The limits of honor and dishonor, order and disorder, and theirs and ours were negotiated in the early modern nighttime streets. These cultural negotiations are approached here from the viewpoint of one particular street fight in the seventeenth-century town of Turku in the province of Finland, in the kingdom of Sweden. The drunken, out-of-control fight included both ritualistic forms of a masculine street fight and uncontrolled rage as well as a territorial contest over urban space. The material form of the street as well as the time of the day added their own influences. The nighttime street emerges as a place of metaphorical and physical boundaries, where open and closed, shared and private, and controlled and suppressed were defined. The aim of the article is to see urban space as something more than just a neutral site of actions and practices or a mere network of social interactions without clear material referents.
The names in this article are used as they are used in the primary records, where the student is referred to by his first name, Isaacus, and the trader by his last name, Bruun. City Archives, Turku, town court records, May 11, 1642.
2.
See, e.g., Julius R. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2001), 118—21, 126; Olli Matikainen, Verenperijät. väkivalta ja yhteisön murros itäisessä Suomessa 1500- Ja 1600-luvulla (Helsinki, 2002), 42, 76, 86; Michael Frank, “Satan's Servant or Authorities' Agent?,” in Beat Kumin and B. Ann, eds., The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, UK, 2002), 55; B. Ann Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany (Charlottesville, 2001), 127—28; and Arne Jansson, From Swords to Sorrow: Homicide and Suicide in Early Modern Stockholm (Stockholm, Sweden, 1998), 1, 75.
3.
Daniel Brewer , “Lights in Space,” Eighteenth-Century Studies37 ( 2004): 174.
4.
Anu Korhonen and Kirsi Tuohela, “ Introduction: Decoding Chronologies,” in Anu Korhonen and Kirsi Tuohela, eds., Time Frames: Negotiating CulturalHistory (Turku, 2002), 9.
5.
Brewer, “Lights in Space,” 174—75.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Although Turku was a Swedish town in many respects, you can talk here about Finnish culture. The province of Finland was separated from the rest of Sweden by its own language. Even in the town of Turku, where Swedish was a dominant language, the church, for example, was more full for Finnish-language services than for Swedish services. The Finns were also described as backward, e.g., by bishops, and they were in other ways separated as a single entity—if not a cultural one, at least a geographical and linguistic one.
8.
Robert Scribner, “ Symbolic Boundaries: Defining Social Space in the Daily Life of Early Modern Germany,” in Gertrud Blaschitz, Helmut Hundsbichler, Gerhard Jaritz, and Elisabeth Vavra, eds., Symbole Des Alltags—Alltag der Symbole. Festchrift Für Harry Kühnel Zum 65. Geburtstag (Graz, Austria, 1992), 839—40.
9.
See Peter Arnade , Martha C. Howell, and Walter Simons, “Fertile Spaces: The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History32 (2002): 516.
10.
Petri Karonen, Pohjoinen suurvalta. Ruotsi Ja Suomi 1521—1809 ( Porvoo, Finland, 1999), 38—39; Anni Kallio, Räätälimestari yhteisönsä jäsenenä Turussa vuosina 1625—65 (Jyväskylä , Finland, 2000), 19; and Raimo Ranta, Turun kaupungin historia 1600—1721 (Turku, Finland, 1975), 145—50.
11.
Quoted in Sven Lilja , “Small Towns in the Periphery: Population and Economy of Small Towns in Sweden and Finland during the Early Modern Period ,” in Peter Clark, ed., Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1995), 50.
12.
Ibid., 50—51.
13.
Juhani Kostet , “Turun asemakaavallinen kehitys keskiajalta vuoden 1827 suurpaloon,” Turun nimistö1 (1996): 29, 37.
14.
