DOI Artikel:
Brady, Niall: [Rezension von: Grith Lerche, Ploughing implements and tillage practices in Denmark from the Viking period to about 1800 experimentally substantiated]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49004#0246
TOOLS & TILLAGE VII 4 1995
231
ploughing in Denmark with which she has in-
formed and fascinated readers of Tools and Tillage
for more than twenty years. We are all familiar
with her thoughtful, patient investigations and re-
constructive analyses, but never before has she
been able to present so much of her primary data
in such detail.
In the first six chapters, she explains her recon-
struction work in depth: Chapters 3 and 4 deal
with the wheeled plough: chapters 5 and 6 with
the experimental field at Lejre. In Chapter 7, she
discusses the evidence of cultivation as witnessed
in a number of fossil fields, chiefly those at
Bromme, the Eremitage Plain, and Borupris. It is
an important chapter, for she uses it to build on
the previous two to show the reader how to iden-
tify, uncover and, most importantly, understand
the construction of ancient cultivation marks. One
can only envy the relatively light Danish soils
which have greatly facilitated their preservation.
It is in Chapter 8, however, that Lerche brings
the reader closest to the real task she has set her-
self, and it is this which makes her work not only
of interest to agricultural historians, but compul-
sive reading too. A primary motivation behind her
research is a desire to gain insight to the labour of
daily peasant life. It is a goal shared by many but
realized by few. Archaeologists are too often tied
up with creating typologies to order the otherwise
diverse range of material remains. They have little
time left to explore further. Historians, in turn,
will usually focus on official manorial records
which can tell us of the economic background of a
manor, as well as something of the relationships
between and among lords and peasants, but they
are not so informative on the matter of work and
labour. In the past, we have turned to contempo-
rary literature for insights. William Langland’s late
fourteenth century epic poem Piers Plowman is a
case in point, where he writes of the swynke and
the swete (the strain and the sweat) which a
ploughman endures to accomplish his thankless
year-round chore (B-text passus VI.25).
Lerche’s attention to the details of wear brings
us the closest we have yet been to appreciating the
labour of ploughing; “[wear] is evidence of former
life which written sources normally ignore”
(p. 209). She is able to chart the progress of abra-
sion on different parts, and in so doing to impart
something of both the complex logistics behind
ploughing, and the innovativeness of ploughmen
in their work. Wear informs us about ploughing
method. It also reveals the fragility of these timber
devices. Though the beam and parts of the
wheeled fore-carriage might survive for genera-
tions, the mouldboard, the bifurcated sheath/sole,
and the irons did not. They were the most exposed
parts and needed constant attention. Ploughmen
were anxious to prevent wear but were loathe to
invest in expensive metal for protection of the tim-
ber. Instead, they adapted what was readily avail-
able: stone. Pebbles were inserted into the soles
(“plough pebbles”); heelstones may also have been
fixed to protect the base of the longer-lasting stilt;
and there may even have been an anti-wear stone
inserted into the most exposed part of the mould-
board, such as the stone from Randrup, North Jut-
land. Yet these measures could not put off the in-
evitable. Plough frames had limited life-spans.
Lerche is loathe to generalize, yet it is impossible
to ignore such a tantalizing observation that the
two ploughs in her reconstructions were good for
only c. 21 acres of work (pp. 191-192). The area
covered by a single plough before a major repair
was called for was indeed small.
Her work serves to put other observations into
context. The important thirteenth-century agri-
cultural treatise, Walter of Henley, bemoans the
fact that ploughmen on the great English estates
preferred to use oxen over horses as draught ani-
mals. He notes the “malice of the ploughmen”
who will purposefully slow down a horse so that it
will not plough faster than an ox.1 Lerche makes it
clearer than ever before that the ploughman’s
choice had probably less to do with sloth than
with a desire to keep these fragile hulks together
for as long as possible.
