Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 80

GUÐRÚN ALDA GÍSLADÓTTIR, JAMES M. WOOLLETT, UGGI ÆVARSSON, CÉLINE DUPONT-HÉBERT,
ANTHONY NEWTON AND ORRI VÉSTEINSSON
late 13th century. These include
Ormarslón, Sveinungsvík, Kollavík,
Sjóarland (a coastal farm where Svalbarð
had físhing booths, JÁM, 361), Garður,
Laxárdalur and Gunnarsstaðir
(Þormóðsson 1971, 116-117). None of
those farms are located in
Svalbarðstunga however. By 1394 the
church at Svalbarð had also acquired
Brekknakot, across the Svalabarðsá river
(Diplomatarium islandicum 3, 589)
which would subsequently become
regarded as an integral part of the
Svalbarð estate.
Land registers provide another source
of documentation for sites occupied from
the 16th century to the 20th century. The
farms mentioned in these lists are usually
assessed farms (lögbýli), taxable
property units with one or more
households, as a rule with permanent
year-round occupation on at least one
site, while cottages (hjáleigur),
subsidiary farms often on a different site
within the property, are usually not
mentioned until census-taking became
more detailed in the 18th century
(Þormóðsson 1971, 94-96). The
Jarðabók land register (JÁM, 361-362),
described the following six farms as
Svalbarð’s hjáleigur in 1712:
Brekknakot, Hjálmarvík, Svalbarðssel,
Kúðársel (Kúðá), Bægistaðir and Flaga.
Hermundarfell is a lögbýli but a property
of Svalbarð (ibid, 357). As in medieval
times Svalbarð was a beneficium of the
diocese of Hólar and these hjáleigur were
owned by Svalbarð's church. A land
register compiled in 1847 gives the same
list of hjáleigur belonging to Svalbarð,
with the addition of Fjallalækjarsel and
Grímsstaðir (Johnsen 1847, 345).
Óttarstaðir and Lækjarmót, two
additional hjáleigur in the highlands
north of the Svalbarðsá, were established
for a short time in the 19th century and
were also considered parts of the
Svalbarð estate (Þormóðsson 1970,
59-60). Most of these hjáleigur
(Fjallalækjarsel, Kúðá, Brekknakot,
Svalbarðssel, Bægistaðir and Flaga) were
sold off later on and became independent
farms in the 19th -20th centuries,
effectively sub-dividing the Svalbarð
estate. Finally, other known outposts of
the Svalbarð estate include a shieling at
Þorvaldsstaðasel (the location of the
parent farm of Þorvaldsstaðir is
unknown), the hjáleiga of Skriða (SS,
262) and fishing booths at Sjóhúsvík
(Gísladóttir et al. 2011, 3).
The occupation of the farms and
hjáleigur listed here was not continuous
as some (such as Óttarstaðir) were only
occupied for a few years, or episodically
(such as Brekknakot and Bægistaðir).
Notably, all were in use as farms or
hjáleigur for at least some years during
the 19th century, while in the 1712
survey only Svalbarð and Flaga are listed
as being occupied and the other farms
mentioned are described as “abandoned
since before living memory” (eyðibýli,
eyðihjáleiga or eyðiból, JÁM, 361-362).
The irregular occupation of most of the
farms on Svalbarðstunga (most of the
major farms seem to have two or more
phases of occupation) and the apparent
general trend of coincidental events of
abandonment and (re)occupation raises
the question of what were the causes of
this fluid and ffagile history of subsidiary
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