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Small dictionaries and curiosity. Lexicography and fieldwork in post-medieval Europe 1st Edition John Considine
Building Networks: Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Materials in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe
Themes in Contemporary Archaeology
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Jeroen Bouwmeester • Laura Patrick Duncan L. Berryman Editors
Building Networks: Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Materials in Medieval
and Post-Medieval Europe
Editors Jeroen Bouwmeester
Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands
Amersfoort, The Netherlands
Duncan L. Berryman
Queen’s University Belfast Belfast, UK
Laura Patrick School of the Natural and Built Environment
Queen’s University Belfast Belfast, UK
ISSN 2730-7441
ISSN 2730-745X (electronic)
Themes in Contemporary Archaeology
ISBN 978-3-031-51962-8 ISBN 978-3-031-51963-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51963-5
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Preface
The central theme of the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) in 2020 was networking. The theme could hardly have been more relevant at that time. The world was under the grip of the Coronavirus outbreak, which meant that many meetings and social interactions could only take place online, including this conference. In these times of distance, today’s technology makes it possible to maintain networks; not ideal but necessary. In any case, it has emphasised the importance of professional networks for exchanging information and, even more so, for creating mutual understanding and respect.
The study of medieval buildings is central to the research interests of the editors. We focus on different areas of buildings (urban, rural, agricultural), but all are interested in how buildings relate to wider networks and society in general. Buildings archaeology helps us to decipher standing buildings or archaeological remains in wider social and economic contexts. Analysis of the trade in materials and techniques forms part of the interpretation of these buildings and our understanding of them.
Since the EAA Annual Meeting in Vilnius in 2016, a group of researchers have been working collaboratively to organise an annual session on the theme of building, architecture and archaeology.1 A selection of papers from the 2016 session were published in the volume Medieval Buildings of Europe: Studies in Social and Landscape Contexts of Medieval Buildings, edited by Duncan Berryman and Sarah Kerr (2018)2; these focused on recent discoveries and the social and landscape contexts of buildings. At the 2020 Annual Meeting, the session ‘Building Networks! The Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Material for Building in the Medieval and Post-Medieval World’ was delivered.3 This session formed the basis of this book.
Amersfoort, The Netherlands
Belfast, UK
Belfast, UK
Jeroen Bouwmeester
Laura Patrick
Duncan L. Berryman
1 This group consists of: Sarah Kerr (University College Cork), Duncan Berryman (Queen’s University Belfast), Martin Huggon (Bishop Grosseteste University), Laura Patrick (Queen’s University Belfast), and Jeroen Bouwmeester (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands).
2 Berryman, D., & Kerr, S. (Eds.). (2018). Buildings of Medieval Europe: Studies in Social and Landscape Contexts of Medieval Buildings. Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055477.2019.1677123
3 Session 252, organised by Jeroen Bouwmeester, Laura Patrick, Duncan Berryman, and Martin Huggon. For more details, see https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA2020virtual/
Acknowledgements
The editors would frst like to thank the authors of this volume and the others who participated in the sessions at the various EAA Annual Meetings, for their contribution to the realisation of this book. In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to the EAA itself for the opportunity to hold sessions on building history and the archaeology of medieval buildings within its conferences. It is this network of researchers that inspires and motivates!
We would like to thank the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands for their support with the production of the introduction maps, and Springer, especially Christi Lue, Neelofar Yasmeen and Arunsanthosh Kannan, the editorial board of the EAA THEMES Series, Peter Attema, Agathe Reingruber and Robin Skeates, and the assistant editor of the EAA THEMES Series, Laura Coltofean, for their support and the opportunity to publish this volume.
Amersfoort, The Netherlands
Belfast, UK
Belfast, UK
Beltane, 2022
Jeroen Bouwmeester
Duncan L. Berryman
Laura Patrick
1 Building Networks: An Introduction to the Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Material for Building in the Medieval and Post-medieval World
Jeroen Bouwmeester, Laura Patrick, and Duncan L. Berryman
2 Tools and Masons: Regional Building Networks in Norway (1152/3–1537)
Kristian Reinfjord
3 Church Roofs in a Frontier Region: Historic Timber Structures in Western Sweden Reflect Changing Influences and Resources
Robin Gullbrandsson, Mattias Hallgren, Hans Linderson, and Karl-Magnus Melin
4 Across the Sea: Urban Formation and New House Building Horizons in the South Baltic Realm (c. 1100–1500)
Joakim Thomasson
5 Influences and Networking in Danish Brick Architecture During the Twelfth and Sixteenth Centuries
Gunilla Gardelin
6 An Exceptional Twelfth-Century Tile Floor, Its Origins and the Network Behind It: Compositional Analysis of Tiles from St. Lawrence Church in Roskilde, Denmark
Jesper Langkilde
7 Changing Origins and Trade Routes of Scottish Window Glass
Helen M. Spencer
8 Brought from Near and Far: Trade Networks for Building Materials in Later Medieval England
Duncan L. Berryman
9 Networked Control: Tower Houses in Ireland
Sarah Kerr
10 Patterns in Brick: The Spread of Brick Use Between 1150 and 1550 in The Netherlands
Jeroen Bouwmeester
11 Trade and the Recycling of Stones in Medieval Cologne
Thomas Höltken
12 The Transmission of New Construction Techniques and Urbanisation Concepts During the Teutonic Crusade: Cities and Castles in Chełmno Land (Poland) in the Early Thirteenth Century
Marcin Wiewióra
13 Prague and the Prague Castle Under the First Habsburgs 189
Gabriela Blažková
14 Architectural Traditions of Pre-Romanesque Central Plan Churches in Bohemia Within Central European Context 199 Pavla Tomanová
15 Building Networks: Circulation of Workforces, Techniques, and Architectural Models—Roma and the Lazio Region in Italian and European Context
Nicoletta Giannini
About the Editors
Jeroen Bouwmeester since 2009, has been employed by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands as a senior researcher of medieval and early-modern towns. His research focuses on urban archaeology in relation to archaeological heritage management with special attention to predictive modelling and the development of houses and other buildings in relation to urban planning.
Laura Patrick completed her PhD at Queen’s University Belfast in 2022. Her research focused on landscape archaeology, using case studies in Ulster to develop a methodology for the visualisation of rural medieval communities in Ireland through GIS and mapping techniques. She is also employed in the heritage and museums sector, promoting the importance of heritage and history.
Dr. Duncan L. Berryman is an archaeologist researching medieval rural buildings. He received his PhD from Queen’s University Belfast; this research studied the materials and investment of the buildings of fourteenth-century English manorial curiae. Currently, he is developing this research across the rest of the British Isles. He is also involved in community archaeology in Ulster with the Ulster Archaeological Society.
Contributors
Duncan L. Berryman Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Gabriela Blažková Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Jeroen Bouwmeester Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
Gunilla Gardelin Department of Cultural Heritage, Museum of Cultural History, Lund, Sweden
Robin Gullbrandsson Västergötlands museum, Skara, Sweden
Mattias Hallgren Traditionsbärarna, Forsvik, Sweden
Thomas Höltken Amt für Archäologische Bodendenkmalpfege der Stadt Köln, RömischGermanisches Museum (Offce for Archaeological Heritage Conservation of the City of Cologne, Romano-Germanic Museum, Cologne), Köln, Germany
Sarah Kerr Department of Archaeology, Radical Humanities Laboratory, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Hans Linderson Department of Geology, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden
Karl-Magnus Melin Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg and Knadriks Kulturbygg AB, Knislinge, Sweden
Laura Patrick School of the Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Kristian Reinfjord University of Bergen and Anno Museum, Bergen, Norway
Helen M. Spencer Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK
Joakim Thomasson Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Pavla Tomanová Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Marcin Wiewióra Department of Medieval and Modern Times, Faculty of History, Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Toruń, Poland
Building Networks: An Introduction to the Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Material for Building in the Medieval and Post-medieval World
Jeroen Bouwmeester, Laura Patrick, and Duncan L. Berryman
Abstract
Networks played a vital role in the construction of medieval buildings across Europe. There were many aspects to these networks, such as the relationship between builder and patron, transport links for construction materials, or connections between different buildings. This introduction to the volume provides an overview of the networks discussed and places them in a theoretical context.
Keywords
Middle ages · Construction · Buildings archaeology · Networks · Europe
1.1 Building Networks
Much of the available research on medieval buildings or artefacts is generally localised, often focused on one stylistic element or isolated collection. The aim of the session ‘Building Networks! The Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Material for Building in the Medieval and Post-Medieval World’, which took place at the 26th Virtual Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) in 2020, was to look for
J. Bouwmeester (*)
Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
e-mail: j.bouwmeester@cultureelerfgoed.nl
L. Patrick
School of the Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
e-mail: lpatrick03@qub.ac.uk
D. L. Berryman
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
e-mail: duncan@ulsterarchaeology.org
parallels and patterns in exchange networks in the feld of medieval building, transcending the local to examine national and international networks. With 14 contributions from across Europe, the session stimulated engaged discussion and debate. A large selection of the papers is included in this volume, supplemented by research on similar topics from previous sessions organized at the EAA Annual Meetings. This volume aims to provide an initial insight into the exchange networks behind the building trade in the Middle Ages. The network is understood as the connections between people of the medieval world, along which materials and ideas fowed. The focus is not specifcally on theoretical approaches to networks, such as the actor-network theory (ANT), although one of the contributions (Kerr, Chap. 9) does address this. Also, the chapters of this book provide an overview of the networks discussed, rather than detailed analysis of all the actors involved. There are many individual and regional studies that have made signifcant contributions to the feld of medieval building studies, such as Alcock and Miles’ study of peasant houses in the English Midlands (Alcock & Miles, 2014), Meirion-Jones’ research on vernacular buildings in Brittany (Meirion-Jones, 1982), Moss’ recent investigation of the building trade in Ireland (Moss, 2019), Perlich’s work on medieval brick building (Perlich, 2007), or Pohl’s analysis of the trade in tuff (Pohl, 2012). This volume explores three types of exchange networks: trade networks, client networks, and knowledge networks. The chapters are geographically limited to Europe and focus on the medieval and early post-medieval periods (400–1650). It must be noted that periodisation varies between regions; in Ireland, for instance, the seventeenth century can be considered late medieval, while in other areas of Europe, such as England and France, this is considered post-medieval or early modern. The chapters of this volume address the periodisation of their study region and make reference to specifc dates or centuries, allowing inter-regional comparison without issues of period terminology.
J. Bouwmeester et al. (eds.), Building Networks: Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Materials in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe, Themes in Contemporary Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51963-5_1
This chapter introduces the main themes of the volume, with foci on the trade in building materials, the exchange of styles, and the exchange of knowledge. It also refects on the actors within building networks and the nature of the networks themselves (e.g. formal and informal, local/regional and supra-regional/international).
1.1.1 Trade Networks
Trade is a business transaction, though it also has a strong, and essential, social component. A relationship is entered into between the buyer and the seller in which the buyer must rely on the quality of the goods delivered by the seller. Conversely, the seller must trust the buyer to fulfl their payment obligations. This wasn’t always obvious. It was precisely around security and closing transactions that merchant guilds played an important role in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Greif, 2000, p. 262. See also Puttevils, 2010, p. 103). These actors were all part of trade networks in which urban settlements in particular formed hubs (Irsigler, 2006).1 Within towns, trading families had shops or warehouses and maintained contact with their relations and business associates. In addition, several towns and cities had annual fairs where traders from various regions came together. A determining factor in these trade networks was the potential transport links between trading centres. For bulk goods and certainly also for heavier materials such as stone and wood, accessibility via waterways, coastal and inland, was of great importance. Obstructions in trade routes would have had a considerable impact on trade fows (Bouwmeester, 2020).
