Girls on the Move: Late Medieval Social Networks, Economic Conditions and Peasant Geographic Mobility between Southern Finland and Reval (Tallinn), c. 1350–1560

Abstract

The article discusses the emigration of peasants from the province of Nyland in Finland to the town of Reval (Est. Tallinn) between c. 1350 and 1560. The analysis is based on the surviving source material, especially letters of tovorsichte issued by lay and ecclesiastic authorities in Finland as certificates for the deceased’s family on inheritance in Reval. As the source material indicates, a noticeable shift, in both the areas of origin and the gender of the migrants from Nyland, occurred between the two analysed periods. The first ranged from the 1350s/1410s to 1519, and the other period coincided with the final boom in Reval’s medieval transit trade before the Livonian War (1520–1560). During the first period, some two-thirds of the deceased originated from the bailiwick of Raseborg in western Nyland, half of them being men, while in 1520–1560, half of the deceased had been born in the bailiwick of Borgå in eastern Ny-land, and more than 83 per cent were women. The large number of female emigrants to Reval between c. 1410 and 1560 is also noticeable in the geographical distribution of their parishes of origin. The number of female emigrants was especially high in areas on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland, just opposite Reval, between Ingå and Borgå parishes. The issue of the migrants’ origin is further investigated through a case study of Helsinga parish, covering roughly the area of the present-day cities of Helsinki and Vantaa. As the study demonstrates, most of the identified migrants who passed away in Reval were women, apparently younger daughters from the middle and upper layers of the rural society, who were able to utilise their experience in peasant merchant households and found assignments and permanent employment in the new urban surroundings. Their motivation to emigrate may have been driven by both the growing population of their old home villages in Nyland and the demands of the labour market in Reval.