%0 Journal Article
%T Wine and power. A spatial and stratigraphical study of the pottery and glass assemblages from the wine cellar in Bergen, Norway
%A Christine T£¿ssebro
%J Historische Arch£¿ologie
%D 2013
%I Kiel University
%X In the centre of medieval Bergen lies the ruin of a stone building that contained the medieval town hall, the court room, prison cells and the Wine Cellar with the communal taproom. The building was constructed around 1300. In the Wine Cellar, the city council and later the Hanseatic kontor had royal monopoly on the small-scale wine sale in the town and received profits. This building complex is strongly related to a larger North European urbanization process, and cultural impulses brought to Bergen by German traders and craftsmen of the Hanseatic League. The aim of this article is to present a spatial and stratigraphic analysis of the archaeological material, more specifically the pottery and glass assemblages, recovered in the taproom of the Wine Cellar (room 1). I also try to assess this institution into a social context and address questions related to the link between wine, power and social distinctions in late medieval and early modern urban society. The stratigraphy shows that room 1 was sub-divided into smaller rooms, and the distribution of the archaeological material indicates that the different rooms had different functions and use, possibly related to the consumption of different kinds of alcoholic beverages and to social distinctions. This concept is also known from other contemporary wine cellars in the North German area like in L¨¹beck and Bremen, and puts this building and institution into a larger North European network that is related to the appearance of a new social elite in the growing towns.
%K Medieval Bergen
%K Hanse
%K Wine cellar
%K Historical Archaeology
%K Konsumforschung
%U http://www.histarch.uni-kiel.de/2012_Toessebro_high.pdf