Voru fornbýlin hjáleigur? Útbreiðsla og staða hjáleigna á miðöldum (Were the ancient farms leased? The spread and status of leases in the Middle Ages)

This article discusses ancient farms recorded in the Land Book of Árni and Pálls, their number, location and age. It addresses the problem of connecting the knowledge that history and archaeology have to offer on ancient desert farms. In history, it is assumed that population growth occurred in the Middle Ages up until the Black Death and that leaseholds appeared as early as the twelfth century and increased in number until 1402. However, it has not been asked whether the ancient desert farms in the Land Book of Árni and Pálls could have been the leaseholds that increased so much in number from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. According to the Land Book of Árni and Pálls, rural leaseholds were in most respects similar to legal farms in terms of livestock and family structure, except that leaseholds were smaller than legal farms. The question is whether the same was true in the Middle Ages.