Jordnaturernas fördelning i Sveriges län år 1700. En rekonstruktion, samt en jämförelse med förhållandena vid 1500-talets mitt

Abstract

From the mid-16th to the early 20th century, Swedish farms were divided in three cadastral categories: tax, crown and exempt land. In 1700, each category made up for about a third of the farms, but precise information on regional variations is lacking. In this paper, an estimate is made of the distribution of land according to cadastral categories in the Swedish counties in 1700. The approach is to sum, for each county, the land that was converted from crown land into tax land between 1701 and 1824. Combined with data on the situation in 1825, this allows for a reconstruction of the distribution of land according to cadastral category in the 22 counties in 1700. In 1700, tax land dominated in northern and north-central Sweden. Crown land was the largest category in Götaland and was particularly large in Sweden’s southeastern and southernmost counties. The exempt land was most extensive in the three counties surrounding Stockholm and three formerly Danish counties in the very south. It is well known that the proportion of tax land had decreased sharply, in the country as a whole, between 1560 and 1700. However, the comparability of the figures for the two points of time has been questioned, since Sweden’s area expanded in the 17th century. The present study shows that the 17th-century redistributions of land between the social classes were the main cause of the decline in tax land, while the expansion of the Swedish territory had less effect on the ownership structure as a whole. The decline of tax land had been especially sharp in the three counties that surround Stockholm.