large farms and ordinary villages perspectives on uppåkra

8/11/2019 Large Farms and Ordinary Villages Perspectives on Uppkra

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141LARGE FARMS AND ORDINARY VILLAGES

hundreds of Ljunits and Herrestad was workedthrough (Skansjet al. 1989). The Ystad area is dominated in modern times by largemanorial estates. Some of these have a long history that can be traced back to Early Middle Ages, but many manors also disappearedduring the Middle Ages. The overall result of the study implies that the existence of a notably large farm or manor was more or less normalfor a majority of the villages in the area during the Early and High Middle Ages. Of these,

Bjresj and Stora Herrestad have come toserve as good examples of the medieval manor,

located in the largest village in the parish, onan extensive toft and with a close spatial andarchitectural relation to the church (Fig. 2).In Bjresj, the manor was moved out of thevillage around 1350, whereas in Stora Herre-stad it is still in existence at the originallocation in the village core. In both cases it ispossible, on the basis of archaeologicalobservations, to argue that the manor-in-the-village dates back to the Viking Age.

Within the Ystad area, there are other

examples that conform to this picture, butthere are also examples of manors/large farms

Fig. 2. Tofts in the villages of Stora Herrestad and Bjresj. In Stora Herrestad at the start of the 18thcentury the manor probably stood on its original site in the largeHerregrdstoften , manor toft. Similarconditions can be reconstructed in Bjresj. The archaeologically documented manor (1) was also what appears to have been the largest toft. The toft structure in Bjresj can be reconstructed with thaid of land survey documents from 1699 about 350 years after the assumed move of the manor frothe village core. Note the similar spatial relationship between large toft, manor, church, and vicaragethe two villages. From Riddersporre 1992.


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and property rights both in the Viking Ageand later, and that the monument was, perhapspartially, collected and relocated during theMiddle Ages (Riddersporre 1989:87).

In 1745, Hunnestad was no longer anindependent estate, but it was a part of theestate complex of nearby Marsvinsholm. Thereason for drawing the map was that the ownerof Marsvinsholm wished to reorganize Hunne-stad, i.e. to break out the lands of the mainfarm and to equalize the tenant farms in termsof land and land-rent (Skansjet al. 1989:87).This restructuring of the lands makes itdifficult to identify the original situation onthe map, but the fragmented material canserve as a basis for a simple sketch thatillustrates some general traits in the spatialarrangement of the combination of manorand village (Fig. 4). The sketch summarizesthe main aspects of a pattern, or a model, thatincludes a large manor toft, often laid out onhigh ground with a prominent position, whichunderlines the domination over the farms of the village on their ordinary-sized tofts. InHunnestad the positioning is further under-lined by the location on the opposite side of a stream. In addition, a water mill forms part of the manorial dispositions.

A problem with Hunnestad, as well aswith Stora Herrestad and many other localitiesinvestigated within the estate-dominated Ystadarea, is that main farms or manors may haveexisted for a longer or shorter time, with orwithout continuity, over a period of a thousandyears. It is therefore difficult to maintain thatthe structures that can be identified in mapsfrom the 17th to the early 19th centuries allin all date back to, for instance, the Early Middle Ages. Moreover, estates have notalways been static constructions through time;

they have in many cases undergone profoundchanges. Inheritance and marriage practice,

competition among the elite, confiscation andgrants by the king, donations to the Church,amalgamation of smaller estates into largerestate complexes etc. may in many cases haveresulted in changing ownership and restruc-turing of entire estates, or of lesser parts. Inthis process some manors vanished, whileothers came into existence for a shorter orlonger period of time. In some cases formermanors were divided and converted intotenant farms under a new owner. In othercases nucleated estates were split up, andneighbouring tenant farms in the same villageacquired different landlords.

A village consisting of a couple of farmsmostly of the same size and with a mixedownership, documented on a map from the

17th century, may therefore not be the bestmodel for understanding an early medieval

Fig. 4. The toft structure of Hunnestad. Sketchmodel of manor and village with possible Viking Age origins. X: oldest known location of theHunnestad monument. R: the field-nameRunstens- krar , which indicates further runestones or analternate original location of (some of) the stonesin the monument. Circle with cross: water mill.


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144 MATS RIDDERSPORRE

situation. Still, the oldest land survey docu-ments (maps and descriptions) contain a lotof important information that is relevant tothe understanding of earlier periods. One way of bridging the problem is to investigate villa-ges in areas that are not as estate-dominatedin the Late Middle Ages and modern times asthe Ystad area (cf. Riddersporre 1989:142).

