ANST - Recent translations of historical text - Sweden - long

[Fox Anton Purtill]

Karin and I just spent the last several hours (mostly Karin) 
translating a section of "Svenska krönikan" or Swedish Chronicle 
texts, authentic report of history in Sweden.

Welcome to the wonderful world of medieval hygiene, we suggest 
(strongly) that you read this before a shower because you'll want one 
after. During the translation there are some words that just don't 
quite translate well, so we have attempted to give some notes as to 
what was meant.  Also we have provided some commentary on the text 
itself in an editorial sort of way [text in brackets like this 
indicates Karin or I making editorial or explanation comments].

House Starblade suggests you now sit back and don't think about 
a bowl of soup (you'll understand when you are finished).

Hygiene and Illnesses
In the Countryside

  In the medieval farmer homes people resided, slept and cooked food 
in the one same big cottage. And the smoke from the hearth or, in 
good cases, the brick built stove, rose straight up into the room and 
made it's way out through the opening in the ceiling "ljoren"[a hole 
in the ceiling]. The invention of the chimney made it possible for 
16th century farmers to move the kitchen area into the entrance room. 
 A whole new day-house was usually added later, which led to the 
abandonment of the old "firehouse"[a ster fireplace room], which 
instead became the new bathing house. Over the old hearth they placed 
a heap of rocks, which, when a fire had been burning long enough, 
became rather hot and from which intense steam rose when sprinkled 
with water.
   For the hygiene within the living quarters the chimney and the move
 of the kitchen became rather catastrophic. Earlier one had had to
 have both the door and ceiling windows open to get a draft for the
 fire, where the food was to be cooked, and this gave a healthy airing
 of the whole room. Now the cottage had it's own hearth, which did not
 serve it's purpose as a place to cook and which often was made of
 only one single piece of clay with holes on the top, from which the
 smoke spread down into the room. Damp clothes and furs were commonly
 found hanging around this oven, and they spread a not very appealing
 smell in the mostly un-aired room. Only very rarely the living
 quarters' oven had a connection with the front rooms or kitchen's
 chimney. Out there they used to rake down the food hearth's warm and
 soft ashes into the "mine"[a shaft in the floor, unknown depth] in
 front of the stove.  This place was used by the household members as
 a privy during the winter, when it was too cold to go out. The mess
 was, in the best cases, stirred down into the ashes, and in time a
 stinking latrine came into existence right next to food that was
 cheerfully simmering in the kettles.
   On the trampled down floor [dirt, hard packed by years of feet],
 which only during the big feasts was covered by grass, toddlers and
 smaller domesticated animals ran around each other in nice harmony.
 Under the ceiling window, that often was ajar, a small puddle of
 water gathered, where the pigs preferred to roll around while the
 geese huddled under the long benches and the hens flew up to sit on
 the roof beams. Add to that a stinking goat in it's corner of the
 room and it is easy to imagine the scene and it's scents. The head
 couple's bed stood against one wall, often built into an alcove of
 the wall. The straw on the bottom of the bed was commonly only
 changed once a year, therefor it was usually rotten and made an
 excellent place for snakes, polecats or in the best cases, mice and
 rats. It was not unusual to see sleepy and tame snakes come out and
 drink from the milk when the children ate their breakfast on the
 floor.
  A travelling stranger, that had to spend a night in a place like 
this, seldom had a calm night, especially if he was of lesser 
importance and was shown to sleep in front of the fireplace. There 
the pigs licked his face, the rats ran over him in all dir tions, and 
from their place up above the hens dropped their 'cards' [an 
interesting euphemism relating to calling-cards] in his face. More 
important guests had a bed made for them on the table, where the only 
inconvenience was the rats that during the nigtly battles on the 
roof beams fell down on him. 
  The general hygienic relationships naturally brought with it that 
all that was crawling or creeping thrived, very much so, in furs and 
textiles and also in the heads of all the people living there. They 
rarely washed, in the winter almost never, and co s were an unknown 
luxury in the countryside. It began with skinscales and ringworm on 
small children, and later a thick, helmet like scurf [cradlecap or 
skullcap] covered the whole scalp.  The adults grew on their body 
such a wealth of fleas and lice, tha it was just as hopeless to keep 
track of them as it was playing with the thought of getting rid of 
them. Vermin was something that belonged there, there was no way to 
escape it and it was also directly good for the health as it was 
believed to keep deadly iseases away.  Sayings like "Filth is health" 
or "If the body is healthy, it will keep itself clean" are very old 
in our country.  There is also a new invention found in the farmer 
cottages of the 16th century, one that is rather signifying of the 
age; th so-called scratch stick.  Usually one of the round poles 
supporting the ceiling, against which the people of the house 
scrubbed themselves to relieve the itch on the body for a while.  In 
nicer homes they also used a so called "scratch inspector", a sm l 
stick, preferably with a small rake on the side, which one reach 
inside the shirt with to scratch where the most intimate domestic 
animals where biting the worst.
  In the City