Ruff, Violence , 160—63; Graig Koslofsky, “Court Culture and Street Lighting in Seventeenth-Century Europe,” Journal of Urban History26 (2002): 759, 755; Norbert Schindler, Rebellion, Community, and Custom in Early Modern Germany, trans. Pamela E. Selwyn (Cambridge, 2002), 202, 209; and Kustaa H.J. Vilkuna, “ Alkoholin nauttimispaikka, juopottelijat ja juomisen ajankohta 1500—1700-luvun Suomessa,” in Heikki Pitkänen and Roiko-Jokela Timo, eds., Sisä-Suomen tuomiokirjat tutkimuslähteinä ja elämän kuvaajina (Jyväskylä , Finland, 1995), 255.
15.
Terhi Nallinmaa-Luoto , Ylioppilaiden ja kaupunkilaisten suhteet Turun vanhan Akatemian alkuaikoina (Turku, Finland, 1973), 70; and Vilkuna, “ Alkoholin nauttimispaikka,” 255, 290.
16.
Town court records, May 11, 1642.
17.
Ibid.
18.
Ibid.
19.
Ibid. Later, in June, Bruun escaped from the city jail. It forever remained a mystery to the authorities how he could have escaped with shackles around his ankles. Later, he managed to get word to his mother that he had safely escaped in a ship and had arrived in England. Town court records, June 13, 1642; July 4, 1642; July 13, 1642; November 5, 1642; March 16, 1643; and April 11, 1643.
20.
Jansson, From Swords to Sorrow, 89.
21.
Samling Utaf Kongl. Bref/Stagdar Och Förordningar Ec. Angående Swerige Rikes Commerce, Politie Och Oeconomie Uti Gemen/Uppå Hans Kongl. Maj:Ts Nådigesta Befallning (Stockholm, Sweden, 1750).
22.
E.g., town court records, July 9, 1632; November 3, 1632; March 2, 1642; March 7, 1642; February 19, 1653; May 17, 1653; July 1, 1653; January 12, 1663.
23.
Heikki Ylikangas, “What Happened to Violence? An Analysis of the Development of Violence from Mediaeval Times to the Early Modern Era Based on Finnish Source Material,” in Mirkka Lappalainen, ed., Five Centuries of Violence in Finland and the Baltic Area (Helsinki, 1998), 15, 96, 105—6, 109; Heikki Ylikangas, “Reasons for the Reduction of Violence in Finland in the 17th Century,” in Mirkka Lappalainen and Pekka Hirvonen, eds., Crime and Control in Europe from the Past to the Present (Helsinki, 1999), 165—66, 170—71; and Petri Karonen, “In Search for Peace and Harmony? The Sate and Capital Crimes in Late Medieval and Early Modern Swedish Realm (ca. 1450—1700),” in Lappalainen and Hirvonen, Crime and Control, 218
24.
Petri Karonen , “A Life for a Life versus Christian Reconsiliation: Violence and the Process of Civilization in the Towns of the Kingdom of Sweden during the Years 1540—1700,” in Lappalainen, Five Centuries, 161—63, 171, 176.
25.
For a discussion about safety and fear in Turku, see Petri Karonen, “Pohjolan vaarallisimmat asuinpaikat. Rikollisuus, pelko ja turvattomuus Suomen uuden ajan alun kaupungeissa (noin 1540—1660),” in Sari Forsström, ed., Laittomuuden laitateillä. Rikos Suomessa 1500-luvulta nykypäiviin (Helsinki, 1996).
26.
Ranta, Turun kaupungin historia, 600. In Stockholm a regular guard was established already in 1659. Jansson, From Swords to Sorrow, 89; and Carl v. Bonsdorff, “Åbo stads sistoria under sjuttonde talet,” Bidrag till Åbo stads historia 2 (1889): 238.
27.
Vilkuna, “Alkoholin nauttimispaikka,” 251; Ranta, Turun kaupungin historia, 602; and Carl v. Bonsdorff, “Åbo stads historia,” 236—37.
28.
Town court records, February 4, 1643; August 5, 1643; February 5, 1644; and March 9, 1644.
