| Abstract: | The author synthesizes some Swedish investigations into area- and form-planning of administrative units, parishes and divisions of these, as well as of areas for clearing which were already divided up among the part-owners. The areas, which are described in a metrological notation system based on original length-measures and comparable area-measures, are combined with the corresponding cameralistic units of tax assessments. These have been reconstructed directly from medieval and sixteenth-century soures including evidence of much older relict units. The combined geometrical and cameralistic material gives the basis for models of (1) the spatial structure of rural landscape in different phases of evolution and (2) their evolution through centuries, the area of arable land or arable and meadow together being the key variable. Finally, it is shown that a regional planning system, which was probably introduced in parts of Middle Sweden in the eleventh century metrologically coincides with an organisation system probably also used in Northern Wales in the tenth century. |
