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'Gamla stan' (''The Old City''), sometimes called 'Staden mellan broarna' (''The City between the Bridges''), is the old town of Stockholm, Sweden. Gamla stan consists primarily of the island Stadsholmen. The surrounding islets Riddarholmen, Helgeandsholmen, and Strömsborg are officially part of, but not colloquially included in, Gamla stan.

Contents

Overview

History

Origin of the name

Prehistory

Middle Ages

References

See also

External links

Overview

The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's construction.
Stortorget is the name of the scenic ''large'' square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchant's houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I.
As well as being home to the Stockholm Cathedral, the Nobel Museum, and the Riddarholm church), Gamla stan also boasts ''Kungliga slottet'', Sweden's baroque Royal Palace, built in the 18th century after the previous palace Tre Kronor burned down. The House of Knights is on the north-western corner of Gamla stan.
On Österlånggatan is the restaurant Den gyldene freden, in business since 1722 and known as the oldest in the world with an unaltered interior according to the Guinness Book of Records. A statue of St. George and the Dragon (sculpted by Bernt Notke) can be found in the Stockholm Cathedral, while Riddarholmskyrkan is the royal burial church. Bollhustäppan, a small courtyard at Slottsbacken, just south of the main approach to the Royal Palace, is home to one of the smallest statues in Sweden, a little boy in wrought iron.
From the mid 19th to the mid 20th century Gamla stan was considered a slum, many of its historical buildings left in disrepair, and just after WW2, several blocks together five alleys were demolished for the enlargement of the Parliament (see Brantingtorget. From the 1980s, however, it has become a tourist attraction as the charm of its medieval, Renaissance architecture and later additions have been valued by later generations.
While the archaeology of the 370 properties in Gamla stan remains poorly documented, recent inventories done by volunteers have shown many buildings previously dated to the 17thy and 18th centuries, can be up to 300 years older.^[1] There is also a metro station in Gamla Stan with the same name.

History

Origin of the name

Until the mid 19th century Gamla stan was simply referred to as ''själva staden'' ("the city itself"), which must have made sense since the areas surrounding it was still mostly rural in character and referred to as ''malmarna'' ("the ridges"). On maps and in literature from the mid 19th century it started to be called ''staden mellan broarna'' ("the city between the bridges") or ''staden inom broarna'' ("the city within the bridges"), a name which remained official until 1980, and from 1934 also included the islets Helgeandsholmen and Strömsborg. The name ''Gamla stan'' probably dates back to the early 20th century, then used colloquially. Even though the official name was changed to Gamla stan in 1980, modern Stockholm is occasionally called "The city between the bridges".^[2]

Prehistory

Stockholm derives its mythological origin from a dwelling place called ''Agnefit''. As the second element ''fit'' means 'moist meadow', supposedly located on the western shore of today's Stadsholmen (arguably the only possible location for a meadow at the time). The first element of this name is, explains the historian Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241), derived from King Agne, a presumably mythological king who in a dim and distant past (around 400 A.D. according to some historians) encamped here after having successfully raided Finland. His intentions were to marry ''Skjalf'', the daughter of the defeated Finnish chieftain. The young woman, however, tricked him to arrange a celebration including prominent guests which eventually turned into a boozing party, and, while Agne slept sober, Skjalf had him hung in his gold necklace before escaping. While the reliability of this story remains disputed, dendrochronological examinations of logs found on Helgeandsholmen just north of Stadsholmen in 1978-1980, concluded these trees were cut down during the period 970-1020, most of them from the later part of that period, and these logs presumably gave the entire city its present name, ''Stock-holm'', "Log-Islet".^[3]

