217 come to the conclusion that the ledung can be attributed to a rather late period of Danish history, i.e. to the reigns of Knut the Great (1015—1035) or of his predecessor, Sven Forkbeard (986—1015). In two previous papers, published in 1974 and 1976 respectively, the present writer has given his opinion of the ledung-systems prevailing in Sweden and Norway. He has put forward the hypothesis, that only those peasants who owned or cultivated a certain amount of acreage and thus were able to produce the food-rations necessary for the fleet-expeditions, were bound to be attached to the ledung-system. The minimum of soil required to meet this would have been that of a family holding called attung in Sweden and 6-sålding in Norway. These basic ledung-holdings were supposed to have corresponded to 1/8 of an Anglo-Saxon hide {aratrum, ploughland), having an average acreage of approximately 6 hectares, enough to support a family. The owner of such a holding together with other men of the same standing formed a team of three which was responsible for one oar of the ship, according to the division of villages into districts called skeppslag in Sweden and skipreida in Norway, the teams being called hamna and hamla respectively. As the ships of the ledung in both countries originally had 40 oars, the basic crew of one ship consisted of 120 men, rotating on the oars every third time their ship was called upon to performits service in the fleet. By means of analysing existing sources — among them the so called Vienne-tithe, a tax to the Holy See, which the parish-priests of Sweden and Norway had to pay as the result of a decision by the council at Vienne in 1311/12 —the present writer has put forward the hypothesis that the whole acreage of Sweden and Norway had once been subjected to an assessment of attungs and 6-såldings in order to create a basis for the ledung-systems in both countries, the total of Swedish acreage amounting to 76.800 attungs and that of Norway to 51.600 6-såldings, thus representing 2/3 of the Swedish figure. In Sweden however, only the Svea parts, identical with the northern half of the country, owed ledung obligations and in Norway moreover one of the four Norwegian law-unions —that of Eidsiva thing, bordering upon the Göta parts of Sweden — had no organized ledung. The present writer furthermore expressed the opinion that acreage assessments in both countries were grouped together in larger districts, called hundari (hundare) in the Svea parts of Sweden and haera'ds (härad) in the Göta parts, the hundare being assessed at 100 ploughlands or 800 attungs, the härad at 60 ploughlands or 480 attungs. The ledung-system of Sweden was supposed to have originated during the reign of king Olof Skötkonung (ca 995—1022) and that of Norway during that of king Hakon the Good (d. ca 960).
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