Jrrestad

The name Jrrestad (1322in Iarlastatha )indicates that the village may have been theseat of the earl, and the expectations that theplace should manifest itself in the terms of anIron Age magnates farm have been more thanfulfilled by recent archaeological excavations(Sderberg, this volume). There is, on theother hand, no indication in the writtensources of a residence for persons of noblerank in Jrrestad in the Middle Ages. Thechurch in Jrrestad was possibly already annexed to the monastery in nearby Tommarparound 1150. Tommarp was an early townforming part of the royal estate, where coinswere minted in the 11th century and wherethe monastery was founded on property granted by the king. In the Late Middle Agesthere were four or five farms in Jrrestad thatbelonged to the monastery, while the remai-ning twelve (or seventeen) farms constitutedan archiepiscopal fief (Wallin 1991:71 pp.).In terriers from that time there are (at least)two farms with notably higher land-rents thanthe rest of the farms. All in all, it is possiblethat the structure of the village, as it wasaround 1150, may have been little affected by later changes.

The oldest map of Jrrestad is rather lateand was drawn 18011810 as a plan for the

enskifte reallotment of the village. As a faintbackdrop to the proposed new distribution of

farms and fields, the old open-field system isvaguely indicated on the map. By combinationwith details from a thorough descriptionaccompanying the map it is thus to someextent possible to reconstruct the pre-enskifte strip fields of each farm (Fig. 5). The strip-field subdivision, which may have Viking Ageorigins, reflects the medieval farming system.By 1800, the total area of land (arable andhay meadows) belonging to the village wasdivided into strips that were intermixed andscattered all over the area but individually held by the farms. Further, farms were groupedtogether in (ideally) equal-sized componentfiscal holdings (bol ) of two to four farms each.The distribution of the strips was carried outon the level of thebol , and by reconstructing the bol division it is possible to identify whether there were farms orbol s that brokethe rules (Fig. 6).

Thebol division reveals that all farms wererepresented in all parts of the village lands. Inaddition to that, there were threebol s thatalso held separate land that was not subdividedinto strips (cerise, yellow and turquoise inFig. 6). All three had larger areas of arableland near the village green, and in those threeareas the field-nametoft appears. This may indicate the existence of three large or inde-pendent farms in the early history of thevillage. Thesebol s also had their land concen-trated in larger blocks in the small meadow field in the central western part of the villagelands (cf. Fig. 5). Here the pattern can be seenas a scheme for the village at the time whenthe meadow field was laid out: two large andindependent farms (cerise and turquoise),one not so large farm (yellow), and a coupleof probably subordinate farms with their landsentirely divided into strips. This seems to be a

nice match for the late medieval evidence of (at least) two farms with notably high land-


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rents. Curt Wallin suggests that one of thesefarms was the original priests farm of Jrrestad,at the disposal of the monastery in Tomarpever since the annexation of the church (Wallin1991:140 pp.). The actual farm did not,however, belong to any of thebol s forming the three large farms of the map.

A possible early dating of the reconstructedstructure is indicated by the fact that the largefarm to the south encompassed the water mill Jrrestadsmlla (grey, cross-hatched). The rightto dispose over mills was notably in the inte-rest of the elite, and water mills are known tohave existed in the stream as early as 1161,when King Valdemar Is deed of gift to themonastery in Tomarp mentions five watermills. It is notable that two of the hypothetical

large farms (cerise and turquoise) have a com-mon interest in land immediately to the south

of the mill. Perhaps this implies a connectionbetween the two farms.

The third large farm, on the other hand,had its lands on both sides of the cattle pathleading to an area formerly used as grazing ground. Around 1800 the area was reclaimedas arable, but a triangular piece of land (lightblue, dotted) leading down to the village greenis a clear indication that the north-west partof the village lands was a former grazing area.The triangular piece of land was still commonground at the time of the map, and the strip-field subdivision of the rest of the formergrazing area reveals a reclamation process inwhich all the farms of the village took part. Inthe remaining common, on the other hand,the eight farms that made up thebol s of the

reconstructed two largest farms were excluded,which also indicates links between these two.

Fig. 5. Jrrestad in the early 19th century: settlement, land use, field subdivision, and fencesReconstruction of the situation prior to theenskifte re-allotment, based on map and description from180110. White: arable. Green: meadow. Brown: fence. The documentation of the strip-field subdivision is not complete and does not register all the strips of the individual farms.


