Stensö and Landsjö

The remains of Landsjö Castle. The south-western corner of the outer perimeter wall, ensconced in the roots of a pine tree.

Stënso and Landsjö, although disparate sites and although constructed differently from one another, are remarkably similar in several important ways. 

Firstly, when they were constructed—Stensö slightly earlier than Landsjö—they were both owned by the same family. From the sparse historical records available at the time, we know that Holmger Torkelsson of the Boat family, and his wife Sigrid Karlsdotter of the Stubbe family, lived at Landsjö sometime around 1369 CE. Stensö had been owned by Lord Holmger's great-grandmother, Lady Kristina, sometime around 1280 CE. 

Lord Holmger and Lady Kristina's family probably had good relations with the Swedish crown at the time the two castles were built. In order to build private fortifications, one needed royal permission—specifically a "license to crennelate." Whether the issuing (or forbearance of issuing)  licenses indicated an interest in controlling the spread of military assets or were a way to control the socially ambitious who wished to demonstrate their status through castle building is not entirely agreed upon by archaeologists and castellologists—it needn't necessarily be clear cut. Although licenses to crennelate were rarely refused in England—indicating the crown probably had very little control over whether castles were built or not—the situation in Sweden may not be a direct correlate. The structures of the monarchies in England and in Sweden were different, for instance.

Secondly, continuing with the similarities, both Stensö and Lansjö were originally located on islands. Landsjö currently stands on an island in Lake Lansjön, and Stensö would have been on an island in a marsh in the Bråviken, a Baltic bay to the south of Stockholm. However, today Stensö is firmly landlocked on account of rising land, an effect still felt long since the glaciers receded after the last glacial maximum. Both castles were very difficult to get at if the owners did not want visitors.

Yet however strongly fortified their positions, both castles share a further similarly of meeting what we assume to have been somewhat grisly ends. Both Stensö and Landsjö were abandoned sometime in the 1400s or earlier, and today very little of the stone once contained in their massive walls can still be found on the sites themselves. At Stensö, only the foundation of a round tower and part of a perimeter wall exist above ground, and at Landsjö even less remains—only the western stretch of its perimeter wall, never at a height more than a meter or so, and its northern and southern corners. 
Most of it has been carted away and used to build other, newer structures that dot the local landscape. Stensö in particular shows strong evidence that it once suffered a powerful fire. Our excavations in 2014 uncovered evidence of brick that had gotten so hot it had vitrified, or turned to glass and partially melted under extreme heat. Both also seem to have been abandoned or given over to tenant farmers around the time the plague was spreading throughout Sweden, and this could have played a role in their demise as well.

Both castles are also prime examples of private fortifications—owned neither by the crown, nor by the church. As such, they are somewhat rare, and until our first season of excavations last summer, neither had ever been excavated before. 

I'll attempt to write more about the excavation of these two structures in the coming weeks, but unfortunately we have no internet at our dig house at Stensö, so it won't be as frequent as I would like!