  If the filth in the countryside usually kept itself around the 
areas where humans and animals resided, in the cottage and the cattle 
house, it moved out on the street in the cities. The alleys were 
indeed poorly paved with cobblestones, and as the bottom f the 
streets were missing they ended up being a long stretch of moon 
landscape with ridges and craters, where refuse and all kinds of 
rubbish was floating around in stinking wastewater.  In many cases 
they had to build a raised bank of cobblestones in th middle of the 
alley so that pedestrians could move around at all.  The city citizen 
of the 16th century had the privilege to throw everything they wanted 
into the street: ashes from the hearth, the waste from the latrines, 
old food, dead cats and dogs, br en pots and pans of all kinds.  
During the late middle ages efforts were made every now and then to 
pass a regulation deciding that the worst street filth should be 
removed every third day, in the fifteen-hundreds the authorities were 
resigned to knowing  was done once a week, on Fridays.  In some 
cities the homeowners themselves were supposed to be responsible for 
the clean-up, but as it almost never happened, this despised job 
usually fell on the executioner, or as he was called, the rascal [A 
King is to God as the lowest form of life is to the rascal]. 
  In all Nordic cities, except Stockholm which when considering 
hygiene made a obvious and warming exception, herds of mottled black 
swine scavenged the dirt of the streets and had their nightly 
quarters under the windows or in the portals [of all building ].  In 
vain the people tried to stop their crusade [the swine] through laws 
and decrees.  Groups of ownerless dogs, which like hyenas, lived on 
corpses and entrails, completed the picture and made it to a true 
curse.  It was not at all uncommon that a cha of shabby, starved and 
barking dogs had fights inside the churches during the sermons or 
that they angrily latched on to the shin of honorable citizens.  
Repeatedly the rascal was commissioned to catch and kill as many dogs 
as he could get his hands on. rom alley to alley, from house to 
house, the "nightman" walked with his dog-catchers net.  Killing a 
dog inside a citizen's own house was indeed forbidden, but if the 
master refused to throw out his dog to it's future killer, the 
"nightman" could get help from the city sheriff to get into the house 
and get the animal himself.
  >>The Secret Houses.>> In the simpler townsfolk's houses public
conveniences were usually missing, but in more wealthy parts of the
town it was a rule to have them.  Without comparison, Sweden is in
the top when it comes to public conveniences during this time, where
small palaces were built, holding places for many people at once and
thereto preferably two secret houses per household, one for each
sex.  In Denmark the "little house" or "hysken" instead were made as
simple as possible without any sign of comfort. Old ways directed
that the secret house, if possible, should be placed over a creek,
that could wash away the refuse, but mostly this was an unattainable
ideal, and the small house poisoned the air in the whole yard. The
citizens were not allowed to empty them at their own convenience, it
was the duty of the "nightman". In good cases a deep and spacious
pit was dug under the house, and when it became full they secretly
covered it at night and moved the house to another part of the yard,
this being repeated until the whole yard was punctuated with more or
less shallow latrine pits, whose contents made itself embarrassingly
evident during rain or hot summers.
  Churches and Graveyards >> The condition was even worse when it 
comes to the churches and graveyards.  Fields devoted to God were 
public arenas for dogs, poultry, cattle and swine, which every now 
and then grubbed up the buried corpses and ate of their decaying 
flesh [we assume they are speaking of the swine here].  Nettles and 
Elder grew wild, and the trees forced down the gravestones with their 
roots, travelers rode without hesitation over the graveyard.  But the 
most terrible place was inside the church, where during all of the 
16th century lay big amounts of un-embalmed, more or less recently 
buried, corpses under every second tile and in all chapels and 
alcoves.  The sickly sweet, nauseous, corpse-smell streamed without 
hinder into the room of sermon, where the stench was horrible.  It is 
in this setting the belief in "the dead's mass" ["De dödas mässa" is 
an in depth Swedish/Nordic concept], celebrated at night or as an 
extra early church service on Christmas, started to grow.  Also, all 
superstitions in earlier times relating to the church room dangers 
and haunting by devils and dead.  In times of plagues and epidemics 
the risk of contagion was incredible, as corpse after corpse was put 
down under the church floor while rarely seen numbers of people 
gathered to the sermon to hear the priests glowing words about the 
Lords punishments and take part of the prayers that the chalice must 
be taken from them.
  The water issue>>The drinking water was not satisfying either, 
from a hygienic point of view. Only slowly and little by little on 
royal initiative they started to build what we would call water 
plants, where fresh water from a well in the forest was led into town 
through pipes or in open trenches where it could be pumped up on some 
of the city squares. Sometimes the most wealthy town houses could get 
their own pumps after paying a special fee and in the capitol it even 
happened that they, in a few places, constructed spring wells.  
Everywhere in those narrow and sadly unhygienic 16th century towns 
small bushes and trees grew, and small herb gardens spread 
themselves, because the vegetation thrived all too well in the dirt 
and filth.