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The possible existence of more than onelarge farm in Jrrestad may seem puzzling.On the other hand, an early dating of theentire structure might hint at an explanationof the earliest recorded form of the name,in Iarlastatha (1322), where the suffix is in theplural (Nationalencyclopedin , s.v. Jrrestad).In other words, there may actually have beenmore than one earls farm in Jrrestad. If one of them were to be pointed out as moreprominent, i.e. the actual seat of the earl, itwould be the one in the south, as it has a commanding position and is closely connectedto the stream and the water mill. According to the description with the map, the soilquality here was quite bad (light sandy soilwith no humus content), which is an indi-cation that the localization of the residence

was not primarily determined by agrarianpreferences.

There is still much research to be done inorder to combine different sources, obser-vations and interpretations, but in contrast tothe Ystad area there seems to be no indicationsin the written sources that can explain thestructures revealed by the map analysis. Fromthis point of view it is highly interesting thatthe archaeologically identified Late Iron Age(7th11th century) farm falls entirely withinthe area of the southern large farm (Fig. 7). Incombination with the archaeological obser-vations, it is thus quite reasonable to discussthe spatial arrangement revealed in the mapas possibly related to an Iron Age context. Another contrast to the experiences from the Ystad area is that the church in Jrrestadappears not to have been built on groundbelonging to the large farm, which indicates

that the large farm here had lost its importancealready at the time when the church was built.

Fig. 6. Thebol division in Jrrestad. Reconstruction based on map and description from 18011810.Threebol s (groups of farms) had, in addition to the fields that were subdivided into strips, parts of theirlands concentrated in large blocks (cerise, yellow and turquoise).


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This should probably be seen in relation tothe king focusing on nearby Tomarp as a regional centre.

Jrrestad appears to have been a rathermagnificent place in the Late Iron Age. Assuch it is possibly a representative example of the Late Iron Age magnates farm, forming part of an agglomerated settlement, or a village,that probably also included subordinate farmsand that later became the centre of a parish.On the other hand, it might not be a repre-sentative example of a more ordinary settle-ment. As an example of the latter, Htofta isperhaps a better choice.

Htofta

The name Htofta indicates house plots (tofts)located on high ground or adjacent to a hillock or burial mound (Pamp 1983:54), which isquite remarkable since the historically knownvillage core with its tofts is laid out on relatively low-lying ground.

Htofta was mapped for the first time in1708 (Fig. 8). The map shows the twelvefarms of fairly equal size located around thevillage green, and a strip-field system thatcovered the entire open fields of the village. Arable and meadow were divided among the

farms according to the principles ofbol divi-sion. In its early-18th-century appearance,

Fig. 7. Jrrestad. Composite map combining the archaeological investigations and the analysis of thistorical map. The structures that relate to the magnates farm from the Late Iron Age (black) fawithin one of the large farms of the map analysis (cerise, cf. fig. 6). Archaeological objects by courtesthe National Heritage Board (RA UV-Syd). Map analysis based on map and description from 18011810.


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Htofta is an example of a village structurethat has often been regarded as more or lesstimeless and that ultimately goes back to thefree farmer of the Viking Age. According tothat view, thebol s have been interpreted asrepresenting the originally equal Viking Agefarms. On the other hand, there is evidencethat in many Danish and Scanian villagesthere was a structural change during theMiddle Ages, which included the splitting upof large farms or manors and the establishmentof equal-sized tenant farms (Dahl 1942; Ulsig 1968; Skansjet al . 1989). In other words,

the origin of the historical farms of Htofta isnot obvious.

According to the archaeological record,on the other hand, it is clear that settlementhas existed in the area since the Stone Age.Through the excavations carried out in thelate 1960s, there is ample evidence of settle-ment during the Late Bronze Age and theIron Age in the vicinity of the historical village(Fig. 9). Due to the circumstances during theexcavations, which was caused by ongoing extraction of gravel, only limited parts of thesettlements could be investigated. The best-preserved and most thoroughly excavatedstructures revealed a settlement to the north-

west of the village core, dating from aroundthe birth of Christ. A bit further to the north

Fig. 8. Htofta in the early 18th century. Settlement, land use, field subdivision, and fencesaccording to a map from 1708. White: arable. Green: meadow. Brown: fence.