In the final two main chapters of the treatise
(Chapters 9 and 10), Lerche places her findings in a
wider and larger European context, and then
traces the continued use of the wheeled plough
into the nineteenth century. In so doing, she pro-
vides a narrative for plough development in Den-
mark from the Viking Age to the recent past. It is
assured and confident, and is rooted in a deep ap-
preciation for how these implements were used,
231
ploughing in Denmark with which she has in-
formed and fascinated readers of Tools and Tillage
for more than twenty years. We are all familiar
with her thoughtful, patient investigations and re-
constructive analyses, but never before has she
been able to present so much of her primary data
in such detail.
In the first six chapters, she explains her recon-
struction work in depth: Chapters 3 and 4 deal
with the wheeled plough: chapters 5 and 6 with
the experimental field at Lejre. In Chapter 7, she
discusses the evidence of cultivation as witnessed
in a number of fossil fields, chiefly those at
Bromme, the Eremitage Plain, and Borupris. It is
an important chapter, for she uses it to build on
the previous two to show the reader how to iden-
tify, uncover and, most importantly, understand
the construction of ancient cultivation marks. One
can only envy the relatively light Danish soils
which have greatly facilitated their preservation.
It is in Chapter 8, however, that Lerche brings
the reader closest to the real task she has set her-
self, and it is this which makes her work not only
of interest to agricultural historians, but compul-
sive reading too. A primary motivation behind her
research is a desire to gain insight to the labour of
daily peasant life. It is a goal shared by many but
realized by few. Archaeologists are too often tied
up with creating typologies to order the otherwise
diverse range of material remains. They have little
time left to explore further. Historians, in turn,
will usually focus on official manorial records
which can tell us of the economic background of a
manor, as well as something of the relationships
between and among lords and peasants, but they
are not so informative on the matter of work and
labour. In the past, we have turned to contempo-
rary literature for insights. William Langland’s late
fourteenth century epic poem Piers Plowman is a
case in point, where he writes of the swynke and
the swete (the strain and the sweat) which a
ploughman endures to accomplish his thankless
year-round chore (B-text passus VI.25).
Lerche’s attention to the details of wear brings
us the closest we have yet been to appreciating the
labour of ploughing; “[wear] is evidence of former
life which written sources normally ignore”
(p. 209). She is able to chart the progress of abra-
sion on different parts, and in so doing to impart
something of both the complex logistics behind
ploughing, and the innovativeness of ploughmen
in their work. Wear informs us about ploughing
method. It also reveals the fragility of these timber
devices. Though the beam and parts of the
wheeled fore-carriage might survive for genera-
tions, the mouldboard, the bifurcated sheath/sole,
and the irons did not. They were the most exposed
parts and needed constant attention. Ploughmen
were anxious to prevent wear but were loathe to
invest in expensive metal for protection of the tim-
ber. Instead, they adapted what was readily avail-
able: stone. Pebbles were inserted into the soles
(“plough pebbles”); heelstones may also have been
fixed to protect the base of the longer-lasting stilt;
and there may even have been an anti-wear stone
inserted into the most exposed part of the mould-
board, such as the stone from Randrup, North Jut-
land. Yet these measures could not put off the in-
evitable. Plough frames had limited life-spans.
Lerche is loathe to generalize, yet it is impossible
to ignore such a tantalizing observation that the
two ploughs in her reconstructions were good for
only c. 21 acres of work (pp. 191-192). The area
covered by a single plough before a major repair
was called for was indeed small.
Her work serves to put other observations into
context. The important thirteenth-century agri-
cultural treatise, Walter of Henley, bemoans the
fact that ploughmen on the great English estates
preferred to use oxen over horses as draught ani-
mals. He notes the “malice of the ploughmen”
who will purposefully slow down a horse so that it
will not plough faster than an ox.1 Lerche makes it
clearer than ever before that the ploughman’s
choice had probably less to do with sloth than
with a desire to keep these fragile hulks together
for as long as possible.
In the final two main chapters of the treatise
(Chapters 9 and 10), Lerche places her findings in a
wider and larger European context, and then
traces the continued use of the wheeled plough
into the nineteenth century. In so doing, she pro-
vides a narrative for plough development in Den-
mark from the Viking Age to the recent past. It is
assured and confident, and is rooted in a deep ap-
preciation for how these implements were used,