Illnesses
During the latter half of the 16th century, the Nordic countries were
haunted no less than thirteen times by most dangerous epidemics, of
which several was around for both two and three years.  Denmark,
especially Copenhagen, seemed to have been hit the worst, and the
university had to close several times for longer or shorter periods of
time and the royal court escaped the poisoned area for more safe
places.   Sweden was hit too, and specifically Stockholm was very bad
off several times, despite the fact that the narrow spaces of the city
islet did not allow any burials or livestock and that fresh water on
all sides surrounded the city.  An extremely violent form of plague
ravaged all greater Swedish cities during the years 1550-54 and raged
in Denmark with such force that a new Black Death was feared.
  	Nine years later the epidemic returned, this time accompanied by 
typhoid fever, and it spread from the south over all of Scandinavia.  
Stockholm was hit the hardest this time. All day long dead was buried 
and eventually they even had to do it at night. After a while they 
had to settle with just shoveling down the bodies in huge mass 
graves, and many laid to rot being unburied.  During the time of "the 
Great Plague" only Dylta [a location west of Stockholm] sulfur-works 
was safe, because the sulfur fumes ere considered to protect against 
contagion which was why the Royal Court in the future used this place 
as a place for evacuation during epidemics.
  In 1572 a new wave of plague flushed the poor Swedish capitol, 
followed by yet another in 1576, one that was even worse, and which, 
like the one preceding it, traveled up from Denmark since an evil 
southern wind had blown for several months. This epide c is described 
as a kind of bubonic plague combined with weakness in general and an 
anxiety that often led to insanity, pain in the side, severe headache 
and other vicious symptoms.  This terrible epidemic raged for four 
years, and was followed by smallpox [oh joy, whee].
  For almost two years the country was given peace and quiet from all 
the misery when, in 1580, "the Spanish Plague" arrived [local wasn't 
enough, they had to import more].  In Sweden the area north of 
Stockholm (Uppland) and not the least Uppsala [this is a major 
university town, no industry except in support of the university], 
was hit, and the university had to close and partly was dissolved 
because of all the deaths.  But also Kalmar [a town on the southeast 
coast of Sweden] and surrounding areas was hit extremely hard.  After 
another poor two years of relief Denmark was attacked in 1583-85 by a 
new wave of plague which reached Stockholm in 1588.  This plague 
killed so many of the masons and builders in King Johan III's team of 
castle-builders that the erection of a new castle in the capitol had 
to be postponed. 

The Bathing Houses
  The worst places of contagion was, besides the churches, the public 
bathing houses, which from the end of the medieval ages have been 
very popular in all of the Nordic countries.  It was rather big 
houses, usually masoned of stones because of the danger  fire, and 
the most distinguished inventory was beside the long wooden benches, 
an oven with heated rocks and a big bucket of water.  Usually they 
also had spacious wooden tubs, in which the guests sat, always along 
with a collection of birch twigs, which as used to whip each other 
with so that the blood raised to the skin.  At every larger bathing 
house there was also a "bårdskärare" [board-hjar-are-a (sort of, have 
to really get a gutteral hack for that one)], a person who let blood 
on the guests or 'cup d' them with round flat cup-containers, 
whereafter the blood was sucked out in air-tight cow horns that were 
attached to the patient at six to eight places on the body at the 
same time. Between those treatments the guest drank enormous amounts 
of good bee joked, laughed and talked about the latest scandals.  One 
detail that is rather remarkable in this the century of moral 
eagerness, is that men and women usually bathed together and that all 
staff seem to have been made up of women.  In some places life i the 
bathing houses degenerated to sexual excesses, and it is remarkable 
that it was this way that the feared sphylis(sp?) spread.
  Tips were called "bathing house money" in the 16th century, and just
as a pious man left money to the poor on his death, he could put them
aside for special funds for the public baths, the so called
"soulbaths".
  Especially magnificent was the bathing houses built by the King Johan
III at Ulvsunda [another castle that was near Stockholm, it's in
Stockholm now] and Stockholm castle, both equipped with swimming pools
under a roof.  After the hot part of the bath one was rinsed with a
bucket of cold water, or one simply jumped into the pool or ran
outside to roll in the snow or jump in the river.  A sybarit like King
Johan III let his head be cleaned in wine from Rhen during his bath,
and before he was dressed afterwards he had his whole body rubbed with
powder and distilled liquids.

