who needs a city?

Through three campaigns, Museum Vestsjælland has carried out research excavations at Herslev in Vestsjælland. Here we have uncovered a farm from the years 1100-1200 with preserved cultural layers, among other things in the form of floor layers and waste layers. 

The investigations have provided rare and interesting material that gives us a special insight into the farm's status and function. On the whole, we at Museum Vestsjælland have focused on the medieval rural settlement in connection with research and client-funded studies. 

The studies paint a picture of a rural settlement in the early and high Middle Ages with far-reaching contacts and differentiated economic resources. How does it play together with the many market towns that get market town rights, market monopolies and royal protection at the same time? And how is the social, economic and identity-creating position expressed in the development from the rich object material of the Viking Age to the village communities of the Middle Ages? 

The project has been developed in collaboration with Zealand's Middle Ages, which is a consortium of Zealand's museums. Collaborations have been established with the University of Copenhagen and Århus University, and the research in Herslev is partly financed by Museum Vestsjælland and partly by the Danish Agency for Castles and Culture.