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there were badly damaged settlement remainsdating to the Migration and Vendel Periods.Immediately to the north of the village therewere two localities with Viking Age pit-houses. All in all, eleven houses could be documented.Crop marks in the fields further north indicatethat pit-houses existed here too. More scantobservations of activities during the Bronze

Age and the Iron Age have also been made tothe east of the village (Stjernquist 1969a,

1969b, 1998a, 1998b; Frostin 1977). Thelocation of the Viking Age pit-houses, whichrepresent a settlement that probably alsoincluded long-houses, is highly interesting through the close spatial connection to thehistorical village.

An analysis of thebol division, of the toftstructure, and of the field-names according to

the map and description from 1708 indicatesthat Htofta has not always been a village of

Fig. 9. Archaeological excavations in Htofta. LB: Late Bronze Age. EI: Early Iron Age. BC: birthChrist (settlement). RI: Roman Iron Age (grave). Mi/Ve: Migration and Vendel Periods (settlement)Vi: Viking Age (pit-houses). Vi?: Crop marks, probably Viking Age pit-houses. B/I/V: scattered finfrom Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and Viking Age. Archaeological observations according to Fro1977, Stjernquist 1998a-b, and adjusted after pers. com. from Berta Stjernquist 2000. Strip fieldsfences and historical settlement according to map from 1708. Modern air photo, the National LandSurvey, publication permission 507-99-3573.


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twelve farms (Fig. 10). At the time of the mapthe twelve farms made up eightbol s. In themajor part of the open fields thebol divisionwas systematically established. Thebol s werealso quite clearly displayed in the tofts to theeast and west of the village green. Here they properly match the plots for the individualfarmsteads, as they ideally should. The only anomaly is the toft area to the north of thevillage green. Here fourbol s (corresponding to five farms) shared the central part of a larger toft. In this toft the other fourbol s hadtheir shares in the outskirts. Only two farms

from the central group had their farmsteadslocalized in their shares of the large toft area,

which is on higher ground overlooking thevillage green.

A possible explanation, or hypothesis, isthat thebol division represents a reorganizationof the village, and that this reorganizationwas momentary and systematically carried outin the fields of the village. Concerning thetofts, on the other hand, the reorganizationwas not as radical, and an obsolete structurestill shines through. Before the reorganization,Htofta in that case consisted of a large farm,represented by the large toft area laid out onhigher ground, and of a couple of smaller

tofts, representing farms in a subordinate posi-tion that actually was displayed in the use of

Fig. 10. Theboldivision in Htofta. Reconstruction based on map and description from 1708. Eachcolour represents a separatebol of one or more farms. Thick blue contour lines denote tofts.


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the topography (Fig. 11).Possibly the smallest tofts to the south of

the village green represent even smaller unitsthat may resemble the termcolonia , whichwas the Latin term for grdsdebrug in Den-mark and fsta in Scania in the early 14thcentury (Ulsig 1968:126 pp.). Thecoloniae were notably small units and appear as moreor less annexed parts of both tenant farmsand larger farms or manors. This divisioninto three levels the large farm, the ordinary-size farms, and the smaller units quiteoften appears in the toft structure of thehistoric maps, even if, as in Htofta, it does

not reflect the situation at the time of themaps. A differentiation of the tofts, on the

other hand, is documented in medieval law codes; Jyske lov (1241) mentionslanbos toft (tenants toft) and garth stt toft (Hoff 1997:88).

There is much to suggest that Htofta inthe Early and High Middle Ages was not anordinary village in the way it was in 1708.On the contrary, it appears as if it was a largefarm with subject farms andcoloniae . More-over, the Viking Age settlement revealed by the pit-houses falls well within the recon-structed toft of the large farm, which indicatesthat it may date back to this period. If thetoft-structure of Htofta does not represent

the ordinary village in the modern sense, itshould on the other hand probably be seen as

Fig. 11. Reconstruction of the probably original toft structure in Htofta, based on the analysis of map from 1708. The two areas where Viking Age pit-houses were excavated (Vi, cf. fig. 9) fall withthe large toft of the hypothetical manor. Strip fields (grey), fences (brown) and meadows (greenaccording to the map from 1708. Contour lines, 5 metres equidistant, the National Land Survey,publication permission 507-99-3573.


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a reflection of an ordinary settlement of theEarly Middle Ages, the manor-in-the-village. And presumably the spatial arrangement of Htofta and other villages of that time reveala conceptualized model for the display of social and economic aspects of society in thelandscape. In Htofta the place-name alsoformed part of the concept.

