in this meaning not last until
1000AD?  Oh, where's Geirr Bassi when you need him?

-- 
Daniel of Lincoln, Burgh of Cynnabar / Tim McDaniel
Internet: mcdaniel@{grex,m-net}.ann-arbor.mi.us, mcdaniel@adi.com
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca