153 of 33.880 farms existing in Norway at the said time. Sandnes further establishes that the Norwegian farms of the Middle Ages were often divided into two or more family holdings and the author calculates that the rate of division of the farms varied from 1.4 to 1.6 in different counties with a national average of 1.5. This would according to Sandnes’ calculations give a total number of 51.079 family holdings on the 33.880 Norwegian farms The consistent figures arrived at by Sandnes and the present writer strongly indicate that the 6-salding in fact represented the average family holding of the High Middle Ages in Norway. The correspondence between Sandnes’ calculations and those made by the present writer further indicate the correctness of both investigations, originating as they did from wholly different points. According to the laws of the four Norwegian thiug-unions the territories of the unions were subdivided into /icro3;s, a divisioning which has been the object of much discussion by Norwegian and Swedish historical research. The present writer has advanced the hypothesis, that the herad in Norway originally represented a centuriation of the same kind as the härad of the Göta parts of Sweden and the hundare of the Svea parts, the number of 6-saldings making up a Norwegian herad being in all probability 100 in the territories belonging to Frosta-thing, Gulathing and Eidsiva-thing but 240 in Borgar-thing. This theory would give a total number of 396 herads in the territories of contemporary Norway, a figure to be compared with the 468 herads given by Sandnes for the corresponding districts. 4’he present writer has deduced some facts from the materials available, indicating that the reconstructed assessment of the Norwegian acreage in any case would have been in existence at the beginning of the 13th century. He has assumed that the assessment-system could in fact be much older, originating from the late Viking Age, when the ledung was first organized in Norway, the construction of which has been dated to the reign of king Hakon the good (d. ca 960) by Norwegian historical research.
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