Certain regions and towns were important hubs for the (inter)national trade of building materials. A good example of this is the Eifel region in Germany, where tuff was mined in the Middle Ages. This rock was used as a building material and for grinding stones in mills. The towns of Utrecht and Deventer were key centres in the distribution of tuff to England (for example York, London and Southampton) and Scandinavia (for example Hollingstedt, Ribe, Thyborøn and Bergen). Tuff was mined in the Eifel region of Germany and transported to hubs for onward distribution (Pohl, 2010, pp. 149–150). This trade literally took place on and beside the river. For example, around 1170, the abbot of the Mariëngaarde monastery lost his purse in the IJssel river near Deventer, while buying tuff for the construction of his abbey church in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands (Bartels, 2006, pp. 22–23). However, during periods of decreased
1 Within network theory these hubs are called nodes interconnected by edges. A node is defned as an atomic discrete entity representing a network concept. An edge is a line between a pair of nodes, representing some kind of relationship between them (Collar et al., 2015, pp. 21–22).
demand, such as directly after the Roman period, as described by Thomas Höltken in this book (Chap. 11), or after the introduction of bricks (Bouwmeester, 2020, p. 64), the network changed its character signifcantly and became more local in nature.
The city of Dordrecht was an important hub for the Dutch timber trade. It all started in 1299, when the Count of Holland granted Dordrecht the right to stack timber. This meant that all wood brought in via the Rhine and Meuse had to be traded in this city, except for that which the other Dutch cities needed for their own use (Van Prooije, 1992, p. 143). This timber was transported downstream to the Netherlands in large rafts (Van Prooije, 1990; see also Delmás & van den Berselaar, 2009, pp. 15–17). Wood was important as building material but also essential as a fuel. Due to its extensive use, medieval urban growth had an impact on the woodlands in Europe. Research of the wood use in Ghent, for example, shows that wood had to be brought in from further and further away (Deforce, 2017). Cities were forced to acquire rights to forest stands further outside the city or negotiate long-term contracts with holders of forest and felling rights to be sure of the supply of wood. Lübeck in Germany, for instance, had forest rights for an area of 1500 square kilometres by the end of the twelfth century (Thomasson, Chap. 4; see also Müller, 2010). In the coastal area of southwest Sweden, intensive exploitation of forests led to large-scale land clearance, and eventually wood had to be imported from for example Poland (Gullbrandson et al., Chap. 3).
There were also cities, for example Xanten and Cologne, where the building material was, to a large extent, extracted from former Roman buildings within them, instead of being bought at markets outside of the town (Huiskes, 1980, p. 106). In early medieval Cologne, it was not until the later Middle Ages that newly quarried tuff was used and the old, reused building material was primarily utilised for the foundations (Höltken, Chap. 11).
Within building material trade networks, a distinction can be made between local/regional trade and supra-regional and international trade. The main reason for the distinction is the availability of certain products and their quality. It does not necessarily follow that products from far away also have a higher status. Although wood, which became increasingly scarce in the Low Countries, had to be brought in from far away, the same status is not attached to this building material as, for example, to natural stone. Most representative buildings such as churches, monasteries and residential towers were preferably built in stone (Bouwmeester, 2020, pp. 55–56). Reed thatch for roofng could only be obtained in certain parts of England (East Anglia and Sussex) and the limited availability made the material expensive, so it was only found in buildings of higher status (Berryman, Chap. 8). Berryman’s research also illuminates how specifc building
materials, such as stone and clay, were drawn from the surrounding area for the construction of various buildings.
In addition to the source or place of production, it seems that the network of the builder, rather than that of the reeve, steward or craftsman was decisive for where certain products were sourced. Where glass was used for windows in the royal manors in England, it was bought at markets relatively nearby (Berryman, Chap. 8, Table 8.2); however, all window glass used in Scotland had to be imported as there is no evidence of glass manufacture before the early seventeenth century. The chemical composition of the glass made it possible for Spencer to identify areas of origin (Spencer, Chap. 7). It is striking that high-lime, low-alkali (HLLA) glass was found in Scotland earlier than in England. This is related to the close trade relations between Scotland and the Hanseatic League. Certain long-distance trade fows were, therefore, preferred over much closer trade fows with England. Important production centres for glass found in Scotland are Flanders and Normandy, but glass from eastern France, north-western Germany and the Rhineland has also been found. Following production, the glass was eventually traded through trading cities such as Bruges in Flanders (Spencer, Chap. 7).
1.1.2 Client Networks
The key players in building networks are the clients and the contractors. The latter group can be subdivided into the master builders or specialists who travelled between construction sites located in different countries, and master builders and local craftsmen who only worked on buildings within their region. The clients looked for the appropriate specialists to design and build a structure. For special and complex buildings or architectural features, these specialists could be brought from far away. For less complex, more traditional structures, the chief builder may be ‘just’ a local master builder or craftsman. The clients gave the builders the resources which included manpower, money and sometimes also the raw materials. The building materials could be obtained from far-off places, but also from markets and sources closer to hand. The network of the craftsmen involved probably played an important role in this.
As client, societal elites, both ecclesiastical and secular, are often viewed as facilitating the transference of new ideas (McNeill, 2000, pp. 24–27; Morris, 1979, pp. 81–84). This is not surprising. After all, they often had a network of contacts outside their own region, which exposed them to new styles and inventions (Bouwmeester, Chap. 10). At the same time, they had the means to utilise these styles and features in their building projects. This applies not only to the choice of building materials (Bouwmeester, Chap. 10; Thomasson, Chap. 4) but also to the latest architectural developments (Gardelin, Chap. 5; Blažková, Chap. 13).
The highest in the pecking order was the king or the emperor. Bla ž ková (Chap. 13 ) discusses how Ferdinand I (1503–1564), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia, had artists from various parts of Europe, and particularly from leading regions in art and architecture such as Italy and the Low Countries, travel to Prague to work on the reconstruction of his castle. The Renaissance style brought by the artists then infuenced the nobility, who adopted and spread the new style further.
Elite groups can also be linked to the earliest brick construction. These groups, called ‘familia institutes’ by Thomasson (Chap. 4), acted as commissioners of large prestigious buildings such as churches, hall buildings, castles, city walls and tower houses. Within the Netherlands, tower houses are associated more with a new rising noble group (Bouwmeester, Chap. 10; Thomasson, Chap. 4). In Scandinavia, the infuence of the highest elites such as the Royal House of Estridsen, the Hvide clan and the bishop of Roskilde, is visible in the earliest brick construction (Gardelin, Chap. 5) and the introduction of new styles in different architectural elements. Roskilde’s church, for example, has a brick tiled foor that, in its design and use of materials, has parallels with the styles found in the German Rhineland (Langkilde, Chap. 6). The tiles may even have originated in the Rhineland region.
The examples above illustrate that an exchange of ideas also took place within these elite groups. This was the case with brick building but also with castle building. New techniques in castle building, which can be seen in Carrickfergus Castle, Northern Ireland, originated from the European mainland and were adopted by the Angevin kings in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Tietzsch-Tyler, 2017). The castle and its associated elite in turn infuenced the buildings in the nearby town of Carrickfergus (Patrick, 2020). The Teutonic Order and missionaries brought new building materials and styles with them alongside Christianisation, and built castles and churches that were unusual for Chełmno land at that time (Wiewióra, Chap. 12; Tomanová, Chap. 14). Tomanová’s chapter shows, for example, that styles that go back to Classical antiquity were consciously adopted in medieval churches in Bohemia.
New building materials and techniques were adopted over time not only by the elites but also by groups with a lower social status. Often this was possible because of declining material costs and a growing local knowledge of new building styles and techniques. Within Rogers’ diffusion theory, these groups are called the ‘early’ and ‘late majority’, depending on how fast they embrace a new idea (Rogers, 2003 ; see also Bouwmeester, Chap. 10 ). This process of adopting ideas is clearly visible in the brick studies of Thomasson (Chap. 4 ) and Bouwmeester (Chap. 10 ). 1
1.1.3 Knowledge Networks
Being part of a knowledge network results in mutual infuence and transfer of the architectural practices. Gullbrandson (Chap. 3) illustrates this effectively with the example of southwest Sweden which is in the political and economic sphere of infuence of different parts of the Baltic region, notably northern Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden. This infuence is refected in the heterogeneous roof structures and roofng techniques used in the churches in this region of Sweden. It is noteworthy that due to the large availability of timber, especially in the Middle Ages, new woodsaving building techniques, which emerged in continental Europe, remained absent there. This allowed the existing building tradition to continue uninterrupted.
Within the construction community, a distinction can be made between the prominent highly skilled master masons and architects and the workshops of local masons or carpenters. The frst group were mainly to be found working on large specialist buildings and early on contributed to the introduction of new building materials and techniques. The second produced smaller scale buildings and provided lowerskilled workforces for large projects. Clients brought architects and master builders from far and wide to erect buildings in the latest style of the time. There was even competition between clients to attract these specialists (Epstein, 2005, p. 61). This volume contains many examples of attracting these master craftsmen, such as in Prague during the modernisation of Prague Castle (Blažková, Chap. 13), in Renaissance manors in Denmark (Gardelin, Chap. 5) and in Rome at the Torre dei Conti (Giannini, Chap. 15). The same probably applies to, for example, the brick foor from Roskilde and the earliest castles, city walls and churches (Thomasson, Chap. 4; Bouwmeester, Chap. 10).
Specialist craftsmen, often independent, were hired for their knowledge and skill for a set period, with the client providing the necessary manpower and building materials (Thomasson, Chap. 4). For example, it is believed that Elbląg Town Hall in Poland was built by craftsmen from England (Wiewióra, Chap. 12). The stone churches in Norway were also built by itinerant master builders who built churches by order of the bishop (Reinfjord, Chap. 2). The workforce consisted of a combination of local craftsmen supplemented by specialists. In the Caetani fortress in Italy, visible sections were built by specialists and less public areas by local craftsmen (Giannini, Chap. 15). This led to new solutions and styles, such as a system of buttresses covered by arches which are noticeable in other fortifcations in Italy, including those of Montefascone, Piombinara and the Torre dei Conti in Rome. Here, new ideas merged with local building traditions (Giannini, Chap. 15). In addition, local traditions gave external specialists the opportunity to expand their knowledge and experience (Epstein, 2005, p. 60).
As building techniques and materials were gradually adopted locally, local craftsmen applied them to smaller traditional structures. Swalcliffe barn in England, for instance, was designed by a local master mason or master carpenter who must also have supervised the construction project (Berryman, Chap. 8). Styles from the castle or lordly residences can also be found in the nearby town, as can be seen in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland (Patrick, 2020). A further example is the half-timbered houses with brick sill-walls and the walls inflled with brick like the Pilgränd’s House in Ystad (southern Sweden). It is a hybrid construction built in a traditional building style combined with relatively new materials at the time in that region which were slowly and gradually becoming more widely available (Thomasson, Chap. 4). This use of brick clearly took place at a later stage, when brick in combination with knowledge to build with this material was becoming more accessible to larger groups within society through, for example, the expansion of local production and the granting of subsidies by the city council (Bouwmeester, Chap. 10). Striking is that at the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, building practices from the villages were also applied in the (proto-)urban settlements. However, at a certain point this dynamic changes. In the Netherlands this happens between 1000 and 1200 AD, in parallel with the rise of the cities. Developments in building methods and techniques in the city are rapid and occur faster than in the countryside, leading to an inversion in which the city starts to infuence the countryside (Bouwmeester, 2014, p. 251; see also Thomasson, Chap. 4).
