Vantar av läder från det svenska örlogsskeppet Vasa 1628 : Arbete och materiell kultur i en maritim kontext

The collections of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Sweden not only include the world’s only complete 17th century warship, the famous Vasa who sank on her maiden voyage outside Stockholm in the summer of 1628, but also a unique and extensive collection of dress artifacts, fragments from clothes in textile and leather recovered during the excavation of the ship. This study aims to present historical narratives about the labour, knowledge of craft and everyday life of the ship’s crew by analysing leather mittens and other types of artifacts related to the work on board as material culture, aided by early modern Dutch depictions in art showing work being done on large ships contemporary with Vasa. Two types of leather mittens in the Vasa museum’s collections have been identified as having parallels in similar mittens also from maritime context. These mittens are further investigated regarding the mystery of their making and specific traces of use. The results indicate that some of the mittens could potentially be of a particular Dutch style or origin, perhaps worn as a fashion statement among Dutch sailors. Other mittens of an unusually dark and heavy leather bear the signs of hard labour and work with scolding hot pitch and tar from caulking wooden ships. These mittens are also characterised by an economic model of cutting the leather that may connect them with the making of simple leather shoes found on Vasa, as the left-over material for one is highly suitable for the other. Both types of mittens reveal something about the sailor’s life before they enlisted on Vasa and prove that mittens could have distinct functions within the spectra of labour in a maritime context.Most importantly the results of this study suggest that the crowns attempt to force professional practitioners of craft to move from the countryside into the cities in the early 1600’s are not only connected to the development of guilds for leatherworkers in Stockholm, but also to the navy’s need for sailors and the general lack of leather in Sweden during the ongoing war. The presence of tools and material for leathercraft as a common find category among the crew's personal belongings can be regarded together with knowledge of craft culture in the countryside in the areas where boatmen were drafted can point out skinners and cobblers in the Finish coastal regions and countryside as craftsmen who both have knowledge of leathercraftneeded for making both mittens an simple shoes as found on Vasa. These groups of poor leatherworkers were among those targeted by discharges to the navy. Leather mittens interpreted as material culture are found to be consistent with the idea that individuals with a background as Finnish leatherworkers on the countryside may have ended up as sailors on the Swedish warship Vasa.

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