Oven Tiles
1 Follower
Recent papers in Oven Tiles
The fortress Town of Kristianstad was built in the beginning of the 17th century to protect the North-Eastern part of the then Danish province of Scania. This vulnerable border region suffered from the devastating raids made by the... more
The fortress Town of Kristianstad was built in the beginning of the 17th century to protect the North-Eastern part of the then Danish province of Scania. This vulnerable border region suffered from the devastating raids made by the Swedish army in the Kalmar War of 1611-1613. As a consequence the two medieval towns of Åhus and Vä were given up in favor of a border fortress built in Dutch fashion, protected by water, marshes and wetlands. The new town was named Christianstad after the king, Christian IV. Its rights were given by king and council in 1614 and work began in earnest shortly thereafter. The Church of the Holy Trinity was among the first buildings to be started, as was the Rectory nearby. The latter, built between 1617 and 1620, was among the finest houses in the city and the king is known to have stayed there when he visited his new fortress project. However, it was to have a short life as the Rectory buildings were torn down during the siege of 1677-1678. In that harsh winter the soldiers of the garrison took what they could find of building material to repair fortifications and use for firewood. In the centuries to follow the plot remained open and unbuilt - a garden or a small park until 2015, when the Church needed a new parish house to be constructed here. So, during April and May that year the Rectory of Jörgen Kristoffersen was excavated by a team of archaeologists from Sydsvensk Arkeologi; this being the first large scale excavation project ever undertaken in this fine Renaissance Model City!
This report highlights the results from an excavation that literally opened new ground, while the findings didn’t exactly turned out to be what were expected initially. The actual building remains from the Rectory did not offer the kind of undisturbed time capsule we all had hoped for. Instead of a detailed insight into a high status household and its material culture a quite different picture emerged. The soldiers of 1677 had done a thorough job in removing whatever was useful to them. Even the stones of the cobbled yard had been taken away to be reused somewhere else in the beleaguered fortress. But what did appear was a fine illustration of the difficulties faced when trying to build a new town in a location that was indeed highly unsuited for such a venture. Because even though this must be considered as one of the finest plots in Christianstad, massive landfill was needed on the site. Another intriguing find was the amount of building materials re-used in the Rectory – both in the actual houses and for stabilizing the yard. A partly excavated stone cellar beneath the main building had walls where undressed stones, medieval bricks, roof tiles etc. had been used. And a large number of bricks made for 16th century style vaults lay as filling in the yard; bricks that had never been used for their original purpose! But probably the most fascinating finds were the large amount of black glazed oven tiles, found both in the buildings and as filling in the yard. Obviously they emanated from the same source and had been meant for use in rooms with a high ceiling, not like the lower rooms in a cross timbered building such as the Rectory. Their motifs reflected exclusiveness, high quality and a range of themes connected with religion and politics. The parallels are to be found in royal castles and other buildings connected with the higher echelons of 16th and 17th century society in Northern Europe. Where the ovens these tiles decorated were erected originally remains an open question, but the town of Åhus offers a possible solution. The Royal residence there, the former Blackfriars convent, was demolished around 1620...
To summarize – the excavation of the Kv. Jörgen Kristoffersen site has given us a first glance of the complicated process of building a fortress town in the early 17th century. Of how thorough the transition to new structures, made necessary by changing political situations, could be – and how painful to those that had to live and endure such profound changes. The results will provide new starting points for further research, as this project has given us more questions to deal with than actual answers. It is already quite obvious how a new interest in the history of Christianstad and other similar projects started during the reign of Christian IV has been sparked by this project!
This report highlights the results from an excavation that literally opened new ground, while the findings didn’t exactly turned out to be what were expected initially. The actual building remains from the Rectory did not offer the kind of undisturbed time capsule we all had hoped for. Instead of a detailed insight into a high status household and its material culture a quite different picture emerged. The soldiers of 1677 had done a thorough job in removing whatever was useful to them. Even the stones of the cobbled yard had been taken away to be reused somewhere else in the beleaguered fortress. But what did appear was a fine illustration of the difficulties faced when trying to build a new town in a location that was indeed highly unsuited for such a venture. Because even though this must be considered as one of the finest plots in Christianstad, massive landfill was needed on the site. Another intriguing find was the amount of building materials re-used in the Rectory – both in the actual houses and for stabilizing the yard. A partly excavated stone cellar beneath the main building had walls where undressed stones, medieval bricks, roof tiles etc. had been used. And a large number of bricks made for 16th century style vaults lay as filling in the yard; bricks that had never been used for their original purpose! But probably the most fascinating finds were the large amount of black glazed oven tiles, found both in the buildings and as filling in the yard. Obviously they emanated from the same source and had been meant for use in rooms with a high ceiling, not like the lower rooms in a cross timbered building such as the Rectory. Their motifs reflected exclusiveness, high quality and a range of themes connected with religion and politics. The parallels are to be found in royal castles and other buildings connected with the higher echelons of 16th and 17th century society in Northern Europe. Where the ovens these tiles decorated were erected originally remains an open question, but the town of Åhus offers a possible solution. The Royal residence there, the former Blackfriars convent, was demolished around 1620...
To summarize – the excavation of the Kv. Jörgen Kristoffersen site has given us a first glance of the complicated process of building a fortress town in the early 17th century. Of how thorough the transition to new structures, made necessary by changing political situations, could be – and how painful to those that had to live and endure such profound changes. The results will provide new starting points for further research, as this project has given us more questions to deal with than actual answers. It is already quite obvious how a new interest in the history of Christianstad and other similar projects started during the reign of Christian IV has been sparked by this project!