Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 7. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1991)

HOFFMANN TAMÁS: Az épületfa, az erdő hasznosítása, sőt irtása az Alpoktól északra

THE UTILIZATION OF TIMBER AND WOODS, EVEN DEFORESTATION, TO THE NORTH OF THE ALPS About one third of the continent of Europe is still under wood. This proportion was much higher in the past millennia. During the last two thousand years almost half of the forests were eradicated. Destruction is the most conspicuous in Mediterranean Europe, the least significant in the east and north, whereas north of the Alps (where deciduous trees, mainly oak dominate) its extent is moderate. It is the increase of cultivated areas, i. e. the extension of plough-lands, and the pressure of population itself that account for what happened. Our attention is drawn to two points of climax. The first period of cutting down forests was in the Middle Ages (10th to 14th centuries) when the number of settlements grew by leaps and bounds, and the second on the eve of the Industrial Revolution ( 17th18th centuries) when the trees of woods were burnt to meet the energy require ments of the various branches of industry. Trees on the average take the time of three human generations to reach the size of timber fit for use in the supporting frame of a house. Timber, therefore can only be gained from forests that are thinned for generations and where they let the trees singled out for architectural purposes grow. Logging however became, with the territory under wood diminishing, a branch of industry for the backward wooded regions. Hardwod-yielding varieties were replaced by fast-growing firs, and undressed timber was floated down-river to places of destination for turning into beams and use. This process began in the Middle Ages and reached its peak in the last two to three centuries. Although, besides building operations, the demand of shipwrights also account for the fall of many trees and forests, the main reason of deforestation remains the forced extension of plough-lands. Whether it was done by setting fire to the trees, i. e. using the method of clearing by burning, cannot be definitely established in lack of sufficient evidence. This method has only been described as used on our continent where the nutritive power of the hungry soils under coniferous woods had to be improved by the addition of the ash of the trees. Whatever the case was, in the 16th century strict forestry laws were introduced everywhere north of the Alps, and the landowners used all kinds of means to exclude peasants from the rights of the common use of forests. It is undeniable that changes in the forest stands did not only result from human interference but also from climatic fluctuations in the periods of which a transformation of the composition of species and varieties can be observed. These periods did not only affect the history of the flora but also that of the fauna and, through them, hacj a significant effect on the fate of Man. The waves that came one after the other (and were crossed by the transformation of the environment by the human population engaged in the creation of cultivated areas) changed hydrography and the state of the forests, the generic composition of trees. In spite of all this the tools of timber processing, and carpentry itself, have proved fairly conservative from the point of view of the history of technology. The axe (replaced in the Iron Age, then in the Middle Ages by the carpenter's hatchet), the wedge, chisel and mallet are tools used since iron became of general use, completed by the workbench and the carpenter's drawing knife. Although the various saws (including the framed saw of the Romans) and the plane, in use for about two thousand years, were well-known, were scarcely used. Besides carpenters, the coopers, and the peasants making tools, stuck at the level of rural cottage industry, were the ones who mainly preserved this technology. The typology of the supporting structures (made of beams joined together) of buildings well shows the successful efforts for the economical use of wood. The most important step was the replacement of log walls with timber framed ones, which took place north of the Alps in the centuries of the Middle Ages. E. g. wooden churches were only made with solid log walls in East-Central Europe and North-Europe as of the 16th century. West of the river Elbe "Fachwerk", brick and stone (a trend proceeding northwards from the south) took the place of the log. The development of non-religious architecture took the same direction in the towns. The types of peasant houses reflecting the building experiences that had accumulated in the towns spread all over the country after the fall of the Middle Ages. Even the trussings show a proportion of 2/3 to 1/3 between material consumption and worktime input, which was only reversed by the end of the Middle Ages. Perhaps this was the heritage that determined the universe of forms in folk architecture.