Industry and Resources


Metal - Forests - Water - Farming - Environmental Impacts - Bibliography


Metal

Metal was the most important raw material in medieval Bohemia. Used to produce all sorts of everyday items from ploughs, horseshoes and scythes to pots and tools, it was also used in the skillful creation of luxury items and was the essential component of coinage. The Bohemian mountains were particularly rich in metals, especially in silver. Silver production during the reign of Charles I comprised 1/3rd of the entire European silver yield. Ore, gold, tin, lead and copper were also mined in Bohemia during the medieval period.

The early Slavs in the Bohemian region produced ores and gold. They mined iron ore in Hyksov near Beroun, where a furnace and ore crushing mill have been excavated. They also washed gold in southen Bohemia on the Otava.

The transition to a monetary economy required the development of precious metals mining and coinage production. Wood was essential for mines timbering, goldsmiths’ workshops and for crafts which used wood or charcoal. Around the mining towns, all this use caused catastrophic deforestation. For example, the forests surrounding Kutna Hora (C^aslava district) were so diminished by the demands of mining that by the first half of the fourteenth century, they could not provide adequate wood for mines and charring centers. Wood had to be transported from forests far afield to the mining towns to continue production.

Gothic Precious Metals Sites
1st half of the 13th century Jihlava was the most famous source of silver.
2nd half of the 13th century the silver mines of Kutna Hora became the most productive source of silver, leading to the development of a magnificent city and monopolies on coin mintage.
There were significant gold mines in Ji’love’ and Kni’n, and gold washing in the central Vltava region (near Davle and Kli’nec), the Otava region, and Pi’sek. The gold washing fields with their man-made rivers and water drains are still visible today.
Silver and Ore was mined C^eske’ Bude^jovice.

In the first half of the 17th century, Pavel Stra’nsky made up the first list of mining areas in Bohemia.

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Forests

Forests contained primarily oak, hornbeam, and beech trees, but also birch and evergreens. They were used for pasture, hunting, beekeeping, ore mining, pile charring, beekeeping and the gathering of forest products such as fruit and game. Forests were also crucial in the defense of the land. Felled trees could block the road taken by an invading army, and the surrounding forest would slow any circumvention of the blockade. Medieval monarchs were all too aware of the forest’s importance in this respect, and issued numerous decrees to prevent the deforestation of defensive mountain forests.

Wood was the second most important raw material for the production of everyday items. Households, workshops, and hospitals all required timber and wood for their construction, operation, and heating. Prague, the active and ever-expanding urban centre, showed the highest consumption of wood. It was the material for country houses and farmsteads, firewood for heating houses and workshops, was used for vineyards and hopyards, for timbering in mines and for the firing of pottery and for the production of glass and metal artefacts.

Wood was transported much the way it is today, as raw tree trunks bound into rafts and taken by rafters along water courses. The Vltava, Otava, Berounka, and Sa’zava rivers were some of the main routes that wood travelled on its way to the mines and towns that needed it. Because of its essential character in the production of money and economic expansion, the kings granted special rights to towns including exemptions from customs charges, the construction of gates on the rivers, and special licenses to sell timber. The royal towns which took part in wood transportation were:

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Water and Water Rights

I order that all estates and towns build ponds to hold fish for people’s food and to drain water from swampy ground and dead water areas for water to be evaporated efficiently by the sun and warm winds which would positively affect the surrounding plants. A pond also retains water in the periods of long rains or in the spring thaw and prevents vast floods in the land situated below. (King Charles IV, 1356, quoted in Bohac.)

As can be seen by the above quote, the medieval people were well aware of the environmental necessities of water sources. Actively involved with altering their environment to provide more living space, Bohemians both destroyed and built ecosystems. Water, the third basic natural resource, was an important income source for nobles and townspeople. Watercourses were the property of princes and later became a part of the barons’ holdings. Ferries were operated under a special licence granted by the ruling lord. Ferry facilities were at the ferryman’s house or part of the roadside inn and mill. Manmade ponds operated as medieval fish farms, breeding carp and pike for sale at market. Tolls on fords, ferries, and bridges all contributed to baronial coffers as they transported people and materials across Bohemia and East Central Europe.