1.2 Networks and Difusion Models
This book approaches the exchange of knowledge, ideas and materials from two different perspectives, namely network models and diffusion models. Network science is not so much about the direct connections between the different nodes but about the relationships that lie behind them (Collar et al., 2015, p. 11). This need not only involve relationships between people; objects can also function as actors in a network (Latour, 2005; see also Kerr, Chap. 9). They can have different, sometimes mutually reinforcing, roles. This is demonstrated by Kerr’s chapter in this volume, in which the various castles with different forms and functions together form a network (Kerr, Chap. 9).
Diffusion or dissemination models help understand how materials or techniques moved along trade networks or through social networks. Such models enable a deeper understanding of the fow of ideas and materials. Some chapters make explicit reference to such models, such as Kerr (Chap. 9) and Bouwmeester (Chap. 10), while in others it is more implicit, such as Berryman (Chap. 8) and Spencer (Chap. 7). Dissemination models such as Rogers’ are focused on how
new inventions spread within a community (Rogers, 2003). This theory looks at how new ideas are absorbed and exchanged over time within and between social groups with each their own specifc attitude towards innovations. It forms the backbone of Bouwmeester’s chapter, though other chapters (e.g. Chap. 4) can also be linked to it. The model is often approached from one specifc social group, as Gardelin demonstrates regarding the spread of Renaissance infuences in castles in Denmark (Gardelin, Chap. 5). An advantage of diffusion models in comparison to the static network models is that a depth of time is created, which gives the network models a three-dimensional character. It is then about the network that was, the network that is and the network that it would become (Fig. 1.1).
1.3 Changing Networks
The contributions in this volume demonstrate that networks are dynamic systems, this is also refected in network science (Collar et al., 2015, pp. 4–5). Networks emerge, disappear and change, depending on the political and economic conditions of the moment. This is highlighted in Höltken’s contribution (Chap. 11): the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire had a major impact on the trade in stone in its provinces. Quarries fell into disuse and new buildings were constructed from the spolia of the old Roman buildings. At the end of the Early Middle Ages, the demand for tuff increased. Roman buildings no longer provided suffcient material, and the quarries in the Eifel were therefore put back into use; the old tuff was then mainly used for foundations. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, tuff was gradually replaced by brick in the Netherlands, northern Germany and Denmark. What is striking in the Netherlands is that brick was at frst not the building material of preference; initially, it was used for hidden parts of structures. The advantages of the new building material were so great, however, that it soon dominated the architectural developments and trade networks
(Bouwmeester, 2020; see also Bouwmeester, Chap. 10). The old network for tuff was diluted yet again.
Sudden changes can disrupt a network temporarily or for a longer period of time, as seen in the examples above. This may be due to the disappearance of certain persons within a network, but also to natural phenomena such as foods, the outbreak of disease or war. Sometimes a network re-emerges, and may even have an accelerating effect leading to new inventions or the birth of other networks, as was the case with the introduction of bricks (Bouwmeester, Chap. 10).
Networks can emerge suddenly. Wiewióra’s contribution demonstrates that with the conquests by the Teutonic Order in Chełmno Land, Poland, a new society emerged (Wiewióra, Chap. 12). Towns developed, and with them the social stratum of wealthy citizens. Along with a new material culture, brick building was also introduced. The area became part of an international network, where, for example, craftsmen from England may have worked on the town hall of Elbląg, while traces of the Hanseatic urban culture can also be found in this region. The same happened elsewhere in the southern Baltic region: new cities emerged with the Crusades of the Teutonic Order (Thomasson, Chap. 4) and subsequent colonisation played an important role in the spread of new types of buildings, along with the introduction of brick.
The presence of a network alone is not a prerequisite for the introduction of new building materials, techniques and styles. The O’Driscoll lords, who constructed tower houses in late medieval Ireland, were part of a national and international network, but chose to use local designs for their castles (Kerr, Chap. 9). Sometimes changing circumstances are required to trigger new developments within networks. Regarding timber construction, resource availability was key to developing styles and trade networks. For example, it was not necessary to build new types of timber-saving roof structures in Sweden until the beginning of the sixteenth century, thus architectural development was stunted by the lack of need (Gullbrandson, Chap. 3). Conversely, the scarcity of tuff in the western Netherlands led to the earliest use of brick as a building material (Bouwmeester, 2020).
AB Fig. 1.1 The static network model (a) versus the three-dimensional network model (b) with changes within the model in time.
(Model: J. Bouwmeester and M. Haars, BCL Archaeological Support) 1
Fig. 1.2 The three factors necessary to initiate changes in building tradition. (Figure: J. Bouwmeester and M. Haars, BCL Archaeological Support)
Demand is a necessary factor for changes in building traditions to happen. It can emerge in contexts of scarcity or to make a political statement. In addition, knowledge of, and access to, resources (i.e. means), such as manpower and raw materials, must be available to satisfy demand (Fig. 1.2). In the latter two categories, the networks come to the fore when local technological knowledge and/or raw materials are lacking or insuffcient (Epstein, 2005, p. 63).
1.4
Conclusions
Throughout this volume we will see the importance of local and (inter)national trade networks, and often the interaction between them. These networks enabled the movement of all types of building materials and knowledge of construction techniques and architectural styles. Local networks were important for enabling the construction of buildings, with many projects relying on locally sourced materials and workers. In addition, international networks provided materials— often of higher status and certainly more costly—not found in the surrounding region and introduced styles and techniques not seen in the area.
This book shows that building history is not only about the elite, functioning as patrons of construction projects. There were also other agents involved, such as masons, carpenters and merchants. The networks of the non-elite actors are signifcant and an underdeveloped area of research because they rarely appear in medieval documents and records. Many of the chapters in this volume indicate that the actors within local, national and international networks were from all levels of society.
Finally, a follow-up to this volume focusing on theoretical approaches would be highly desirable. There is a lot of potential in the use of the ANT to study the relationships between agents and buildings. In addition, research specifcally investigating building material and objects as agents could reveal previously unknown networks and the impact of these on new levels. It is safe to say that there is clearly still much to research and discover regarding building networks.
References
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Bartels, M. (2006). Tufsteen, duyfsteen, dufsteen. Handel, bouw en sloop in harde bouwmaterialen in middeleeuws Deventer. In H. de Beer, C. Hogestijn, & D. Webbink (Eds.), Aan weerszijden van de IJssel, liber amicorum aangeboden aan Henk Nalis ter gelegenheid van zijn afscheid als archivaris van de Gemeente Deventer (pp. 21–30). Stadsarchief en Athenaeumbibliotheek.
Bouwmeester, H. M. P. (2014). The development of Dutch townhouses 700–1300. In M. Svart Kristiansen & K. Giles (Eds.), Dwellings, identities and homes: European housing culture from the Viking age to the renaissance (pp. 243–253). Jutland Archaeological Society.
Bouwmeester, H. M. P. (2020). Building in stone: A brief introduction to the development of the use of stone as a building material in The Netherlands between AD 1000 and 1400. In G. Tagesson, P. Cornell, M. Gardiner, L. Thomas, & K. Weikert (Eds.), ‘For my descendants and myself, a nice and pleasant abode’ – Agency, micro-history and built environment (Buildings in Society International BISI III, Stockholm 2017) (pp. 54–66). Archaeopress.
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Deforce, K. (2017). Wood use in a growing medieval city. The overexploitation of woody resources in Ghent (Belgium) between the 10th and 12th century AD. Quaternary International, 458, 123–133.
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Epstein, S. R. (2005). Transferring technical knowledge and innovating in Europe, c.1200–c.1800. In M. Prak & J. L. van Zanden (Eds.), Technology, skills and the pre-modern economy in the East and the West (pp. 25–67). Brill.
Greif, A. (2000). The fundamental problem of exchange: A research agenda in Historical Institutional Analysis. European Review of Economic History, 4(3), 251–284. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S1361491600000071
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Irsigler, F. (2006). Fernhandel, Märkte und Messen in vor- und frühhansischer Zeit. In J. Bracker & R. Postel (Eds.), Die Hanse. Lebenswirklichkeit und Mythos (pp. 23–33). Verlag Schmidt-Römhild.
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Müller, U. (2010). Case study 3: Trading centres – Hanseatic towns on the southern Baltic Coast. Structural continuity or a new start? In B. Ludowici (Ed.), Trade and communication networks of the frst millennium AD in the northern part of Central Europe: Central places, beach markets, landing places and trading centres (pp. 115–140). Theiss.
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1 Building Networks: An Introduction to the Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Material for Building in the Medieval…
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Tools and Masons: Regional Building Networks
in Norway (1152/3–1537)
Kristian Reinford
Abstract
Insights on technological development and organizations of stonemasons can, in the Norwegian material, only be studied archaeologically. This chapter proposes that the investigation of toolmarks identifed on ashlars and detailed dressed stone, found in the region of the medieval Hamar diocese in Eastern medieval Norway, can shed light onto the organization of masons. Taking for granted that building milieus, as organized at cathedral building huts, applied the same techniques in stone dressing, mason networks can be identifed by their toolmarks and stonemasons’ marks throughout the chosen region. Observations on the archaeological material of standing buildings and ruins provide a representative dataset mapping building networks of masons in the Hamar diocese in the Romanesque (c. 1150–1250) and Gothic phases (c. 1250–1537), connected to the patron, the bishop.
Keywords
Stone technology · Stonemasons · Building networks · Toolmarks · Stonemasons’ marks · Medieval Norway
2.1 Introduction
Stone architecture, using quarried raw materials and mortars, was introduced in Norway in the late eleventh century. Presumably, this “new” technology was brought by foreign craftsmen developing building technologies from scratch (Ekroll, 1997, p. 12; Lidén, 1981, p. 46). Including getting to know landscapes, raw material resources, ground conditions, and church hierarchies, regional technologies developed in the fve dioceses of the land, with cathedrals being starting
K. Reinfjord (*)
University of Bergen and Anno Museum, Bergen, Norway e-mail: Kristian.reinfjord@annomuseum.no
points of architectural development. Masons played important roles in shaping architecture. Wood, being the common building material of Norway, dominated rural and urban landscapes throughout the Middle Ages. Controlling stone technology therefore has been interpreted as a status marker refected in the buildings. Due to lack of written sources and documentary records in the Norwegian material on medieval masons and builders, stonemasons must be detected in the archaeological evidence of buildings, the end products of technological processes.
Material culture has played a signifcant part in archaeological analysis of regions, defned as political administrative regions, economic functional regions, and regions of identity (Baug, 2016). Regions could also be socially created structures, established by thoughts and opinions, or as a group serving a common cause within an area, established to serve or organize a social or political activity (Øye et al., 2010, p. 5). In this chapter, one of the fve Norwegian medieval dioceses, the Hamar diocese of eastern Norway, serves as such a region (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2). Social and technological networks indicate likeness in a group’s material culture within regions, defned as smaller or larger geographical areas. Distribution patterns, as seen in replicated? key features in archaeological material, indicate regional and inter-regional contact. Stone architecture could be part of a consolidating strategy based on technological innovations, controlling technology and the products created by it. Considering this notion, how does stone architecture and craft indicate new regions, or how rigid are the suspected borders of a stonemason’s area of work within a region? Do they follow the borders of the region, acting only on behalf of their employing patron, or could they be assigned to other projects? Archaeological analysis of regions has stressed that different aspects of society defned regions, such as resource exploitation, identity, or organization of power in rural areas (Baug, 2016, p. 155). A diocese could be defned as a region serving the study of stone technology, in an environment where, for instance, masons attached to a cathedral building hut.
