CHAPTER SIX

TERRITORIAL DIVISION

Magnus Eriksson’s landslag states that in the mid-fourteenth century Sweden was divided into nine lagmansdömen (districts over which a lagman had legal authority) and seven biskopsdömen (bishoprics).1 Written evidence for the functioning of the hundare comes largely from law texts and documents of the late thirteenth century onwards, but also from references in chronicles and annals, and accounts, most of which are mid fourteenth-century or later. A vast amount of literature has been engendered in efforts to uncover the origin and possible earlier functioning of the administrative units mentioned in these sources. The origins of almost all Swedish administrative units named in the landskapslagar are lost in obscurity. Uppland itself was probably brought into being, at least as a judicial- administrative entity, when Upplandslagen was codified (1296), as the name is not recorded before that. Its three folkland, Attundaland, Tiundaland and Fjädrundaland are much older, first referred to in the Florence document of c. 1120.2 The most important territorial- administrative unit of Upplandslagen that clearly predates the law texts is the hundare, which was itself a subdivision of the folkland. Alongside this, or as subdivisions of it, existed half hundare, hundaresfjärdinger, hun- daresåtting, skeppslagar, socknar, tolfter and tredingar. Because these units appear in the one law text, albeit in a variety of functions, there has been a tendency to treat them as cogs in an administrative machine which itself functioned as a unity, this despite the fact that even in more recent times, when there were arguably more resources to inte- grate different administrative functions into one system, administra- tive machineries usually consisted of overlapping territorial units designed for different purposes. Far from simplifying administration, a centralised authority often complicates it as it exerts its influence in an increasing number of areas, since it rarely has the opportunity

1 MEL, Kg 1:1. 2 DS 16. In this document Attundaland is not named as a folkland. territorial division 207 to sweep away older structures, but must utilise them as well as con- structing new ones. In the Svealand landskapslagar the hundare functioned as ting region and tax district, both administered by the länsman, and in the organ- isation of the military ledung and regulation of trade.3 In Magnus Eriksson’s landslag the hundare, or at least its name, was replaced by the härad, bringing all of Svealand into line with Götaland, but the name hundare continued to be used in other written sources well into the fifteenth century. Generally the boundaries between medieval hundare/härader follow natural obstacles or pass through unsettled regions between byar, waterways or belts of forest.4 Such unsettled regions were allmänningar (allmæningær, common land) at the beginning of the fourteenth century, to which all had right of access, but much of this land was subsequently occupied during the later Middle Ages and became private land.5 The boundaries of the härader (or earlier hundare) nevertheless remained constant throughout the late thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although there was a wide varia- tion in their size and wealth. One line of inquiry into the original function of hundare and härad has been the names themselves. In his article Häradet Stefan Söderlind saw their origin in the Roman centuriatio of the fourth century ad, in which agricultural land was divided into centuriae, in turn divided into 100 double plogland, lots for the military or urban colonists. This system, he argued, was inherited by the Germanic kingdoms, as shown by the similarity of nomenclature in many parts of Europe. He assumed that the härad arrived in Sweden and Denmark at the same time, based on the Carolingian model and originating in the later Iron Age, c. 750–900 ad.6 The words kind, hund and hundare represented an earlier stage in terminology.7 Unfortunately neither Swedish nor Danish evidence supports a link between härad and the

3 Dalalagen is an exception. Contrary to what some have argued, there are prob- ably no thirteenth-century or earlier precursors to this, and it was most likely devised as colonisation of Dalarna gathered pace in the later Middle Ages. It is exceptional in that Dalarna had only one hundare, as a part of Västmanland, but because of its size the treding became the administrative district for almost all purposes: see Utterström 1983 pp. 196–97. 4 See, for instance UL Byalagsbalken 17, and Byalagsbalken 20, which deals with areas where there are no clear boundaries. 5 UL B 22:3, B 23:1. 6 Söderlind 1968 pp. 159, 163. 7 Söderlind 1968 p. 62.