Perhaps Htofta was a small estate of itsown, or maybe it was part of a larger estate, inwhich the large farm served as a subordinateand local main farm. It is possible that itoriginated as the former and developed intothe latter and that thebol division revealsfurther reorganizations within the adminis-tration of an estate complex. It is quite possiblethat a number of the manors that disappearedduring the Middle Ages originated in the Vi-king Age as local estates, with manor andsubject farms together forming a village, andthat they later became parts of larger estatesin the hands of the upper elite. Some of thesemay have continued in their old form, withthe manor now run by a bailiff, while othermanors were split up and transformed intotenant farms together with the rest of the farmsin the village. In other cases inheritance may have led to the distribution of an estate, with theeffect that it became split among many hands.

The latter is evidenced in Grevlunda insouth-east Scania in 1313, when the villageand its manor, at that time a part of a largerestate complex, was split between six brothers.The distribution did not only concern thetenant farms andcoloniae ; the manor wasdivided too. Concerning the manor, thedocument states that the toft of theladegrd (lathgart fundi ) was split into two parts (Dipl.Dan. 2:7 no. 18; Ulsig 1968:122 p.). Ongoing research indicates that thelathgart fundi in

Grevlunda was the large toft within a toftstructure similar to that of Htofta, Hunne-

stad and other Scanian villages.The wordladegrd has several conno-

tations, one of which indicates an economy that includes the raising of cattle. It is also theterm for an executive part of a manor, moreor less separated from the residence. In fact, a number of the large farms that can bereconstructed through the analysis of historicmaps have a location that indicates cattleraising. One example is the yellow large farmin Jrrestad (Fig. 6). Another is found in thevillage of Bussj in the Ystad area. Here theformer manor, according to a map from 1731,had a notably large toft, calledHuvudgrdtoft manor toft, that dominated the village andcontrolled the cattle path in the same way asthe yellow farm in Jrrestad (Skansjet al.1989:109). There are still many open ques-tions about this hypothesis, but it is notimpossible that the holders of the early manorswere specifically engaged in the raising of cattle and in the control and distribution of products from cattle. The yellow farm of Jrrestad was perhaps the earlsladegrd inmore than one sense of the word.

It is possible to argue for similar conditionsin Htofta, which is an example in many respects of how the structure of society at a local level was displayed in the landscape, notonly through the use of topography. Anotherexponent of the model is the town of Lund,founded by the king in the late 10th century.Here the location of the royal and ecclesiasticalresidence,Lundagrd , where the minster waserected, corresponds to a large manor toft.Lundagrd dominated the Main Square andthe house plots to the south in terms of bothsize and topography, in just the way the manortoft of Htofta dominated the village greenwith its surrounding farms. AndBredgatan

broad street (or Broadway), which passesby Lundagrd, led to the common pasture


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Bredgatans flad to the north of Lund.Lund may perhaps display a more symbolic

aspect of domination than small prosaic villagesin the countryside. All the same, the conceptand the use and arrangement of the landscapeis the same, and there is much to suggest thatthe concept was, if not invented, at leastelaborated in the Late Viking Age. PerhapsLund in this respect came to serve as a modelin the same way as the construction of thecathedral became a model for many of thechurches that were built in the countryside inthe Early Middle Ages. It is notable, forinstance, that the oldest map of the village of Stora Herrestad (Fig. 2), where the historically known manor is supposed to have continuity since the Viking Age, is more or less a blueprintof the medieval town plan of Lund (Ridder-sporre 1995:166). Another example wherethe concept was clearly elaborated is Ravlunda in south-east Scania, which was a regionalcentre and part of the royal estate in the Early Middle Ages (Riddersporre 1998).

Uppkra

Historical map analysis indicates large farmsor manors in a number of Scanian villages.Some are still there, but many have dis-appeared. In some cases it seems likely thatthe structure revealed in the maps was esta-blished in the Late Viking Age, in Jrrestadpossibly even earlier. In that perspective itmay seem puzzling that a similar structurehas not been identified in Uppkra (Ridder-sporre 1996, 1998). One explanation can bethat the structure documented in the oldestmaps of Uppkra is the result of a totalreorganization. This could, for instance, havebeen the effect of the kings confiscation and

passing on to the Church of farms in Uppkra that is documented in King Knuts deed of

gift to the cathedral in Lund 1085 (Ridder-sporre 1996).

