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1 results

  • 18 - Population and settlement

  • from PART VI - LATE MEDIEVAL SOCIETY (c. 1350–1520)
  • Edited by Knut Helle, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Scandinavia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    04 September 2003, pp 557-580

  • Summary

    In the early and high Middle Ages there was a considerable expansion of population, settlement and production in Scandinavia. The medieval population in Scandinavia can best be calculated on the basis of the numbers of farms and holdings and the estimated average numbers of people living on them. In northern Sweden, the population presumably continued to grow throughout the late Middle Ages, mainly as the result of colonisation. In Norway, the absence of suitable sources makes it difficult to grasp the chronology of depopulation and settlement contraction. The crisis has left early traces in the form of a sudden drop in farm and land prices over much of the country immediately after 1350. The chapter also deals with the less dramatic settlement development in the rest of western and southern Scandinavia. Abandonment of settlements was a clear feature of the late medieval development of Danish society.