Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)
Axel Sttensberg: Predecessors of the Chimney
were not visible near the opposite edge. Apparently only the part near to the edge facing the median line of the house had been severely affected, and two rather big flakes had split off so that they stood almost upright facing the stone from where they were split. I has some of the material analyzed by the Geological Institute, which proved that the dissolution of the surface structure was due to firing. The next step in my research was to look for oral tradition and written sources that might explain this phenomenon. In this connection I remembered that according to my father there had been a similar large flat stone serving as a hearth at the base of the chimney in our old family farm of “Steensberg” in Sinding parish, West Jutland. The renowned folklorist H. F. F e i 1 b e r g mentions such fireplacestones in his Dictionaty of the Jutish Dialects (Ordbog over det jyske almuesmàl) vol. I, Copenhagen 1886-93, under the dialectal term: brânjstijen. At Holmsland north of Ringkjobing Fiord this term was synonymous with ante (a derivation of L. ara), i.e. fireplace. Professor Peter Skautrup of Aarhus University, who was the great scholar in Jutland dialects, furnished me with information on the use of brandsten and its later transformation into brandsted. And another specialist in West Jutland dialectes, the late director of Herning Museum, Dr. H. P. Hansen, mentioned that the two terms “arnesten” (ânstijen) and “skorstensarne” (skâstinsâ.n) were old terms for the flat stone on which one could prepare the food and even bake flat bread. But the expression brandsten was an official term already in Medieval times inside the Danish realm. In the Scania- Law codified between 1202 and 1216, chapter 241, it is said about the tenant’s obligation to pay his dues that if he has placed it upon his lords brandsten, it has been properly paid. The dues were of course mostly paid in grain, and the fireplace was not only the hearth of the house, but in a more spiritual sense even the “heart” of the house. It was a sacred place, and this is why it was also named arne (from L. ara = altar). In a later text III of the Scania-Law the term had, however, already changed into brandsted, which only means “fireplace”—as it had in some regions of Jutland mentioned above. However, according to the late Professor John Granlund of Stockholm in the account book of the Monastery of Vadstena in Sweden for about 1400, a bricklayer was told to repair the brandsten of the cooking house and in other places where it would be necessary. In the Gotland Law, however, the term skurstain (= G. Schornstein, E. chimney) was used synonymously with the former designation. According to the Etymological Dictionary of Falck and Torp the term skorsten would be a derivation of Medieval Low-German: scorenstein, and schore was a kind of pillar or butteress, related to Old Norse: skorda, a pillar which supports something. In the present connection it seems more likely that originally it had the same meaning as arne = ara, because in some Romanesque churches of Denmark the altar uses to consist of one large stone, the top of which was flat, and in this flat surface was cut a small square box for the relics of the Saint to whom the church was consecrated. This altar was supported by upright stones. The brandsten of the Demesne Farm No. 4 of Borup and of the living house of Fig. 2. A hearth stone, 1.60 m long and 1.30 m wide was placed in the Demesne Farm No. 4 of Borup Village, existing from c. 1,000 to 1,200 A. D. In front to the left is a shallow pit filled with charcoal where glowing embers could be kept alive overnight and in which fiat bread could be baked. Ax. S. del. No. 5 were of course not supported by upright stones, but they lay flat on the floor like the large stone in the bottom of the old chimney at “Steensberg”-Farm in Jutland. Nevertheless, they could just as well be called arne = altar as brandsten = burned-stone, and this is in the present author’s opinion the true connection between the open hearth on the floor of Danish peasant farms and the chimneys of Early Modern Times in Denmark. Smoke-Ovens (regovne) in Zealand and Scandinavia In the village of Borup there proved to be quite a small sample-collection of shapes or types of Scandinavian fireplaces, but the datings of these types defies any attempt to reconstruct a progressive line of development ! CLAY TOP Fig. 3. In Farm No. 3 of Borup Village was found remains of an upright Smoke-Oven or a kind of cheminée. The house was built from upright oak planks in the socalled “Stave construction”, similar to the early medieval Greensted church N E of London. The Smoke Oven had stood near the S W corner of the house, its back being the south wall of the house. Two short sidewalls embraced the hearth and in front was a charcoal pit dated to c. 700 A. D. The cracks and crevices between the uprights were tightened by fire-proofings of clay, the lower part of which were burned red and well preserved. From these pieces the fashion of the construction could be stated. Some of them had “prints” or impressions of the women’s fingers that had pressed them into place. Ax. S. del. 79