  At the nobility
At the noble's castle, life was rather more dangerous for the health
than the homes of the city folk or farmers.  Under the heavy vaults
and within the thick stone walls the summer warmth was indeed
preserved for a while, but the cold of the winter also stayed around. 
The worst problem was the dampness and the ice cold stone floor, which
must have been especially hard on those who all day long sat inside
with their work. Of course it was worst in the lower level, in the
cellar with its narrow windows.  It was here that the main hall was
usually situated, the main room for the noble's household and knights.
  When it comes to the secret houses or "prevetena" [delux privy] the
stone castles were at a higher level, as those usually were built as
small bays (alcoves) from the outer walls of the rooms.  In older
times the secret house bays did not have a bottom, but under the stone
seat's round hole excrements fell freely from a couple of levels
height straight down to the courtyard or the moat.  Later they were
equipped with a sort of long pipe all the way down to the ground,
caused both by modesty and by precaution since it had happened several
times that enemies found their way into the castles through those bays
from beneath, and also that noble prisoners escaped the same way.  The
bays were minimal in their dimensions and they lacked every kind of
interior decoration, and they were usually built in great numbers, one
in each or every second room.  During the 1600's they were found
uncomfortable and a magnificent "nightchair" was introduced instead. 
This was placed inside the room, in the beginning built in by a kind
of sculptured closet of impressive size.  But those "nighchairs" and
secret house bays were only to be used by the noble family, the
servants had to do their business wherever they could [check your food
carefully?].
  Daily hygiene
Excluding the sweat baths, which in the countryside and in simpler
city circles played a minor role, the every day hygiene of the 1500's
was poor.  Only the distinguished washed themselves before a meal, and
commoners settled for only rubbing their hands a while on their
behinds before they took their piece of meat with their hands from the
common pot, put it on the table and cut off pieces with their knife.
Washbasins and pitchers only existed at the lords, and the with the
coat of arms decorated damast cloth that hung in a long double width
sown together over a rod were only there as decoration.  Instead of a
comb most groups used their fingers, possibly with an addition of
butter, and any morning washing was unheard of.  Socks and
underclothes were changed once a month at the most, and from the
ladies of the time we get witness that even of the royal persons it
smelled "like from a corpse".
  Practically no one was free from lice in their hair.  The good habit
in the 17th century to shave the hair and wear a wig was in great deal
dictated from the uncomfort the unwelcome tenants gave their
landlords.  Otherwise the daily functions of the body in great
extension was considered something natural, something one did not need
to be ashamed of.  Without embarrassement one let out ones water in
the nightpot, which usually was very ornate and during feasts was used
as souptureen, and it was found silly to even in the best of companies
to keep back the "belly weather" [passing of gas], which instead
became a source of loud jokes.
  Childbirth and deathbed
 "Barselstuga" (birthhouse). Common diseases were treated lightly in 
the 16th century, and the two classical places of illness were the 
"birthouse" and the soot bed, (tuberculosis-bed). Both can be 
characterized as a kind of reception for huge numbers of lking and 
running people.  When an honest woman felt her time coming she 
hastily let a message be sent to the midwife and a big number of 
married wives in the area, at least four or eight, but often thirty 
or more.  Without considering what they had at ha s at the moment, 
they left immediately and came back with the messanger.  When in 
haste and great commotion everybody had gathered, they first brought 
the birthgiving woman to the stone-built bathing house, which was 
warmed up considerably while warm wate was prepared, or they could 
throw out all male members of the household from the main room and 
took this in possesion until the happy event had taken place.  The 
midwife rarely had any real knowledge, one had to be happy if she was 
even sober - a docter was never even mentioned.  Instead the gathered 
women were a kind of source of knowledge and the more they were the 
better was the possibility of at least one of them would know what to 
do if something serious should occur.  The birthgiving woman was 
placed  "barselsängen", (the birthbed), which in simpler homes was 
the same as the families big bed, but which in more wealthy 
households was a legs props or related], which always stood prepared 
and ready in the house. 