The right to alter, redirect, or block water courses was a special water right granted to mills. Until the 11th century, most grinding of grain was done at home with a hand mill. Increasingly from the 11th century onwards, communal watermills and windmills were increasingly used. Peasants received milling orders advising them of the location of their mill. The local mill had a monopoly on local peasant’s grains and was leased from the lord. Through the imposition of production quotas, the lord was guaranteed a minimum income from his peasants.

From the 1250s onwards, water power was also utilized in mining for crushing ore, and in metallurgy, woodworking (sawmills), textiles (fulling mills), and crushing bark for tanneries (stamp mills). A mill’s output is dependent on the gradient of water, and its capacity was determined by its use of water. Mill systems with overshot wheels were build on brooks with sufficient water pressure, but the construction of mill races altered the character of the brook. On rivers, a dam (weir) was often constructed to increase the water level, and often more than one undershot wheel would be used. In 1340, the Miller’s Guild was established to judge the violation of water regulations and to protect sluice and weir height rules.
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Farming

Bohemia benefitted from the agrarian revolution as did the rest of Europe, and adopted the three-field rotation system, manuring, heavy metal plough and harrow, and introduction of harness and horseshoes. Crops were not an export, rather were a solely local commodity.

In Northeastern Bohemia the drying winds made it impossible to grow maize.
Southeastern Bohemia had cold and rainy springs and dry autumns which facilitated high wheat yields.

Until the 6th century, wild einjom and wild emmer were the staple grains. Development of higher yield species of wheat replaced these wild varieties. In 6th-7th century Brezno, wheat, rye, barley, oats and millet were all cultivated. Pulses, peas, lentil, hemp and even plum trees have all left archaeological evidence behind at this site.

By the ninth century, millet and wheat were the most important cultivars, followed in rank by rye, oats, barley, peas, vetches, hemp, and flax. We know that the early medieval Czechs also grew lentils, cucumbers, peaches, plums, and walnuts.

Although the gathering of grapes and hops was common from the ninth century, these plants were not cultivated until the 13th century. Hops especially became an important crop, as beer was the standard drink with meals in Bohemia.
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Environmental Impacts of Industry

Mining, charring, and increased use of forest routes caused minor disturbances among the animal populations, but the most immediate effects of medieval industry came as a result of the intense deforestation. The severe reduction of the Bohemian forests during the early middle ages caused a thermal difference increase (hot days and cold nights, faster melting of snow). Deforested land is also open to dry winds. The destruction of the forests in the highlands and the drying of peat-bogs in the lowlands created new areas for settlement. With the forests, however, went ancient water reservoirs. Instead of storing water in the forest soil, rain simply washed down into riverbeds.

Spring floods devastated communities, as ice piled on the main river beds and redirected rivers onto the plains. Summer floods washed away hay and crops, and carried away timber from their rafts, covered fields and even villages. The most dangerous of these floods occurred at junctions of major rivers, at the Berounka and the Vltava, the Elbe/Cidlina/Jizera, and the Vltava and Ohr^e. Floods also affected settlements near the Mz^e, Elbe, and the Moravian river basins of the Morava and the Dyje. Late medieval spring and summer floods damaged Donic^ka and Semilkovice (at the Vltava/Elbe junction)

The effects of deforestation were not as catastrophic in the higher altitudes, but they could still be felt. As meadows and peat bogs were drained, natural water springs disappeared and both settlements and fields were deprived of a water source. In the 15th and 16th century, the barren fields and social ferment led to the desertion of many communities. The fields of deserted villages devolved back to feudal lords or simply were covered by growth.
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Bibliography

Bohac, Z. “Historical-Ecological Aspects of the Bohemian Feudal State Economy,” Historical Ecology. Vol 1 (1998) pp 24-25 with Maps.

Gojda, Martin. The Ancient Slavs: Settlement and Society. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1991.

Sayer, Derek. The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History. Alena Sayer, Tr. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1998.

Sedlar, Jean W. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500. University of Washington Press.

Va’na, Zdene^k. The World of the Ancient Slavs. Artia, Prague 1983.


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