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The summer of 1198 is called the «Bjørgvin summer». This year there were several conflicts and fights between the two political rivals called “ Birkebeinerne”” and “Baglerne”which both wanted to control the city of Bjørgvin (Bergen). On August 10, 1198, “Baglerne” were chased from the city, but the same night they returned, led by Bishop Nikolas Arnesson and sat fire to the city. From the ships there where arrows fired at anyone who tried to extinguish the flames… In this story we imagine what it was like to experience attacks and fire in the medieval city of Bjørgvin ,in a summer night over 8oo hundred years ago. What was it like to leave all belongings behind and flee for one’s life? And what means were there to extinguish the fire, besides calling upon the city’s patron saint; St. Sunniva …?
It is the day after the fire on August 11, 1198. Almost the entire city is burnt down. Everything is lost, but the sound of hammering spreads quickly. A new city is already rising from the ashes. The old buildings are levelled to the ground and pushed outward, into to the seafront, creating new land. No one will stop Bjørgvin from growing. For as it is written … Amor omnia vincit… love conquers all! Bergen has experienced more than 30 big fires throughout the city’s nearly thousand-year-old history, and in this story we imagine what it was like to wake up to a city that no longer existed…
A large amount of rune sticks was found at the excavation site. The messages that are carved into the sticks are many and diverse and give insight into the everyday life of the medieval people in Bjørgvin. One of the sticks tells; « Gyda says you should go home». Who was this Gyda and who got the stick? Well, that we do not know, but we have allowed ourselves to play with the idea about what happened when the stick was handed over one evening in the early 13th century …and what the undecipherable runes on the backside of the stick might mean…
On the way to the market, Ragnhild loses her mother’s comb.
A lot of combs were found during the Bryggen excavations. Combs were an important part of daily life in the medieval Bjørgvin. They were made of bone or horn, usually from local animals, but there is also found one a comb made of ivory. The combs were in daily use, and in our story, we meet a family who is getting ready to go to the market. But before they leave, mom must comb her hair …
Several dice and playing pieces have been found at Bryggen. Games were an important part of leisure in the Middle Ages and one can imagine that King Magnus the Lawmender’s ban on dice games in the year 1276 were not popular. The law came as a consequence of the fact that several people had settled into large debts and played off farm and land. The ban was part of the new city law, which regulated the city and the life of its residents in a whole new way, and provide a fascinating insight into the everyday life of the Middle Ages. We do not know who owned the dice found here, but we play with the idea that they may have been hidden because of the ban…
In the first centuries of the Bjørgvin existence, the city was concentrated on the Bryggen side, while the ridge on the other side belonged to the monasteries and the cows … This story tells of a little boy and his sword – an old and well-used loom-knife that he perhaps got from his mother. On one side of the “sword “ there is a runic inscription, which is later corrected on the other side. We do not know the background for the text, but maybe it’s all a joke from a big brother? A joke the little boy got offended by, making him run away, all the way out of town, across the bay and up to the fields above St. John’s Priory?