  The first thing the women had to do was to untie all the knots, both
on the clothing of the birthgiving woman, but also in all the room,
and then they adorned the patient with different magical stones, "the
magnetstone", "the eaglestone" (which the eagles fetched from remote
places to ease the laying of eggs), "the reliefstone" or simply a
"thunderbolt", a found ancient axe of flint [unsure where this axe of
flint was found or if they just kept a few handy].  Some of those
stones could also be mortared into a dust and then given to the
birthgiving woman to drink.  They treated the birth-encouraging
hare-kick in the same way, a back leg of a hare [we don't know WHAT
they treated it with or in what manner, but this is the translation]. 
In some areas the birthgiving woman was to be taken out in the
courtyard in the critical moment to hug the nursing tree.  When the
child was born all doors and windows were immediately closed to
protect it [the child] from the devil and bad influences [which
apparently flu wasn't one of them].  It was very important that the
women watched the birth from as short a distance as possible so that
each one of them could testify that it had been done right.  After the
child was bathed and dressed the men could come in, and a few days
later the women left [check that number, up to 30 of them].
  Sotsäng, (tuberculosis-bed). The crowd was just as big around the
deathbeds in the 16th century.  The dying too lay in the parade [a
really showy and ornately designed bed, don't know if it was only for
death, because of the wording of the text may have also been a
birthing bed] bed.  And under exalted talk, weeping and prayers the
whole family and the priest waked [wakes started BEFORE death at this
time] around his bed, together with a big number of gathered friends. 
The idea was never to make the dying happy or to give him new hope of
recovery.  That was looked upon as extremely sinful, instead the
gathered people, who would not leave him alone either night or day,
imprinted in him that he soon would die and that he had to be prepared
for the judgement.  It was very rare that a doctor was present, the
main people were instead the priest who eagerly came with advice and
pointers and the inheritors who long before the time of death heatedly
discussed the inheritance.  From signs everybody usually knew that the
end was unavoidable.  One had heard of the three-legged healing-horses
limping, the owls cries for corpses, the hell-howl from the dog, and
the ticking sound in the walls from the death clock [this is a
clicking beetle that sounds like a clock].  One had seen the candle
burn in a slope and cast warning shadows by the foot of the bed [These
are all obvious signs of impending demise, surely you already know
them all].  If a testament of will was not made in advance, it was
important to press the dying for the best of conditions.
 Not until the dying had conferred with his priest and gotten his 
word that he was actually dying, he might call on the doctor.   The 
doctor's only task was to make the end somewhat bearable and through 
bloodletting, laxative, smoke-baths [a room of smoke to purify all 
ills] and chamomile decoction alleviated the worst pains and produce 
a fast end [or perhaps they just let the smoke suffocate him?].  When 
the end was visibly near it was important for the priest to drag as 
complete and Lutheran-pleasing confession as possible.  Immediately 
before this moment the dying had said goodbye to all his family after 
rank and dignity, his relatives and friends.  After that the dying 
preferably should declare the name of the person he would rather see 
as his successor, when the widow, after the time of mourning should 
marry.  If she wished someone else than the officially named, you had 
to reach an agreement before the time of death.  During the whole 
time in the sickbed, which could last for several weeks or more, the 
big gathering of people stayed day and night in the narrow, un-aired 
house, in which the air was almost impossible to breathe.  They slept 
on the floor during night [when they weren't harassing the 
soon-to-be-deceased], sat around the bed at day, ate their meals 
under a lot of noises in the same room, while they were discussing 
the weather and the wind, laughed, drank beer and told funny stories 
between the prayers and the complaints.  For the sick it must have 
been unbearable and death would probably have been greeted as a 
savior.

---End translation

We here at House Starblade hope you enjoyed this cheerful and 
uplifting tale and if you enjoyed this we will be willing to offer up 
more historical notes of Sweden's past, just send us a note and we'll 
do it again.


 

------------------------------------------

 Fox Purtill *and* Karin Hoijer-Purtill
     House Starblade - 512-821-3205
        www.flash.net/~blackfox
@-,--'-----                    ---,--'--@
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