J. Bouwmeester et al. (eds.), Building Networks: Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Materials in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe, Themes in Contemporary Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51963-5_2
2
Fig. 2.1 The main area of research (zone inside the red dotted line). (Map: J. Bouwmeester and M. Haars, BCL Archaeological Support)
K. Reinford
Pierre Lemonnier proposes that, “those people who produced and/or used a given set of objects and techniques at a given time and in a given space shared some kind of social organization and system of thought” (Lemonnier, 2010, p. I). This implies that there was a correlation between technologies and regions in the past. A technological style, readable in the archaeological material, the products of the regional technology, springs out from the region and the different behaviour patterns that constitute the style of technology (Øye et al., 2010, p. 5). This makes it important to describe the region as an actant and its prerequisites for defned technologies, for “understanding the interplay between regions
and technology” (Øye et al., 2010, p. 12). The region as a concept in archaeology can be delineated in different ways. As Randi Barndon states, “regions are not fxed geographical areas, but are social complex constructions that can both be stable and can fuctuate” (Barndon, 2010, p. 244). This was also the case with the Hamar diocese, being the study of the present chapter. As a region, it developed and changed throughout the Middle Ages, both according to geography and technology. Hamar was founded together with the development of the Norwegian Nidaros archdiocese in 1152/3, divided from the Oslo diocese (Bagge, 2003, pp. 51–53), covering the central part of eastern Norway until 1537.
Fig. 2.2 The Hamar diocese had, based on the stone architecture, its main section around the lake Mjøsa, but stone buildings and church sites spread throughout the diocese. This map shows the supposed area of the Hamar bishop at its largest extent in 1537 and all occurrences of stone buildings. (Map: K. Eriksen and K. Reinfjord)
Among the key human actors of medieval stone technology were the stonemasons, in medieval Norse labelled steinmeistari, steinsmider, or grjótsmidr. To shape stones, they depended on tools. Stonemasons are defned in this chapter as workers preparing and dressing individual stone blocks for masonries and details. These workers left traces of toolmarks, from their stone cutting techniques on the material. Only small building inscriptions mention stone workers in
the written records of medieval Norway, if at all, and traces of masons can only be found in the archaeological material remains of buildings and ruins. This research seeks to identify different groups of masons, their distribution within the defned region of the Hamar bishopric in Eastern Norway, and their organisation, based on the evidence of building stone. Masons can be read in surface treatment and hewing techniques on ashlars, window framings, portals, and mould-
ings. Toolmarks tell of tool use and control of technology. Further, I investigate stonemasons’ marks, the personal signatures of single masons. Both hewing, toolmarks and masons’ marks are direct evidence of the craftsmen’s hands and can give insight into the organization and networks of stonemasons, and their development throughout the medieval period of the Hamar diocese in eastern Norway.
Organizations of the ecclesiastical see, church topography and hierarchy played important parts in stone technology and architectural use. It is argued that the organization of medieval stone building was done by the bishops and kings, controlling masons’ lodges, or building huts attached to and controlled by the fve Norwegian cathedrals at Nidaros, Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo and Hamar. Hans-Emil Lidén suggests that masons from abroad, mainly England and German areas, brought the technical basis for establishing regional homogenous expressions in building style and technology to medieval Norway (Lidén, 1981, pp. 46–48). Thus, highlighting the human actors of technological development in line with recent archaeological research trends. In advocating juxtapositions of human and non-human actors of stone technology, the present chapter studies the organization and use of medieval stone technology as seen in toolmarks and stonemasons’ marks.
A study of mason organization based on different dressing of stone considers the geographical distribution of toolmarks found on building stone (Fig. 2.3). Studies concerning the dressing of stone and building stone used as archaeological material are scarce and are seldom conducted on a Norwegian material. An exception is Marit Nybø’s dissertation on the St Albanus church at Selja, Western Norway (Nybø, 2000, pp. 85–98). Here, hewing technique and ashlar production are seen together, to use toolmarks to map stylistic provenance of early Romanesque architecture to Norway. A comparative approach of toolmarks in English, French and German evidence is applied. Further, two different sets of toolmarks are found, attached to two separate building phases, in dating the stepwise building of the St Albanus church (Nybø, 2000, pp. 96–97). Toolmarks as indication of building date are also mentioned in Lidén’s (Lidén, 1974, p. 21) introductory book to stone building in medieval Norway. Further, some studies show the potential of this methodology, and I base my inquiry on these works (Fawcett, 1982; Friederich, 1932; Gardelin, 2006; Müller, 1990).
When working local raw materials of limestone, sandstone, or diabase, different toolmarks can be ascribed to groups of masons, based on similar hewing technique on materials. One could therefore expect that similar toolmarks are results of distinct groups of masons. An important premise for this notion is that tools and techniques within a building hut were similar, and that choices of tools attached to the organization of the building hut, and further those similar techniques are used within groups of masons (Gardelin,
K. Reinford
2006, p. 18; Morris, 1979, p. 65). Proving whether masons were itinerant workers, travelling from a cathedral building hut, or locally based, shed light onto organization of technology. Entangled with raw material resources and quarries, masons were movable actors in networks of technology. Given that stone architecture played a prominent role in establishing ecclesiastical regions (Iversen & Brendalsmo, 2020), controlling masons was of crucial importance in controlling technology. Movements of masons in the historical landscape of the diocese, or into other regions, seems plausible because churches and secular stone architecture were centrally placed or within a day’s journey on foot.
Studies of toolmarks and stone dressing can, based on the evidence from the Hamar diocese, only take place on fne dressed stone, such as window framings, portals, and ashlars. Gothic masonry here only uses coarse and rough worked stones, leaving toolmarks without readable signatures. The material used in this chapter is therefore a selection of Romanesque churches (c. 1150–1250) using ashlars, having preserved dressed stones and mouldings and, moulded building details from the Gothic period (c. 1250–1537). Some of the objects preserve readable stones from both periods. In several cases buildings are heavily plastered, and worked stones were not available for study. However, the material allows a discussion of the organization of masons in the region of the Hamar bishop. To show how toolmarks and the use of dressed stones are distributed, stones are studied according to a relative chronology of the chosen buildings. Moreover, the toolmarks contribute to nuancing building chronologies. No tools used in stone dressing are found from the medieval period in Norway. Such tools differed from the ones used for fne dressing and cannot be considered here. Therefore, the toolmarks are the only available source on stone carving. It seems plausible that masons operating in Norway used tools resembling the ones as for instance in the Linköping Cathedral, being different chisels, and hoes (Gardelin, 1997, p. 779, 2006, pp. 84–85).
In the Hamar diocese, toolmarks can be observed in a selection of buildings. The locations of buildings with readable toolmarks are shown on the maps (Figs. 2.3 and 2.4) and referred to in the text. First, in the town Hamar at the Cathedral church (Fig. 2.3, no. 1–7), the Romanesque details and masonry shows toolmarks. Further in the Gothic phases, dressings of socles are of interest here. The Bishop’s residence, connected to the Cathedral, has dressed stone in the large cellar building outside the eastern curtain wall and in the later Gothic window framings of the main tower. The Ringsaker church (Fig. 2.3, no. 8) shows several toolmarks, primarily readable in the spiral staircase. Both on masonry ashlars and on the western and southern chancel portals and in window framings plastering makes the material unreadable. Vang church is only readable due to toolmarks on the western portal. At Løten (Fig. 2.3, no. 11), the eastern
Fig. 2.3 Map of the northern part of the Hamar diocese and the regions Hamar, Hedmarken, Toten and Gudbrandsdalen, with stone buildings. Stone buildings are mentioned in the text as sited with map numbers.
chancel gable window interior can be read. Fragmentary ashlars and Romanesque arch stones at the Rokoberget ruin (Fig. 2.3, no. 12) show toolmarks. At Stange (Fig. 2.3, no. 13), dressed stones are seen both from the Romanesque and Gothic periods. The ashlars, portals and spiral staircase are of particular interest, because reused stones could originate from the Furuberget quarry, lying three kilometres north of the town of Hamar. At the Gothic Tingnes church (Fig. 2.3, no. 14), toolmarks can be observed sporadically on ashlars, where the plaster has decayed, as for instance at the Southern chancel portal and on the socle. At the stone cellar a Hovinsholm (Fig. 2.3, no. 15), the portal shows toolmarks. At Toten, both Romanesque churches Hoff and Balke (Fig. 2.3, no. 17–18) can be studied due to toolmarks. The sister churches at Gran, St Nicolai, and St Maria (Fig. 2.4, no. 21–22) show several examples of toolmarks, especially on the Romanesque and Gothic details. Further, the Stonehouse (Fig. 2.4, no. 23) at Granavollen shows similar marks. These are, however, only visible on the reused ashlars from the St Nicolai church. At the Tingelstad church some dressing can be observed at the diabase stones used for the rounded arched portals and windows but are however too weathered to be taken into consideration. In Gudbrandsdalen,
The Gudbrandsdalen churches situate farther north (no. 26–27 on the map). (Map: K. Eriksen and K. Reinfjord)
the Follebu church shows toolmarks on the southern and main western portals. The remaining buildings of the diocese are either too plastered to observe marks or have no such remains preserved.
2.2 Stonemasons Read in Toolmarks of the Hamar Diocese
Stonemasons and tools were entangled with the stone. In a sense, different raw materials required different tools and techniques to be dressed, features laying ground for how technology was executed in the region. The material actants of stone and tools depended on the human actants of masons and were therefore the basis of a regional technology. I will therefore expect that limestones show other dressings than diabase. Diabase was used alongside the limestone for similar details in the Romanesque period. In the description I only take advantage of authentic medieval stone use. Most of the examples are found within masonry, apart from the stray fnds at the Rokoberget ruin, where stones can with certainty be associated with the medieval building. This is important because medieval buildings cycles through restoration and
Fig. 2.4 Map of the southern part of the Hamar diocese with stone buildings. The regions Hadeland, Ringerike, Modum and Upper Telemark are included. Stone buildings with readable toolmarks mentioned in the text correspond to the numbers on the map. (Map: K. Eriksen and K. Reinfjord)
reuse and are thus signifcantly affected by toolmarks. For instance, at the Hamar Cathedral ruin, point marks were applied to ashlars and details during the 1880s and 1930s restoration to note rebuilt masonry (Sæther, 1995, p. 77).
This can, among other places, be seen on the north-western corner and in the southern and northern internal choir portals. Further, I have recorded use of toothed charring chisel (claw) on a few places, seen as a dotted surface effect. These stones seem to have been replaced in the late-medieval phase, as recorded on the phase eight (around 1500) and in some external repairs exclusively. I will further explore toolmarks in relative dating and chronology (as seen in Gardelin, 2006; Lidén, 1974, pp. 22–24).
Hamar Cathedral ashlars, executed in limestone, show signifcant toolmarks. These Romanesque quadratic and rectangular blocks are dressed on fve sides, as can be observed on loose and reused material at the Domkirkeodden site. Toolmarks are characterized by narrow borders marking the edges of each ashlar side (Fig. 2.5). Here, the mason applied a narrow chisel, preparing the edges of each stone, resulting in surfaces with narrowly spaced chisel marks, applied vertical/horizontal in the direction of the stoneface. Further, diagonal lines were applied to fatten the surface.
This could have been executed by a broad chisel or a broad hoe leaving more widely spaced chisel marks. To simplify the following discussion, I label this ashlar technique HamarR (Hamar masons in the Romanesque period), associating this way of dressing stone to the Hamar building hut masons in the early Romanesque period (c. 1150–1220).
