Skillingstrykk

Sammendrag

This article investigates what can be interpreted from "skillingstrykk"1 as physical objects, and the activities, processes and milieus derived from these small and cheap prints. Book historians have pointed out that forms in the sense of materiality, effect meaning and possible uses and interpretations. For skillingstrykk it begun with a printing house and the printer's choice of paper, font and illustration or ornament, before the prints and songs got in the hand of a pedlar, a bookseller or an entertainer eager to sell them to make a living of trading. Singing in bookshops, streets and marked places, walking between farms and villages and emerge where many people were gathered. The possible customers are often assumed to be common people and peasants, but during five centuries of circulation, this is a generalisation most likely to fail. Discussing the relationship between the print skillingstrykk and the song skillingsvise shows a complexity in type of prints, songs, sellers and users.