Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 46

ORRI VÉSTEINSSON
difference is that in c. 1100 the East and
the South have an equal proportion while
in 1311 the East is much closer to the
North. The reduction in farmers’ numbers
between c. 1100 and 1311 is 35% in the
East, compared to 20% in the North, 8,5%
in the South and a slight increase in the
West, and while some of this decrease is
undoubtedly real it cannot be precluded
that the c. 1100 figures for the East may be
an overestimate, possibly resulting lfom
the bishop having less reliable estimates
for that quarter, always somehow the most
remote and obscure in our medieval
sources. It is certainly difficult to locate so
many abandoned farms in the East (which
can be done in the North) or to suggest
reasons for why so many more eastem
farmers should have slipped below the
poverty line in the 12th and 13th centuries
(although see Rafnsson 1990 for that sort
of an argument).
Apart from confirming in broad
outline the well-known regional
differences in burial numbers (see fig. 1)
these figures are primarily useful to help
interpret the next set, presented in figure 3.
This shows the proportion of burials to the
number of farmers by region in 1311. This
breaks the country down to nine regions,
1311
Figure. 3. Burial sites (find locations) as a percentage of the number of tax-paying farmers by
region in 1311 (see also fig.4).
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