On curved stones, such as seen on the reused apse stones and in the low arch in the west end of the southern nave arcade, the stone surfaces show vertical lines. Edges are, however, trimmed in the same manner. The socle profle’s toolmarks are almost invisible and shows exquisite technical work. Narrow spaced chisel marks follow the horizontal direction of the border exclusively. Toolmarks from the Gothic phase at the Hamar Cathedral can be observed on details in the reused chancel portal built there in the early sixteenth century, and on the transepts’ slanted socles from around 1250. Based on the toolmarks and style, I am also tempted to date the altar in the northern nave wall to this period. Ashlars re-worked in the Gothic period also bear tool marks form this period differing from the Romanesque tool use. As seen in the reused nave portal leading into the chancel, toolmarks are narrow and vertically placed on the block. The lines are drawn across the stones without any markings of the edges. On the detailed
K. Reinford
Fig. 2.5 Example of toolmarks interpreted as the Romanesque HamarR style, here from the western exterior nave wall of the Hamar Cathedral. The trimmed edges of the ashlars frame the diagonal face lines, as seen on the left ashlar edge. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
areas, lines follow the blocks’ edge horizontally and vertically inside the lines. Also, on the altar foundation this is done. The tools seem to resemble the HamarR technique on the detailed Gothic works without the trimmed edges. However, on the coarser work found on re-worked Romanesque blocks reused in the phase date to c. 1500, a broad hoe could have been used, leaving wide parallel diagonal lines.
In the Bishop’s residence few dressed stones are preserved. However, some examples survive, such as the Gothic pointed arched windows from the main tower inside the ruin with the large, vaulted cellar and in the southern wing of the great hall (Fig. 2.6). Interestingly, the supposed dates of the examples belong to at least two different phases, c. 1250 and c. 1300. The Gothic windows from the great tower show toolmarks to some degree wider spaced than the HamarR details. Further, the lines run across the stones and beyond the edges. Mainly the lines are vertical or horizontal. Technically, the bevelled corners resemble an altar foundation found in the cathedral, presumably a signature feature of the period, also observed in window framings found by Peter Andreas Blix (1897) at the Mjøskastellet castle of the king Håkon Håkonson (1217–1263), and in the chancel base with
Fig. 2.6 Examples of the HamarG Gothic toolmarks running more vertical and horizontal than the previous Romanesque HamarR. Coarser strokes across the stone. Also, the edges are not marked on the stones. Hamar Bishop’s residence south wing hall. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
a cyma recta décor of the cathedral phase three dated to 1230–1250. I label this technique HamarG (Hamar masons in the Gothic period). Probably from a later phase in the Bishop residence’s history are two lancet window remains and the fragmentary portals in the Southern wing of the hall, from c. 1300–1450. These are cut in limestone and show sets of toolmarks. Vertical narrow lines cross the blocks, and the chisel is drawn across the beyond the stone edges. The slanted corners, characterizing the type, are cut horizontally. The same toolmarks can be observed throughout the detailed stonework of the southern hall. In the ruin with the vaulted cellar outside the Eastern curtain wall, details are seen in portals and wall niches. Particularly in the moulded limestone portal in the eastern wall, resembling half columns, toolmarks can be observed. Here the technique resembles HamarG, but the lines are more diagonal and coarser cut with more widely spaced strokes. This style seems to be somewhat older than the HamarG style and should, based on documentary evidence and the building and the masonry in which the portal is inserted, be dated to phase one (1250–1300) The masonry contains brick, and the overall expression of the building suggests an early Gothic date.
The Ringsaker church is heavily plastered throughout. However, in some places toolmarks can be observed. These are found in the staircase showing both nicely worked ashlars and coarser blocks for internal use only. The ashlars resemble the HamarR style with the nicely cut edges of blocks, followed by diagonal narrow spaced chisel, or hoe, lines on the faces. Being built in the same early Romanesque phase as the Hamar cathedral, such marks are interesting due to organizations of masons. The coarser stones in the Ringsaker staircase are cut with several strokes from different angles, possibly executed by a broad hoe. Unfortunately, the portal columns and mouldings are inaccessible underneath lime plaster coatings.
The Vang church only shows worked stones in the western portal, the tower corner ashlars and in the windows. Only on the portal’s free-standing columns, pillow capitals and arch toolmarks can be read due to heavy plastering. External masonry can be read from the church attic but use no dressed ashlars. The columns show narrow chiselled vertical lines both on the shaft, supporting stones and capitals. The supporting stone resemble the attic base profle, and the concave moulding is identically worked as the socle profle of the cathedral phase one and two, with horizontal lines. The laying straight edge has vertical lines as well. Resemblance of the cathedral is further noticed in the curved ashlars forming the Romanesque arch of the portal of Vang and the southwestern arch of the cathedral nave arcade. On the internal arch, the stones show horizontal lines, with worked edges as seen in the HamarR style of the Romanesque period. The Mjøsa limestone are used in both arches and the toolmarks looks similar.
At the Løten church, fne dressed stone can only be observed in the internal east gable window of the chancel. Except for ashlar-built corners, the remaining stones are worked, suggesting a late Romanesque date. The eleven Mjøsa limestone blocks making the window are large. The arch, consisting of three stones is pointier. The toolmarks show worked edges like the HamarR style but are on the stone surfaces not completely diagonal. The strokes differ, and the stones were worked from various angles. Moreover, the chisel seems larger, leaving wider spaced traces. It could be argued that these toolmarks were younger or executed by others than masons carving the proto-Romanesque HamarR style.
The remaining ashlars and portal fragments at the Rokoberget ruin are worn by weather and earth depositing (Fig. 2.7). However, the ashlars are readable, showing clear toolmarks of the HamarR style. The sharply executed stones have clearly marked edges followed by diagonal surface lines throughout. The curved stones, probably used as portal arches, are carved around the edges, and horizontally cut with a chisel leaving narrow spaced lines.
In Stange church, both Romanesque and Gothic stone working techniques are used. Toolmarks are most easily read
in the spiral staircase, in the attic gables and internal gable and stair windows (Fig. 2.8). Also, in the exterior masonry ashlars, the HamarR style is prominent. Moreover, from the Gothic, second phase, toolmarks can be detected in reused stones in the attic portal between nave and chancel, and in the western main portal. Inside the spiral staircase a conglomerate of styles is applied. Reused Romanesque ashlars and curved stones, possibly from an apse or pillars, clearly show the HamarR style. This notion is reinforced by the fact that the original hidden faces have been turned into the room. Here, a dressed surface with a trimmed edge is shown. Possibly, these stones were originally used in the exterior apse façade because they resemble apse façade stones seen in other buildings from the period. Further, the late Romanesque carving technique with a larger chisel working the stones from several angles. To some degree these toolmarks resemble the ones observed in the Løten chancel gable window. However, these stones simultaneously show carved edges resembling the HamarR style. The attic portal clearly shows dotted surfaces, traces of a charring chisel or claw. These are interpreted as reworked Romanesque ashlars, suggesting such tools were in use already by the late thirteenth century. The pointed arched main portal in the western wall shows
Fig. 2.7 The HamarR style visible at the Rokoberget ruin; these are the exterior corner markings of the south-western corner of the nave. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
K. Reinford
Fig. 2.8 The Stange church spiral staircase reuses Romanesque stones from a possibly earlier building, with Romanesque toolmarks. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
neatly worked surfaces with a small chisel leaving narrow spaced strokes. All lines are vertical along the long surfaces, contrasted by diagonal lines on short surfaces, drawn across each stone edge. Similar toolmarks are found on the nave socle moulded slanted edge. The Romanesque chancel’s southern portal show traces of the HamarR style. In the Stange church nave socle a claw is used several times, possibly in re-working ashlars.
Such Gothic toolmarks can be observed in the portal of the stone cellar at the farm Hovinsholm at Helgøya. Here the slanted ashlars of the portal lintels are worked with narrow chisels, where the edges are diagonally worked in contrast to the stone surfaces’ slightly vertical/diagonal lines. These toolmarks resemble the cyma recta profle at the Hamar cathedral phase four and the pointed arched portal at Stange, suggesting a date around 1270–1300. It should be put into the HamarG style group. The brick use of the cellar augments this notion.
At Tingnes church toolmarks can be observed in the internal stair of the western tower. Here, the Mjøsa limestones are carved with broad vertical lines. However, some of the edges are worked and resemble the Romanesque ashlars at the
Hamar Cathedral. Given the notion that the Tingnes church could be an extended Romanesque building, these blocks could have been reused. If so, the tower used ashlars from the eastern chancel wall which was enlarged in the same operation. In such way the toolmarks can contribute to establish relative building chronologies. Being almost like the Stange western portal, the Tingnes portal would be interesting to study according to toolmarks. Due to heavy plastering, this cannot be done. However, the chancel portal’s weathering allows toolmark study. The portal sides show narrow spaced lines crossing the block edges, executed in diagonal strokes. Moreover, the chancel socle mouldings use a slanted edge with traces resembling the HamarG style.
Moving across the lake Mjøsa, the Hoff and Balke churches show interesting toolmarks. On the Hoff portals, the main western and southern nave and chancel’s portals, cuttings are marked by narrow chisel line borders, while the large stone faces show diagonal lines supported by random strokes in different directions. Even on the details one seems to have used a larger chisel. This is particularly evident on the main portal consisting of free-standing columns with Doric capitals. Throughout overall the features the broad chisel is applied from various angles, differing signifcantly from the neat column carving at Vang for instance. As suspected the ashlar edges are marked, but to a lesser extent than in the HamarR style. This is also evident in the observable ashlars throughout, making it possible to ascribe the same hands to the church in total. At Balke, toolmarks can be observed on the original interior portal between nave and chancel, and in the apse interior (Fig. 2.9). Here, the plaster is decayed, leaving raw stone surfaces. The ashlars and curved arch stones are cut with the same pattern. Fine worked edges surround faces of mainly diagonal lines. However, the diagonal lines are broad and supplied with chisel strokes from different angles. It is tempting to suggest that these toolmarks originate from the same hands seen at Hoff. At Granavollen the two, St Nicolai and St Maria churches and the Stonehouse show toolmarks, from the Romanesque and Gothic periods. On the Stonehouse masonry’s reused dark diabase ashlars, possibly from the St Nicolai church, one would suspect the same sets of toolmarks as on the church diabase. Diabase is harder to work than limestone, and I suspect this results in the narrower chisel strokes in the Granavollen material. This also seems to be evident in the exterior diabase ashlars of the St Nicolai church’s Romanesque masonry. On the diabase of the St Nicolai church, the neatly dressed stones show tight toolmarks, where no trimmed edges blend into the surface dressing’s narrow marks (Fig. 2.10). It seems that the same chisels are used, and the strokes can only be separated by the angels of lines. In some instances, where found, edge trimmings slant a little in opposition to the vertical lines of the surfaces in general and can be parts of the same diagonal lines.
church, showing a variant of the HamarR toolmark style. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
The same toolmark patterns are repeated in the spiral staircase, but coarser work has been completed on the surfaces. All toolmarks are paralleled on the few red sandstones used in the Romanesque period, for instance as seen in the Romanesque window opening in the remains of the frst phase chancel. The block edges seem to be the same as in the exterior. Examining the reused diabase stones in the Stonehouse cellar confrms that the masons dressed the interior and exterior ashlars differently, and the exterior facades show smoother surfaces. Due to plastering, the internal walls of the church are diffcult to examine. But some unplastered reused stones allow study of toolmarks. In the portal of the Stonehouse’s cellar, ashlars show few trimmed edges of narrow chisels as observed in the exterior ashlars. The faces are coarser using a broad chisel or a hoe, attacking the blocks from several angles. The stone faces of the cellar vary, and the reused material could originate both from interior and exterior facades of the St Nicolai church. The later Gothic phases on the St Nicolai church, as seen on the central tower, in the chancel, and especially in the vestry, uses a white Pentamerus limestone. Moreover, the toolmarks here are different than in the Romanesque phase. The detailed work,
such as in pointed arched windows, the three windows in the chancel’s eastern wall and the vestry windows, the toolmarks in the HamarG style can be observed (Fig. 2.11). Another interesting feature is the HamarR style on the vestry ashlars throughout. As a contrast, the ashlars observed on the chancel and tower show, as I would suspect, the HamarG style, typical in the Gothic period, however, with coarser broader strokes. This can suggest that a different work force was summoned to build the vestry, which clearly is secondary to the Gothic chancel. The vestry toolmarks are not paralleled in the Hamar diocese.
