Appendix B: Agriculture and Forestry
531
- deld (OSw, ODan) n.
- In the Danish laws and the Svea laws (except HL) it refers to a part of the village land, sometimes a strip field in a gærþi (OSw) or vang (ODan).
- Refs: Hoff 1997, 204; Schlyter's.v. deld.
- akerdeld (OSw) n.
- A strip field in a gærþi (OSw) or in arable land generally.
- Ref: Schlyter's.v. aker deld.
- See also delda ra in Appendix C.
- valder (OSw) , völlr (ON) n.
- Field, ground.
- Refs: CV s.v. völlr; Schlyter's.v. valder.
- vreter (OSw) n.
- A clearing, possibly fenced in.
- Refs: KLNM s.v. vret; Schlyter's.v. vreter
- værn (OSw) n.
- A word for an enclosed field used in DL, SdmL, UL and VmL.
- Ref: Schlyter's.v. værn.
- fiælder (Osw) , urfiælder (OSw) , lutfal (OSw) , humper (OSw) , ornume (ODan) n.
- All these words seem to refer to approximately the same type of land regarding situation and obligations.In SdmL fiælder (Osw) and SdmL, UL and VmL, urfiælder (OSw) refer to a piece of land separated and (often) marked off from the village land, and often located in another village than the owner's own. This land was treated as private property and thus exempt from communal rights and obligations and from division of land between the landowners in a village. In DL this kind of land is called lutfal, in ÖgL humper. Corresponding word in Danish laws is ornume.
- Refs: Hoff 1997, 150–53; KLNM s.v.v. hump, ornum, urfjäll; Lund 1967, s.v. ornum; Schlyter's.v.v. fiælder, urfiælder, lutfal, humper; Tamm and Vogt, eds 2016, 307.
Land-division systems
There are three known different land-division systems practised before and at the time when the laws were written down. Not all of them are mentioned in the laws, but known from other sources. In addition there are a few words for land division that are not land-division systems.
- solskipt/e (OSw) , solskift (ODan) n.
- Literally 'sun division'. The 'sun' element refers to the position of each aker/tegher in the vang/gærde and of the toft/tompt in the village in a fixed order after the daily course of the sun through the sky, i.e. 'clockwise'. This division system ensured that all farms got their fair share of the common fields, meadows, grazing, fishing rights etc. in the village in accordance with the size and clockwise position of the curtilage around their dwellings (tompt), and that the strip fields were positioned accordingly.Solskipt is supposed to have replaced older land division systems and is mentioned in SmL, ÖgL, DL, SdmL, UL and VmL. It is also mentioned in JyL and ESjL, but there it is assumed to have had more in common with the older land-division and assessment system called bolskift (not mentioned in the laws), although the size of the toft determined the size and often the position of the cultivated fields belonging to a certain farm.It is unknown in Norway and Iceland.
- bolskift (ODan) n.
- A land division system in Denmark supposed to have preceded the solskift. It is not mentioned in the translated laws. See also bol (above).
