Life in a Walloon village

It isn't easy to translate the word "Bruk" because it doesn't only mean the strict translation of the word,
i.e. works. Around the ironworks, the smelter, the mill grew an entire village
with it's very special character. This was called "Bruket". It was a world of its own.
I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in English. Maybe a "mining village" or a "works village"?
If someone has a good translation, let me know.
I'm sticking to the word "works village" for the time being.

After the arrival in Sweden the immigrant family was given accommodation in very basic workmen's dwellings, or they were given a little piece of ground where they could build their own cottage and have a small croft. Material for the house was bought at a reduced price at the "works village". The charcoal-burners however had to stay in the rural villages to be closer to the forests. They would have quite an isolated existence away from other expatriates!

It certainly wasn't easy to travel in Sweden - or in Europe for that matter - in the 17th century! The roads were appalling and the road network was very underdeveloped. To travel in a horse drawn carriage was only for the rich and privileged. Ordinary people had to walk. In the winter it was actually easier because you could use skis or a sleigh!

Life for the Walloons was hard even though they were appreciated by their employers since they were skilled workers. They had long working days, early up and late in bed, sometimes they had to work around the clock. The blast-furnace, the smithy, the charcoal stack had to be looked after!

The Walloon smith gathered his sons and sons-in-law around himself and together they formed virtual family enterprises. They wouldn't share their professional secrets with an outsider, and they were speaking their French dialect with each other, making it difficult for others to work alongside them. This gradually petered out, but it took time before the Walloons were fully integrated in the Swedish society. There are by the way still words in the trade that come from the Walloon French!

There's quite a lot written about the smith and the occupiers of the mining homesteads. Not a lot is written about their women though. They would of course do what every other married woman in Sweden did at that time - manage the home and the children. The Swedish woman was used to hard labour and heavy responsibilities on the crofts and farms, and the Walloon housewife had the same duties. But they were sometimes also obliged to help out on the iron-ore field, having to crush the iron-ore with a heavy sledgehammer and then transport it down the river in clumsy rowboats. And that wasn't all! In the Dannemora mine they also had to go down into the pits!

Even so the Walloon woman was privileged because she wouldn't have to risk being dragged into the terrible persecution of witches that was endemic in Sweden, and in Europe, at this time. Living within a "works village" meant that she was protected by the patron.

The children who grew up at a "works village" had a security that other children had to wait hundreds of years to get. Both boys and girls received education up to the age of twelve.The boys then had to go into apprenticeship to learn a trade.

The blacksmith's sons, for example, had to start working as "Coal boys" and their job description would look like this: To make sure that there was enough charcoal, enough water, enough air in the bellows to work the iron and to do everything else that the adults wouldn't do. Their dream was to become a master smith because a master smith at an estate smithy was the king among the workers and earned up to ten times as much as the ordinary worker.

The girls often stayed at home as a helping hand.

An adult man was guaranteed work until he became too old or too ill to continue working. Then he would get a small "pension" that would secure his basic needs. Before it came to this other solutions were tried; a less straining work or if he had a temporary illness he would be sent to the barber-surgeon or the local cottage hospital.

When a worker or his wife got too old to manage at home and didn't have a son or daughter who could take them in they would be admitted to the cottage hospital. So already then there were nursing homes!

The Walloons were mostly Calvinists and Catholics, but after a few generations many adopted the Lutheran faith.
They were very clean in comparison with the Swedish population in those days. In a Walloon home you had a bath every week! The women were house proud and kept both the house, themselves and the family clean and neat.
They formed a kind of elite at the "works village" and had various privileges. They didn't have to pay taxes at the beginning, and they didn't have to serve in the army.
The walloons didn't mix with the rest of the population In the village. They were very protective about their jobs and first they only married their own kind. There was a class distinction even among themselves; this became evident in the church where the finest families had their pews in the front and the simpler families were confined to the pews further back.