The St Maria church at Granavollen has been investigated together with the St Nicolai, being its “sister church”. Interpreting the toolmarks of the building stones indicate that these two churches were built by two independent mason teams. In contrast to St Nicolai’s neatly trimmed ashlars, the Romanesque stones at St Maria are coarser throughout. However, some diabase ashlars can be identifed in the masonry, perhaps originating from the Romanesque phase of St Nicolai. Most stones of the St Maria church, a mix of diabase, sandstone, Pentamerus limestones, as coarsely worked with no identifable toolmarks. Some reused apse stones with
Fig. 2.9 Several stones are readable due to toolmarks on the chancel opening in the Balke
Fig. 2.10 The St Nicolai church at Granavollen. The Romanesque phase shows English inspired toolmarks on diabase stones, as seen in Oslo in the early Romanesque phase pre-1150. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
K. Reinford
Fig. 2.11 In a later Gothic phase at the St Nicolai church, Gothic toolmarks were applied in dressing ashlars, suggesting Hamar residence masons. This is a part of the extended chancel in limestone. (Photo: K. Reinfjord)
convex crosses are seen in the Eastern chancel wall and by the Northern chancel portal. However, the Pentamerus limestone details used as window openings of the chancel, especially in the three Eastern chancel windows, and the Northern chancel pointed arched portal, show toolmarks ascribed to Hamar G toolmark style.
In one of the two medieval stone churches in Gudbrandsdalen, Follebu (Fig. 2.3, no. 26–27), toolmarks can be seen on the two portals. The eastern chancel trinity window with fnely dressed stone is plastered and inaccessible for study. The church, dated to the fourteenth century, is placed in the diocese outskirt, and is particularly interesting due to technology organization. The southern portal shows vertical and diagonal lines on the stone surfaces crossing the block edge as one now would suspect of this period. The lines are broader and coarser than seen in the HamarG style and could have been cut by a hoe at some places. However, narrow nicely cut lines can be observed, and the portal could have been cut by two different masons. Toolmarks are even more distinct on the main western portal. Here, I can detect diagonal lines without worked edges. The lines are narrowly spaced and resemble the Romanesque carving technique;
however, they lack the marked edges of the HamarR style. A concave border cut around the portal fnds no parallels in the Hamar bishopric stone material. I believe that the portal was locally produced in imported raw material from the Furuberget quarry, as the limestone indicates.
2.3 Stonemasons’ Marks: Personal Signatures of Organization
As a result of this work, a thorough survey of the stone material, both in buildings and from archaeological excavations at Domkirkeodden at Hamar, has uncovered a set of stonemasons’ marks in the Hamar Cathedral remains, being a part of the museum lapidarium (Reinfjord, 2019). No such marks were earlier known in Eastern Norway, and these marks should be noted as part of the discussion of organization of masons. In Norway such marks are primarily associated with the Nidaros Cathedral, where around 8000 marks are detected, dated to 1150–1300 (Kristoffersen, 2019, p. 157). But also, the hall of Håkon Håkonsson and the Franciscan church in Bergen show marks. Few masons’ marks are found on Romanesque masonry in Norway; however, they can be seen in the Nidaros Cathedral lectorium (Kristoffersen, 2020). Mouldings, portals, windows, and ashlars are the stone types most commonly found to have marks. Interpreted with caution, stonemasons’ marks, or lack of marks can contribute to understandings of organization of masons within regions. It is argued that using masons’ marks to trace itinerant workers from one building to another can be challenging, since similar marks appear scattered throughout periods and regions (Alexander, 2008, p. 31). However, a Scandinavian tradition suggests—based on the fact that few marks survive—that following masons within contexts and chronology is a plausible methodology of mapping organizations of masons (Kristoffersen, 2007, p. 2012). Another applicable use is dating monuments and establishing building history (Alexander, 2008; Ekroll, 2015). In this research the marks are interpreted as part of the cathedral chronology and organization of masons.
As Jennifer Alexander has shown, there was no single system of the use of masons’ marks in medieval Europe (Alexander, 2008, pp. 22–24). Despite this notion, two sources from Exeter and Lincoln Cathedrals add to the knowledge of masons’ marks and the organization of workers. The mason Richard of Stow, at the Lincoln cathedral, made a contract with the chapter there in 1306. In the contract we can read that carved stones were paid by the day and walling ashlars was paid by measure (Pownall, 1789, p. 125). One would suspect to fnd masons’ marks on the walls made under this contract. This is also the case as seen in the upper levels of the main crossing tower at Lincoln cathedral (Alexander, 1996, p. 219). At the opposite, Exeter has few
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undertaken to pay, and handed them to the valet, who received them with profuse expressions of gratitude and a look of relief.
“Many, many thanks. Is there any other question you’d like to ask? Only too happy to oblige.”
“Well, yes, Mr. Simmons, since you’re so kind, we may as well have a little further chat while I’m here; we shan’t be disturbed. It’s about this nephew, young Archie Brookes, who seems so fully in his uncle’s confidence. What can you tell me about him?”
Mr. Simmons with that nice sum of money nestling snugly in his pocket was in a most obliging mood, and hastened to unfold all he knew.
“Well, Mr. Lane, as you know, I haven’t been in Sir George’s service very long, and what I know is chiefly gathered from his former valet, who is now with the Duke of Droitwich, a man named Dundas, and other servants who have been about in the same sort of set.”
“What I want to know particularly is when he first appeared upon the scene. I understand the story given out is that he’s the son of a younger brother of Sir George’s, that the father died in Australia, and that his uncle sent for the young fellow and introduced him to London society.”
“Quite right, Mr. Lane. This happened about five years ago. Sir George gave out the story as you have heard it, the young man came over, and ever since his arrival the two have been inseparable. When Sir George is in town, and that’s the best part of the year, there’s hardly a day passes that young Archie doesn’t come here, sometimes staying for only a few minutes. Sir George put him up for a couple of decent clubs that he belongs to himself, but not for the two very exclusive ones of which he is a member. I suppose the young chap is not quite big enough for them.”
“Is he supposed to have any money of his own?”
“According to my friend Dundas, not more than a pittance. Dundas was in the service of a great friend of Sir George’s before he went to the baronet, and he got the information from him. The father,
according to this account, died leaving very little; the mother had died years before. His uncle practically adopted him with the intention of making him his heir. Although, as you and I know, Mr. Lane, whether there will be anything for him to be heir to is a bit of a puzzle, I think.”
“There is the furniture of this flat which is worth a bit, and the motor-car,” observed Lane with a humorous smile. “Do I take it then that the young man is supported by Sir George?”
“That’s what my friend Dundas gathered.”
“If that is a fact, it might account for the baronet being a comparatively poor man, then. What sort of style does this young Archie keep up?”
“From all that I hear, he makes a greater show than his uncle. He rents a flat in the Hyde Park district twice the rent of this, runs a Rolls-Royce and keeps a valet. I know his man, and he says it’s a ripping job. He’s as open-handed as his uncle is stingy. Gives jolly bachelor dinners sent in from outside to his own place, where they swim in champagne and the most expensive wines. Jenks, my friend, can take as many cigars as he likes, nothing is ever said; many a time I’ve cracked a bottle of young Archie’s best champagne when he’s been out of the way. Jenks says he’d give him one if he asked for it. When he goes for his holiday, he chucks him a tenner; he does the same at Christmas. He has no end of clothes which he never half wears out, and as soon as he tires of a suit he tosses it over to my friend. Oh, there’s some pretty little ‘picks’ there, I can tell you. If I was in the young man’s service, instead of in this old curmudgeon’s, I shouldn’t be looking out for a new place, you bet your life.”
“A gay young gentleman, evidently,” observed Lane, to whom all this information was intensely interesting.
“Rather! He spends money right and left. He’s got a lot of lady friends, many of them not too particular, married and single. He’s always buying handsome presents for them. His jeweller’s bills tot up
to a nice round sum, Jenks tells me. Besides that, he gambles a lot, but he doesn’t back horses much.”
“Then we have established one fact pretty clearly,” said the detective decisively. “If this young scapegrace has no money and his uncle is paying the piper, Sir George must, after all, be the wealthy man that popular report considers him.”
The door of the room in which they were sitting and holding this confidential conversation was partly open, and just as Lane had finished speaking, both men distinctly heard the sound of a key being inserted in the hall door
The valet swore wickedly under his breath, and sprang to his feet, his face white as chalk, his hands shaking.
“It’s Archie, I know his cat-like footstep. The old devil has left his key with him. He’s come after his letters, they won’t trust me with the address.”
Lane was disturbed too, he had not bargained for this sudden interruption, and Simmons looked so panic-stricken, being a whitelivered sort of fellow, that his looks were enough to hang him.
“Pull yourself together and leave as much as you can to me,” he whispered to the shaking valet. Then he strode across the room and pretended to be examining a picture while he awaited the entrance of Archibald Brookes.
CHAPTER XV
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
DISTURBED as he was at this untoward happening, and perhaps a little annoyed at his prophecy to the valet, that they ran practically no risk of interruption, having been falsified, Lane was compensated by the knowledge that he would have the opportunity of observing this young impostor at close quarters, and judging what manner of man he was. If Simmons’s account was correct, he did not resemble his supposed uncle in the more ungracious of his qualities.
Young Brookes came into the room and took in the situation at a glance. Sir George’s servant had taken advantage of his master’s absence to ask in an acquaintance; he knew the habits of that master too well to believe that there was any hospitality involved in the invitation. If that had been, or was about to be exercised, it would have to be at Simmons’s own expense.
He was an easy-going fellow in many ways, and there was nothing very heinous in such a proceeding. The man had been in the service of well-known people for many years, and had come to his present employer with a most excellent character He was also a very shrewd fellow and not likely to mix with undesirable associates, much less introduce one of them into a place which contained a good many valuable articles.
Probably he would have thought little of the incident but for signs of consternation on the valet’s panic-stricken face. Truth to tell, the unhappy man was so unstrung that he thought it must be as patent to Archie Brookes as it was to his own guilty conscience, that the two men had been engaged in a nefarious enterprise.
A look of suspicion gradually stole over the young man’s features, growing deeper as Simmons’s lips stammered forth a few confused
words which showed that the man’s mind was in a whirl and he hardly knew what he was saying.
“Good evening, Mr Archie; hardly expected you’d pop in. Sir George left early this morning for the country, didn’t say where he was going. A friend of mine, Mr. Cox, very fond of pictures, been in the line himself at one time, a dealer. I told him Sir George had a few very fine ones, thought he might like to have a peep at ’em. Hope you won’t think I’ve taken too great a liberty, sir.”
It was a desperate invention on the part of Simmons, this about the picture-dealing, not a very happy one, the detective thought. But the poor wretch was in too confused a state to think, and said the first thing that suggested itself to him. Archie Brookes looked from one to the other and he did not appear to be quite satisfied. Lane bore himself very well, and his conscience did not prick him in the least. He assumed the stolid demeanour of a man who has nothing to fear, an attitude to which his rather grave countenance lent strong support. If only this white-livered fellow could conceal his tremors, Archie Brookes would suspect nothing; but this was just what the unfortunate valet found it so difficult to do.
The young man favoured Lane with a very prolonged stare which the detective bore without flinching. He had made up his mind as to his course of action if things got troublesome, if young Mr. Brookes adopted a threatening attitude. He would disclaim the valet’s ingenious fiction about the picture-dealing, boldly proclaim who he was, admit he had made use of Simmons to learn what he could about his master, and tell the young gentleman himself he knew him for the impostor he was.
