Meet the Middle Ages
BackThe Church
The church was the most important building of the parish. People would come there at least once a week, to meet and to hear the latest news. The medieval churches in Aspeland were rather small and made of wood. In Tveta there is a medieval stone-church which was built at the beginning of the 13th century.
On the church wall, drawings of two medieval cogs have been scratched in the plaster. Why is there a picture of these large merchant ships on the church wall in Tveta? Had somebody been to the ports of Figeholm or Kalmar and seen these ships in the harbour ?
The peasants of Aspeland would have met black-friars from the monastery in Kalmar. The friars came in pairs to preach in the country-side. They were called black-friars because they wore black habits. They would preach in church or out of doors, but they also brought news from Kalmar and from the rest of the world. The friars would tell about new kinds of food, new spices and new ways to farm the land. They also helped the peasants to write important documents, such as deeds or wills. When the peasants came to Kalmar, they could stay at the monastery. The black-friars had lodgings where travellers could spend the night.
The land and property owned by St. Birgitta, was later acquired by the convent she founded, the convent of Vadstena. The convent sent a bailiff to collect taxes, perhaps to negotiate and write new deeds and to keep an eye on how the farms were managed. Some peasants may, from time to time, have visited the convent.