Identifying and Situating the Medieval Ragundaskogen: A Tale of Forest, Fish and Farmers

Abstract: In several medieval written sources an area called Ragundaskogen (Eng: Ragunda Forest) is documented in eastern Jämtland. The references in the sources are general and lack specific information about location, meaning and the extent of this area. This thesis uses a theoretical framework based on niche construction and a method employing written sources, place names and archaeological remains to better understand the medieval concept of the Ragunda Forest. The study will reconstruct and discuss the area’s geography, but also provide insight into the people who lived there, their relationships with each other and places in the landscape, as well as their relationship to the church in Uppsala and the monarchy in Norway. The Ragunda Forest was a niche in a border area and during certain periods seems to have had a certain form of independence. The Middle Ages are a period characterised by a series of crises due to climate change and diseases such as the plague. The Ragunda Forest will be used as a background to discuss how the medieval population and landscapes were affected. The thesis suggests that interdisciplinary studies of delimited and local landscape spaces are an effective method for better understanding historical human-environment relations.