Still, he did not wish to push matters to extremes, to take a step which would put the two men on their guard. He would only do all this as a very last resource. Meanwhile, he would trust to diplomacy to get out of the awkward situation in which he had been placed by the valet’s extreme cowardice.
“So you are in the picture line, are you?” said Brookes at length; and Lane thought there was a slight sneer on the good-looking,
rather effeminate face, which the detective did not allow himself to be ruffled by.
“Was,” answered the other, backing up the valet’s mendacious statement so far. “Been out of it for many years, but still retain my old fondness for good stuff.” He spoke in his most stolid manner, assuming the rôle of a small tradesman quite successfully.
“And what might be your line now, pray?” The tone was just a trifle insolent. There was no doubt the young man could be a bit of a bully when he liked, and Lane was quite sure that the undeniably gentlemanly appearance was only veneer Sellars had told him that he was considered rather a bounder.
Lane had told one lie, in order to bolster up things; it would not hurt him very much to tell another.
“I’m in the furniture business now,” he exclaimed briefly
Young Brookes looked hard from one man to the other. He did not appear quite satisfied; on the other hand, he did not seem quite certain of the grounds on which he could express his suspicions.
“I shouldn’t think much of the thing in an ordinary kind of way,” he said in a hesitating voice. “‘When the cat’s away the mice will play,’ and of course servants have their friends in when their masters and mistresses are safely out of the road. I don’t say it isn’t all square and above-board, but Simmons here looks in such a devilish funk that one might be pardoned if one thought you had been burgling the place.”
What had crossed his mind was out at last. Lane drew himself up with a stolid air of offended dignity.
“I’m rather thinking you mean that as a kind of joke, sir. If I didn’t, I might remind you that there is such a thing as an action for defamation of character.” He delivered these words with a splendid air of outraged virtue which, he was pleased to observe, rather cowed the impetuous young man. “As my presence seems unwelcome, I will take the liberty of wishing you good evening, unless you would wish me to stay while you go through Sir George’s property to satisfy yourself that I haven’t helped myself to anything.”
It was a master stroke, a fine piece of bluff, and it had the effect intended. Lane was pretty certain he had taken a correct measure of the young man.
Young Mr. Brookes thought it wiser to temporize; he did not relish that nasty hint about defamation of character. Besides, there was nothing burglarious about Lane’s appearance. It would have been very difficult to say what he looked like. He was certainly not a common person, neither could you say that he gave you the impression of being a gentleman. With his clean-shaven face and rather grave expression you might perhaps have associated him with the theatrical profession.
“Oh yes, a joke of course, Mr. —— I didn’t quite catch the name Simmons gave me.”
“Cox,” hastily interposed the valet. Seeing that in consequence of the detective’s masterly attitude, things seemed to be taking a turn for the better, he was gradually regaining control of himself, his colour was coming back to his pale cheeks, and he was beginning to think coherently.
“Ah, Mr. Cox. I make no insinuations. But you must admit Simmons cut a devilish rum figure when I came in.”
It was all blowing over very nicely. Lane felt he could afford to unbend from his lofty attitude of outraged dignity. His smiled quite pleasantly and spoke in an almost jovial tone.
“No offence taken, sir, where none is intended. My friend Simmons is a very sensitive chap, I know. I suppose he felt he had been taking a bit of a liberty. If you should want me any time, my friend knows where to find me, at a little place where we sometimes take a little mild refreshment together. Good evening to you, sir. Bye-bye, Simmons; see you again soon, I dare say.”
And with these parting words Lane walked out, carrying with him the honours of war, and grateful that a decidedly awkward situation had ended so satisfactorily. He trusted that when the valet was left alone with young Brookes he would keep his head, and be wary in replying to any too searching questions which might be put to him.
But, as a matter of fact, as he learned subsequently, nothing awkward occurred. Archie Brookes had apparently recovered from his suspicions in the face of Lane’s manly and dignified attitude, and accepted the theory so adroitly put forward that the valet’s appearance of guilt was the outcome of a remarkably shrinking and sensitive nature.
All that night, Rosabelle could hardly get any sleep for thinking of that strange fragment of conversation between aunt and nephew which she had overheard in the afternoon. It was with great difficulty she kept herself from telling her lover, but she wanted to meditate well over the matter before confiding it to anyone.
She felt that if anybody ought to know it was her uncle; in fact, was it not almost her duty to tell him? On the other hand, she had a considerable affection for her aunt, and shrank from getting her into trouble. The relations between the two had been for years very close, and Mrs. Morrice had always shown her great kindness. Since the introduction of Archie Brookes there had been a certain diminution of affection on her aunt’s part, the new-comer had considerably ousted her.
But Rosabelle was a very fair-minded girl, and she did not resent that. There was no blood-tie between her and Mrs. Morrice. The husband and wife got on very comfortably together, but it was easy to see it was a very placid union, that their marriage had not been prompted by any great depth of feeling on either side, and there were no children to draw them closer together.
It was only natural, therefore, that she should welcome this young man so closely related to her, the son of a, probably, deeply loved sister On him she could expend that wealth of maternal feeling which, so far, had never been called into existence, but which resides in the heart of every good, womanly woman. Small wonder that Rosabelle, to a considerable extent, should have receded into
the background. Had she been in her aunt’s position, the same thing would most probably have occurred.
She had not told it to Dick, she shrank from telling it to her uncle; for the present she was disposed to keep it to herself. Under ordinary circumstances it would have seemed to her a tragedy of the first importance, that this good-looking young nephew was preying upon his aunt’s weakness or fondness for him, to such an extent that she had declared herself to be half ruined. But the greater tragedy of her lover lying under a horrible stigma absorbed all minor ones; she saw them, as it were, only in perspective.
The two things could not be in any way related, she felt pretty sure. And yet, as she lay in the darkness, pondering and pondering, suddenly there flashed across her the thought, coming almost with the force of an inspiration, that the detective ought to be told. He had especially impressed upon her at the beginning of their business connection, that she was to report to him any uncommon happening in the Morrice household, irrespective of whether or not it seemed to her of importance. What was troubling her now was certainly not a common or trivial thing.
To think was to act. If the knowledge were of benefit to him, he would use it as he thought fit—and after all, the greatest concern of her life at the moment was the restoration of her lover to his former honourable place in the regard of those who knew the real reason of his exile from her uncle’s house. And, if the knowledge was useless to him, she was quite sure of the man; he would never divulge it unless she gave him permission.
She was round at Lane’s office early the next morning. Mrs. Morrice had not appeared at breakfast, but Rosabelle noticed at dinner the night before, and afterwards when they were together in the drawing-room, that her manner had appeared anxious and preoccupied.
It could not be said of Lane at any time that he was a man whom you could read like an open book, but she was sure the information made a great impression on him. As was his custom after an
important communication had been made to him, he sat silent for some little time.
“And you have said nothing about this to your uncle, or Mr Croxton?” he asked at length. “I am so far the only person to whom you have revealed it?”
“Because I thought you ought to know,” answered the girl frankly. “My uncle ought to be told, I feel that, but I shrink from telling him; it might create an irreparable breach between them, and I should be very grieved to be the cause of it. I think, or rather I am sure, that my aunt has not the same affection for me that she had before the arrival of Archie, but that is only natural, and not a thing to be resented. She has always shown me unvarying kindness, and made my life in Deanery Street very happy. And you know, Mr. Lane, it is not every woman who would have done that in the circumstances. For my dear uncle has been always very demonstrative in his love for me, and it might have aroused the jealousy of a great many wives.”
What a sweet-natured, tolerant-minded girl she was, her listener thought. Then he said decisively: “Certainly Mr. Morrice ought to know. You would object to my telling him, I suppose?”
Yes, Rosabelle shrank from that. “It would come to the same thing, would it not? He would want to know where you got your information from, and you would have to tell him. I might as well do it myself. Besides, I expect he would be very angry with me for having told you at all. He is a very proud man in certain things.”
Yes, there was a good deal of shrewdness in that remark. He might be able to get through it without bringing her in, for he was a man of infinite resources, but although by no means scrupulous when driven to use subterfuge, he did not employ tortuous methods if it was possible to avoid them.
“Tell me, Miss Sheldon, what do you know of your aunt’s affairs? Has she money of her own?”
“I should say very little. I have more than once heard her jokingly allude to her ‘paltry income.’ But I know my uncle makes her a very
handsome allowance, although I don’t know the precise amount. And he is always making her presents of valuable and expensive jewellery.”
It was evident, by his serious look, that he was thinking very deeply. “That allowance, of course, he makes her for her own personal needs, and to maintain her proper position as the wife of a wealthy man. If he knew that she was diverting any, or a considerable portion, of this money to supplying this young man’s extravagant needs, you are of opinion he would be greatly incensed.”
“I am sure of it. He is peculiar in many ways, he abhors strongly anything in the nature of deceit. If she came to him openly and said she was going to give Archie money, he might remonstrate with her, actually forbid her, or take the view that it was her own and she could do what she wished with it. But he would never forgive her doing it clandestinely, I mean in large sums. He would think it a betrayal of the trust he had reposed in her.”
Lane’s brain was still working on the problem presented to him. Morrice, according to Rosabelle, made his wife a handsome allowance. That might be taken for granted. He had a wide reputation for generosity, and for pride’s sake he would be especially lavish to his wife. But what is a very ample allowance for a woman does not go far when constant drains are made upon it by a young man who lived in the style that Simmons had described when speaking of Archie Brookes.
“Have you noticed any diminution in Mrs. Morrice’s expenditure on herself since the arrival of this nephew on the scene, Miss Sheldon?”
Rosabelle gave her evidence very reluctantly, but it was right Lane should know the whole circumstances. From the very beginning, her aunt had appeared to curtail her personal expenditure. For the last twelve months, her economy in her own direction had been much more marked. It pointed to the fact that Archie had been draining her considerably.
Lane thought more than considerably That poignant exclamation that she had been half ruined suggested a good deal to him.
“I am going to ask you a rather peculiar question, Miss Sheldon. Are Mr. and Mrs. Morrice what might be described as a very devoted couple? You know what I mean, are they wrapt up in each other as some people are at their time of life when they have married solely for love?”
It was a peculiar question certainly; to Rosabelle it seemed rather an irrelevant one. But she was sure the detective never asked irrelevant questions. He had some good reason for putting this one, without doubt, and she would give him a perfectly candid answer.
“Why, no, it certainly would not be accurate to describe them as that. I am certain they have a great respect for each other, and a very quiet and placid affection. He is the soul of generosity and courtesy to her; she respects his wishes in everything. You see, he was devotedly in love with Mr. Croxton’s mother; he kept unmarried for years for her sake. A man cannot love twice like that, can he, Mr. Lane?” concluded Rosabelle artlessly.
The detective smiled kindly at the romantic girl. No doubt she was contrasting the placid affection between the Morrices, and her own ardent love for young Croxton and his for her. And no doubt she was sure, like all fervent souls, that when the years had silvered her hair and stolen the roses from her cheeks, love would burn as brightly as in the hey-day of their glorious youth.
“I am not a great expert in the tender passion, Miss Sheldon, but I am quite prepared to believe real love comes but once in a lifetime to either man or woman. Well, now, I am much obliged to you for telling me what you have done, and I am glad you told me. For the present we will keep it to ourselves. But I think you had better face the fact that, sooner or later, Mr. Morrice will have to be told by one of us.”
When the girl had left, Lane indulged in a long fit of meditation. Yes, Morrice had better know this at once. He could probably invent more than one plan by which Rosabelle could be kept out of it, even if he approached him directly. But Lane had gauged the financier
sufficiently to know that in some respects he was a very peculiar man. He might resent the detective’s interference in what he considered a purely private matter, and order him out of the house.
He would adopt a method which he had used more than once before when he did not wish to appear personally. He went to a small typewriter which he only used on special occasions; his usual one had a personality of its own which might be easily identified, for certain typewriting is sometimes as distinctive as handwriting.