29.
Ranta, Turun kaupungin historia, 600.
30.
Ibid., 28, 43, 81—82.
31.
Tor Carpelan, Åbo i genealogiskt hänseende på 1600- och början af 1700-talet (Helsinki, 1890), 1, 39; and Ranta, Turun kaupungin historia, 160, 177.
32.
Karonen, “A Life for a Life,” 162.
33.
Town court records, May 25, 1653; September 14, 1663; and Nallinmaa-Luoto, Ylioppilaiden ja kaupunkilaisten suhteet, 62—63.
34.
Ylikangas, “Reasons for the Reduction of Violence,” 171.
35.
Town court records, June 9, 1632; March 5, 1642; May 9, 1642; and April 11, 1663.
36.
Samling Utaf Kongl. Bref.; Paul Münch, Lebensfromer in der Frühen Neuzeit 1500 bis 1800 (Frankfurt, 1996), 174.
37.
E.g., town court records, March 7, 1642; and town court records, May 9, 1642.
38.
Town court records, May 11, 1642. See also university consistory records, January 20, 1641, in Consistorii Academici Aboensis Äldre Protokoller utgifna af Finska Historiska Samfundet (Helsinki, 1884).
39.
University consistory records, January 21, 1641.
40.
Schindler, Rebellion, Community, and Custom, 202.
41.
Koslofsky, “Court Culture and Street Lighting,” 752.
42.
Town court records, February 15, 1642.
43.
Town court records, May 4, 1642.
44.
Schindler, Rebellion , Community, and Custom, 202.
45.
Matikainen, Verenperijät, 100, 137.
46.
Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order, 115.
47.
Ibid., 132; and Pieter Spierenburg, Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe andAmerica (Columbus , 1998), 109.
48.
Spierenburg, Men and Violence, 111.
49.
Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order, 130—31.
50.
Town court records, February 12, 1642.
51.
See Spierenburg, Men and Violence, 109; for Finland, see Matikainen, Verenperijät, 77.
52.
Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order, 130—31; Matikainen, Verenperijät, 48.
53.
See Jonas Liliequist, “Violence, Honour, and Manliness in Early Modern Northern Sweden,” in Lappalainen and Hirvonen, Crime and Control, and Spierenburg, Men and Violence, for cases of inevitable retaliation elsewhere in Europe.
54.
Elizabeth S. Cohen, “Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History22 (1992): 601.
55.
Ibid.
56.
See Schindler, Rebellion, Community, and Custom.
57.
Nallinmaa-Luoto, Ylioppilaiden ja kaupunkilaisten suhteet, 4, 8.
58.
E.g., Koslofsky, “Court Culture and Street Lighting,” 755.
59.
University consistory records, May 22, 1641; January 20, 1641; January 26, 1642; March 9, 1642; and Nallinmaa-Luoto, Ylioppilaiden ja kaupunkilaisten suhteet, 60—64.
University consistory records, January 26, 1642; and town court records, February 15, 1642.
65.
Vilkuna, “Alkoholin nauttimispaikka,” 290.
66.
The university council suggested that the university senate should act parentum et tutorum loco as Isaacus was a stranger in town and his family did not even know about his horrible fate.
67.
Herman Roodenburg, “ The `Hand of Friendship': Shaking Hands and Other Gestures in the Dutch Republic ,” in Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg, eds., A Cultural History ofGesture (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 162—64.
68.
Matikainen, Verenperijät, 28.
69.
For examples from different times of the year, see town court records, October 27, 1632; May 11, 1642; and April 11, 1663 (the incident in question already happened on March 26).
70.
E.g., town court records, August 20, 1632; March 7, 1642; and September 14, 1663.
71.
As the fight that we used here as a case study was between two men, only male honor and male culture can be addressed. We must not, however, forget that women were also part of the town and its streets and also played their role in the nighttime streets. It remains a task for further study to discuss the meanings of the streets for women.
