Meet the Middle Ages
BackThe Church
The church was the most important building of the parish. People would come there once a week, to meet and to hear the latest news. The medieval churches of Handbörd were all quite small and built of wood. None of these churches have survived.
Many of the Handbörd and Stranda peasants rented their farms from a convent. The convent at Vadstena owned 40 farms in Handbörd and about ten in Stranda. Kalmar nunnery also owned about ten farms in Handbörd.
The peasants would have met black-friars from the monastery in Kalmar. They 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 travelled to Kalmar, they could stay at the convent. The black-friars had lodgings where travellers could spend the night.