He indited a brief epistle and addressed it to “Rupert Morrice, Esquire,” taking care to mark it “Private.” He would take it down to the City and post it there, thus avoiding the tell-tale West End postmark.
It was an anonymous letter, signed by “A Well-wisher.” “If that doesn’t stir him to some sort of action, we must think of something else,” so ran the reflections of this astute man. “It may precipitate an explosion, and amongst other things reveal to him that Mr. Archie Brookes is no more his wife’s nephew than I am.”
He walked away from the pillar-box in the City well pleased with himself. It could not be said that he felt any compunction with regard to Mrs. Morrice née Miss Lettice Larchester. She had, no doubt, married the man for his money, and was treating him very badly. But even if he had, his hand would not have been stayed in consequence. His first duty was to his clients.
CHAPTER XVI
AT SCOTLAND YARD
DISMISSING from his mind for the moment the incident which Rosabelle Sheldon had made a special visit to communicate to him—the anonymous letter would put in train the machinery for elucidating the real facts of that—there were two pressing problems that Lane was anxious to solve without any undue delay The one was the actual position of Sir George Clayton-Brookes. Was he a comparatively poor man, as his paying-in book went to prove; or a rich one, as his lavish expenditure in certain directions tended to show? The second problem was the real identity of the young man calling himself his nephew, and also passing as the nephew of Mrs. Morrice by the marriage of her sister to the brother of the mysterious baronet.
The latter of the two puzzles was in the capable hands of Sellars. Much would depend upon the result of that interview with the friend of Mrs. Morrice’s youth, Alma Buckley. And the result depended upon the woman herself. First of all, had she any knowledge of Lettice Larchester after they had parted company at the little village of Brinkstone sufficiently intimate to include the details of her life between that date and her marriage to the wealthy financier? If she knew them, was she too staunch a friend to the companion of her youth to satisfy the curiosity of a stranger, or could she be tempted to open her mouth by a bribe of sufficient magnitude. If she were a venal person she would, no doubt, require a considerable sum for any information she gave.
No large sums could be extracted from the meagre resources of Richard Croxton. Anxious as he appeared to clear himself, he could not be expected to reduce himself to penury for an investigation which might not lead to any clear evidence of his innocence. Even if Alma Buckley knew the real identity of Archie Brookes and sold the knowledge for an agreed sum of money, the fact of proving him an
impostor would not necessarily acquit Croxton of the suspicions resting upon him.
In that case the only person to whom application could be made would be Morrice himself. And that would entail immediate avowal of what Sellars had found out; and it might be that such an immediate avowal might be a little too precipitate for Lane’s plans. Anyway, in that direction he could do nothing till he knew the result of his lieutenant’s negotiations with this middle-aged actress.
The further investigations into the case of Sir George he was for the present keeping in his own hands. Later on he must tackle that of Archie Brookes, not as regards his antecedents, but his expenditure and the source of his income. Popular rumour credited Sir George with the financial support of his alleged nephew. Well, a certain light upon that portion of the problem had been thrown by Rosabelle’s statement of the conversation in her aunt’s boudoir which she had overheard.
It was evident, even from the little she had gathered, that money was the topic of that conversation; equally evident that Mrs. Morrice had contributed large sums to the young man’s support. But however generous her allowance, his supposed aunt could not alone maintain the burden of young Brookes’s lavish expenditure as detailed by Simmons, who had the information from a reliable source. He must have other resources, and the nature and extent of those resources must be discovered.
Lane felt he would like to discuss this matter in strict confidence with somebody as clever as himself. Sellars was very intelligent in his own way, had a wonderful nose for investigation when he was once put on the right track, when, to use a hunting metaphor, he had picked up the scent. But he lacked experience and he was not very imaginative—he had little faculty of anticipating facts, in contrast to Lane, who had moments of inspiration which guided him instinctively in a puzzling labyrinth.
Casting about in his mind for a helpful confidant, he thought at once of his old friend MacKenzie, who now occupied a prominent position at Scotland Yard. They had joined the Force together as
young men, had risen together, step by step, till separation came when Lane decided to set up for himself. Of the two, Lane was slightly the better man, owing to the particular streak of imagination —that frequency of inspiration to which allusion has been made. But MacKenzie was only slightly inferior; very sound, very painstaking, very logical.
There was perfect confidence between the two men. If MacKenzie wanted counsel or sometimes assistance from Lane, he applied to him without hesitation; and his friend as frequently availed himself of the shrewd Scotchman’s powers of analysis and deduction. There was nothing the two men enjoyed more than a long yarn over their experiences, to the accompaniment of a good cigar and a stimulating dose of sound whisky.
“Ah, glad to see you, my boy, it’s a little time since we met,” was MacKenzie’s greeting to his old friend and comrade, uttered in his rather broad Scotch, which need not be reproduced here. “We are rather quiet at the moment, nothing very exciting, just a few simple little things. I hope you have got something really worth taking trouble about.”
“I’ve got in hand one of the most remarkable cases I think I’ve ever had in my life,” was Lane’s reply, and he straightway plunged into a full recital of the Morrice mystery and the salient facts connected with it.
His friend listened with the deepest attention, and when it was finished the two men engaged in a long and animated discussion, exhausting the arguments for and against the various hypotheses that were thrown out first by the one and then by the other.
“Well, now, about this Clayton-Brookes,” said MacKenzie presently. “I think I can give you a little assistance. We’ve had him under observation since a little after you left us, and that’s a few years ago now.”
“Ah!” Lane drew a deep breath. He was glad that he had paid this visit to his old friend and wished that he had come sooner.
The Scotchman waved his big hand round his comfortable, roomy apartment. “I wouldn’t care to say it outside these four walls, and not to more than a few inside them, because we’ve nothing but very substantial conjecture, and up to the present we’ve not been able to lay a finger on him, he’s so devilish clever. But there’s no doubt he’s a ‘wrong ’un.’”
“Do you mean actually a crook?” queried Lane.
MacKenzie nodded his massive head. “Anyway, the friend of crooks; he’s been observed in some very queer company quite outside of his own proper beat, which we know is the West End and the fashionable clubs and a few smart and semi-smart houses. We know birds of a feather flock together, and men are known by the company they keep.”
So Sir George Clayton-Brookes, the elegant man-about-town, led a double life then—associating at one end of the scale with the fashionable and semi-fashionable denizens of the west, at the other with certain flashy members of the underworld.
MacKenzie proceeded to relate that their attention had been first attracted to him by a series of burglaries committed at certain country houses and hotels, from the owners of and visitors at which valuable jewellery and articles of plate had been stolen. At three of the houses in question he had actually been a guest at the time of the robberies, and with regard to the others, he had been a visitor a little time previously. The theory was that he took advantage of his opportunities to spy out the position of the land, to furnish the actual thieves with plans of the interior of the different mansions at which he had stayed, and give details of the jewellery belonging to the various guests. It was curious, to say the least, that robberies should occur, as it seemed, automatically either during his actual visits or very shortly after them.
Further evidence was afforded by the fact that he had frequently been observed in the company of certain high-class crooks who engineered and financed various criminal schemes, the practical working of which was left to subordinates.
Lane could not say he was surprised overmuch, he had long ago come to the conclusion that there was something very mysterious about this supposed man of wealth and substance, who could purchase a thousand pound car one day, and be scared out of his wits on another lest a cheque for a paltry thirty pounds should be dishonoured.
“But as I say,” concluded MacKenzie, “he’s as artful as a monkey, and we can’t get evidence enough to connect him with any one of the actual thefts. But there is the coincidence I have mentioned, and that’s evidence for us, although it wouldn’t do for a judge and jury.”
“And what about the young man—his supposed nephew?” asked Lane.
“Oh, we’ve had him under observation as well, and, of course, he must be mixed up with Sir George in some way or another, but we don’t think in these particular things. They see each other pretty nearly every day, but they appear to lead different lives. Young Brookes doesn’t go very much into the same sort of society; he doesn’t stay at country houses, seems on a bit lower plane than the baronet. But I’ve no doubt they run some little show of their own together.”
“Do you know anything about his antecedents before he came on the scene as Sir George’s nephew?”
“Yes, we know a bit. He was a clerk in a City warehouse before Sir George took him on. He was living then with a woman who had apparently brought him up from a child.”
“Do you know the name of the woman?” Lane felt he was on the track of something, but he was more than startled at the answer. “But of course, you would learn that.”
“Yes, she is a music-hall artist of a third or fourth-rate type, but pretty well known in the profession. She is called Alma Buckley.”
CHAPTER XVII
LANE VISITS RICHARD
A
LMA BUCKLEY, the friend of Lettice Larchester’s youth, the woman whom Sellars was proposing to interview at the earliest opportunity! Truly, the actors who had first played their parts with the small village of Brinkstone for their stage so many years ago, were apparently still in close connection. Well, Sellars must be apprised of this new development in the situation before he saw the music-hall artist; it would certainly strengthen his hand in case the lady proved obstinate.
Reviewing the position of affairs very carefully after his interview with his old friend MacKenzie, Lane came to the conclusion that the time had arrived when young Croxton ought to be told of what had been discovered so far. He was not quite sure that Morrice ought not also to be put in possession of the facts. But he was going to leave him to the last; it was rather a delicate matter having to tell him in cold blood that his wife, in conjunction with Sir George ClaytonBrookes, the mysterious baronet about whom he had made a very important discovery, was countenancing, from some motive, the rank imposture of young Archie Brookes.
He did not think it politic to be too frank with Rosabelle, sweet and sensible as she was, much as he liked her personally. She was young and inexperienced, romantically and passionately in love, and, he thought, a little inclined to be rash and impulsive. She might find it impossible to keep her own counsel, and blurt out what she knew in quarters where he least wanted anything to be known.
Up to the present he had not seen Richard in the affair, although he was actually employed by him, all the negotiations having been conducted through Rosabelle, owing to a certain sensitiveness on the young man’s part. This was naturally accounted for by the fact of the very damaging evidence against him. He could not help feeling in
his heart that, although it was the detective’s business to prove his innocence, he must from the nature of the circumstances start with a very strong presumption of his guilt. Moreover, he might think it a piece of rather audacious bluff on the young man’s part, designed to throw dust in the eyes of Morrice, from whom he knew he was quite safe so far as criminal proceedings were concerned.
When therefore Lane walked into the little parlour of the cottage at Petersham the day after the interview at Scotland Yard with MacKenzie, after having apprised Croxton by a telegram that he was coming to see him, the young man received him with a certain embarrassment.
The detective went to the point at once. “I thought it was about time we met, Mr. Croxton,” he began. When Lane had once made up his mind that the time had arrived for abandoning his usual reticence, he did so whole-heartedly. And his manner to-day was perfectly cordial, the more especially as he perceived Richard’s embarrassment, and, of course, was shrewd enough to divine the cause of it.
As briefly as he could, and with admirable lucidity, he narrated to his attentive listener all the things that had come to light since he had taken up the investigation; the brief history of Mrs. Morrice’s life in the little village of Brinkstone where she had made the acquaintance of Archibald Brookes the elder, and no doubt that of the two other brothers, Charles and the present Sir George; her close friendship for a few months with Alma Buckley; the discovery from perfectly reliable evidence that young Archie Brookes was neither Sir George’s nephew nor her own, although it served their purpose to pass him off as such; the admission by Mr. Morrice that he had lost or mislaid the original memorandum containing a full description of the mechanism of the safe; the fact that Archie Brookes had been brought up by the woman Alma Buckley, and had, previously to his adoption by Sir George, been engaged in a humble mercantile occupation.
There were a few things he did not mention, one of them being the fact that Sir George was suspected at Scotland Yard of being
