“The Bishop of Roskilde received the taxes during this period and he may well have rented the manor for a vassal to administer it. Roskilde’s bishop had connections to TollerupĪrchaeologists suspect that the village fell under the Diocese of Roskilde. Read More: Did Stone Age people build a large labyrinth in Denmark? Soon, a government formed and we begin to slowly see a societal structure similar to that of today,” he says. The country was split into dioceses such as Roskilde and Lolland Falster diocese. “In this period we had a permanent royal power and a centralised administration. This was when Christianity gained momentum, he says. “Religious motifs were very typical of the 1500s,” says Christiansen.Įngberg agrees. Moreover, they found traces of clay flooring, an oven, and pieces of tile with religious motifs, including a priest. Archaeologists found evidence of two grinding stones from a mill, plough equipment, and many more everyday objects. When in use, the cellars would have been full. Read More: This tiny ornament may have belonged to Harold Bluetooth’s shamanĬhristianity had a foothold in the community But the remains of stone houses could be easily looted and the materials used elsewhere in subsequent buildings, meaning that few were preserved to this day. Previously, all houses were timber constructions which led to a timber shortage throughout the country. It was at this time that people began to construct houses with stone foundations after a law was passed to prevent felling of trees. But unfortunately not from the Middle Ages because the houses were built in a different way,” he says. For example from the Stone Age and Bronze Age. “We have lots of excavations from earlier periods. It’s rare to find houses from the Middle Ages in Denmark, says archaeologist Nils Engberg, curator at the National Museum of Denmark. This would have protected them from disturbance at the surface, for example by farming equipment turning the land over the years. The archaeologists were pleased to see that the cellar remains were buried so deep. Read More: Archaeologists finally know how old Denmark’s fifth Viking fortress is The foundations of the outer wall of the manor suggest that it was a two-storey building. The three farms are approximately five metres wide and 15 to 20 metres long, but the manor has a cellar area of 50 square metres. It’s a qualified guess, because the farm is so large,” she says. “Compared with other farms of the same period, we can see that one of the farms must have been the manor house, referred to in the written sources. A number of tax rolls from Tollerup also refer to six farms and a manor on the site, which was possibly used to store the collected taxes.Ī gravel pit alongside the three farms could explain why they did not find the remains of the other three farms, says Christiansen. Read More: Archaeologists excavate 400 Iron Age houses in DenmarkĪrchaeologists do not know why the village was abandoned but they knew it existed as it is mentioned in a number of written sources.Ī letter from King Canute IV first records the gifting of a village at this location to a bishop in 1085. Part of it was probably used to store the collected taxes while the other side was used to store farming equipment. The large cellar was 50 square metres in size.
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