Middle Ages

The original wall-enclosed city only encompassed the central elevated area of the old town between the two long street — Västerlånggatan and Österlånggatan (e.g. "Western/Eastern Long Street") — which passed between the shorelines of the era and the eastern and western city walls. The eastern wall passed between two defensive towers; the northern being that of what was to become the castle Three Crowns, destroyed by fire in 1697, and the southern, of which no archaeological traces have been found, is known to have been given to the Blackfriars by King Magnus Eriksson (1316–1377) in 1336 and therefore was arguably located at the location for the monastery, in the south end of Prästgatan, north of the square Järntorget. The steep precipices forming the outskirts of the original city is still discernible in the pronounced difference of level between these to long streets and those parallel streets running just inside the city wall — Västerlånggatan and Prästgatan (some 5 metres), and Österlånggatan and Bollhusgränd-Baggensgatan (up to 10 metres).
^[4]3
The centre of the medieval city was probably just a fairground south of the town hall and the only church in the village. The market place, originally smaller than the present and enlarged following a fire in the early 15th century, was eventually surrounded by permanent buildings and evolved into the present public square Stortorget ("The Large Square"), still located south of the so called Stock Exchange and the Cathedral. While Stockholm is likely to have expanded quickly, it remains much debated if the expansion was planned in accordance to the model of southern prototypes (e.g. such as Lübeck) and, as historical sources traditionally have rendered it, governed directly by Birger Jarl (1210–1266) and Magnus Ladulås (1240–1290), or, as some historian have argued, a somewhat desultory if not entirely unmethodical process. Nervertheless, the medieval thoroughfares led from the large square in all four cardinal directions: Köpmangatan ("Merchant's Street") led east down to a second square by the water, ''Fisketorget'' ("Fishery Square"). Svartmangatan ("Black Man's Street", named after the Blackfriars monastery) and Skomakargatan ("Shoemaker's Street") led south to the financial centre of the city, two landing stages separated by a square on the southern corner of the island: the square was located where today is Järntorget ("The Iron Square") but was considerably larger than it, and on its eastern side was ''Koggabron'' (named after a type of medieval merchant vessel called ''kogga'') and today superseded by Skeppsbron, and on its western side was ''Kornhamn'' ("Corn Bridge") receiving the ships from Lake Mälaren, located near todays Kornhamnstorg. Trångsund ("Narrow Strait"), at the time much narrower than today, was leading north past the cathedral.
^4
[5]
As the city gates were patently the weakest point in all medieval fortifications, the fewer the better was the obvious rule. In medieval Stockholm, presumably three or four narrow gates opened the wall: Through the eastern wall a single gate allowed Köpmangatan to pass down to the shore, while the others, all leading to Västerlånggatan, were located where today are Storkyrkobrinken ("Slope of the Great Church"), Kåkbrinken ("Slope of the [Ramshackle] House"), and Tyska Brinken ("German Slope"). Surrounding the Royal Palace was an open area called ''Sanden'' ("The Sand"), intentionally kept free for defensive reasons and including the present location of Slottsbacken ("Palace Slope"), south of the palace, and Högvaktsterrassen ("Terrace of the Main Guard"), west of it. Within the city, the artery roads were stipulated to be eight ell wide (''aln'', e.g. barely five metres) to allow horse-drawn vehicles to pass, while no rules restricted the width of cross-streets. As the city started to get overcrowded in the 14th century, new buildings were built on the shores outside the city wall, and gradually land fillings between the bridges along the shores gave room for sheds and storehouses forming the elongated blocks separated by narrow alleys which are today characteristic for the old town. Within the old city centre, larger blocks were partitioned into smaller ones, which resulted in several narrow streets such as Trädgårdsgatan ("Garden Street") and Kindstugatan ("Box on the Ear Street", historical, corrupted).
^4
[6]

The medieval streets are found some three metres below the present streets. Archaeological excavations have shown the oldest streets were covered with wood, the oldest being the three layers of wooden pavings found under the northern end of Västerlånggatan from around 1250-1300. During the later part of the 14th century, the streets started to get paved in stone, and as the archaeological deposits above them are composed of thin layers of filth containing few findings, street cleansing was apparently improved during this era. Waste and garbage was often simply poured out into the alleys, occasionally through apertures used exclusively for the purpose. Though a few assumed medieval subterranean wooden tubes and vaulted underground chambers have been found, relatively few traces have been found in Stockholm of the sort of sophisticated system of sewers found in for example Visby and Bergen, so the sloping alleys simply had to do the job. Many public notices were in vain devoted to restrain the habit of littering the surrounding waters and restricting the number of animals kept within the city walls, and not until the end of the Middle Ages were gutters ordered to be cleaned twice a week and the placement of bogs forbidden next to neighbours and thoroughfares. Latrines were gathered on central locations known as ''flugmöten'' ("fly meetings") where the number of insects darkened the sky well into the 19th century.⁴
The present alleys only give a vague glimpse of the appearance of the medieval city where the gables of the building were facing the streets and contained window bays for offering goods of sale; where filth, the bumpy paving and hand-drawn vehicles made walking circumstantial; and where odours and scents from dung, food, fishes, leather, furnaces, and seasonal spices mingled. During nights (and certainly during the long winters) the city was completely dark, save for exceptional fire watchers and nocturnal ramblers who used torches to found their bearing. Neither were there any street signs guiding foreigners as no streets were officially named, instead referred to as "the thoroughfare running from the outer southern gate and up to the cross and the chapel" or constantly renamed after the most prominent person settled in the most exposed part of the alley. Indeed, historical records contain many examples of obscure references to locations in the city, close to impossible to pin down as some streets have been renamed dozens of times, often carrying the same or a similar name as other streets before physically cease to exist.⁴

References

1. Hus i Gamla stan 300 år äldre än man trott Per Luthander
2. Stockholms gatunamn, , , , Kommittén för Stockholmsforskning, 1992, ISBN 91-7031-042-4
3. Slussen vid Söderström, Kerstin Söderlund, , , Samfundet S:t Erik, 2004, ISBN 91-85267-21-X
4. Upptaget - Sankt Eriks årsbok 2002, Jonas Ferenius, , , Samfundet Sankt Erik, Stockholm City Museum, Museum of Medieval Stockholm, 2002, ISBN 91-974091-1-1
5. Gamla stan med Slottet och Riddarholmen, Béatrice Glase, Gösta Glase, , , Bokfrölaget Trevi, 1988, ISBN 91 7160 823 0
6. Gamla stan förr och nu, Rune Lindgren, , , Rabén & Sjögren, 1992, ISBN 91 29 61671 9

See also

★ History of Stockholm

★ List of streets and squares in Gamla stan

External links

★ Gamla-stan-stockholm.se - Gallery of public art in Gamla stan. (5 pages.)

★ Pictures from Gamla Stan Pictures from Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden; www.remains.se