Om uår og ødegårder i Kongespeilet og andre skriftlige kilder fra høymiddelalderen

Abstract

In this article it is brought forward and analyzed information about crop failure and deserted farms in sources from the high Middle Ages. In some instances, the sagas mention crop failures in the first decades of the 1200s. The author of the King’s Mirror obviously knew a lot about crop failure and håkon håkonsson’s law-mending from about the same time (1260) describes problems caused by abandoned farms. Deserted farms are also referred to in some diplomas from the first half of the 1300s. Bad years from a climatological point of view are also reflected in the dendrochronological material. It makes therefore sense to assume that the settlement peak in Trøndelag is to be found round 1200 rather than just before 1349 (when the Black Death decimated the population severely) as previously stated by many historians.