Another explanation may be that thereactually was no manor or residence inUppkra, at least not in the Viking Age.Uppkra was obviously a place of centralimportance for the region for about thousandyears, but it is hardly so that this had the samemeaning and that it was displayed in the sameway during all that time span.

If evidence of early manors or large farmsis lacking in the historical villages of Stora Uppkra and Lilla Uppkra, there are on theother hand interesting indications in the thirdvillage of the parish, Hjrup (Fig. 12). Here a runestone indicates the presence of a promi-nent landowner in the 11th century. The ori-ginal location of the stone is somewhatobscure, but it seems to have been locatednear a brook that runs through the southernpart of the village green (Jacobson & Moltke1942; Larsson 1995). Archaeological exca-vations within the village core have yieldedsettlement remains dating from 10th century until modern times (Larsson 1995).

The historical map material for Hjrup isnot the best, and gives only limited possibilitiesto study field-names and the subdivision of fields (Manhag 2000). A reconstruction of thevillage core and the tofts nevertheless reveals a structure that indicates a possible large farmin the north and smaller farms in the south(Fig. 13). The tofts in the southern part arelocated south of the brook, and there are clearparallels with the layout of Hunnestad andHtofta. If the toft structure in Hjrup reflectsViking Age conditions, the runestone and itsplacing might be interpreted as a marker of social significancewithin the village.

A Viking Age manor or large farm in

Hjrup evokes many questions. As AndreasManhag has pointed out, the relation between


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Hjrup and Uppkra is complicated. Onepossibility is to interpret Hjrup as a place wherea person of high rank and with good con-nections to the king established, or was granted,a new farm at the time when Lund succeededUppkra as a regional centre. Another possi-bility is that there is a line of continuity back to a settlement dating to the 7th century, theone excavated to the west of the historicalvillage core (Manhag 2000). In the latter case,perhaps the magnate farm of Uppkra shouldbe sought in Hjrup. On the other hand, doesthe presence of a large farm in Hjrup imply a magnate family with regional authority?

Village and large farm

Concerning Uppkra and other Iron Age cen-tral places, the hall and the large farm have

long been in focus. The magnates farm is nodoubt an important ingredient of such places,but to what extent do they thereby differfrom other places? Analysis of rather smalland ordinary places like Htofta indicatesthat it was quite normal also for settlementsof limited centrality to consist of a large farmin combination with smaller units. The Viking Age and early medieval large farm is in otherwords not only an aspect of central placesor large villages where stone-built Romanesquechurches were to be erected. Rather, the largefarm seems to be a normal part of normalsettlements of varying size.

As a consequence, this highlights thenecessity to differentiate between magnatesof different size a hierarchy of both people

and places. On the other hand, it alsoemphasizes the local scale of social hierarchy.

Fig. 12. The parish of Uppkra at the time of the oldest maps (17031797). White: arable. Green:meadow. Brown: settlement. Black cross: church. Black dot: location of possible large farm in HjruModified after Riddersporre 1996 and Manhag 2000.


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It took more to people places like Htofta,Hunnestad, Jrrestad and others than kings,earls, (petty) magnates and great pretenders.The social structure that is indicated by theanalysis of historical maps matches medievalconditions quite well. Perhaps it also has somevalidity for earlier periods.

The large farm of Htofta, in other words,does not make the village special. On thecontrary, it presents itself as an ordinary vil-lage with an ordinary large farm. The holderof such an ordinary large farm, on the otherhand, was probably not equal to the proprietor

of a more prominent estate, or to earls andkings. One thing that brings places of diffe-

rent dignity together is, however, the con-formity in the way they were spatially arranged.The concept includes a large toft area thatwas an integral and focal part of the settle-ment, which was often laid out on higherground and dominated the rest of the settle-ment (to overlook and to be seen), with a key position in terms of communication and thelocal economy.

Of course, the question can be raisedwhether an actual place possessed these charac-teristics in advance, or if they were created by the way the settlement and landscape wasformed. Whichever of these is true, once inplace, vital aspects of the structure of society were communicated.

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Fig. 13. The toft structure of Hjrup in Uppkra parish. Reconstruction based onstorskifte anden- skifte maps from 17951798, and onSknska

rekognosceringskartan from the early 19th century.The large toft of farm(s) no. 4 & 10 indicates a possible earlier large farm of the village. Scaleapprox. 1:10.000. From Manhag 2000.


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