them in the diagram. The exchanges are poorly represented in Jämtland and it is first during the second half of the 15th Century when they reach the level that applied for the noble families in Finnveden during the first half of the 14th Century! This fact has been interpreted in the investigation to mean that, in Jämtland, there was far too little superfluous land to exchange with; for one thing because women in Jämtland did not always inherit land in spite of the right to inherit, while the daughters of the aristocracy always inherited land. In Finnveden, women’s land was used as an exchange object, while the land that was inherited by women in Jämtland was sold to their brothers. According to established opinion, gifts and exchanges belonged thus to a so called exchange or non-commercial market, while sales and pledges were part of a market economy. I question this view and instead examine both a number of criteria that would have been necessary for the existence of market relations, and a number of criteria in order to narrow down which personal bonds could have existed between the parties in relation to different types of transaction.As late as in 2006 (in the spirit of the 1970s), the Swedish economic historian Franzén asserted that transaction forms such as gifts and exchanges could not be market directed. According to him, only purchases and the granting of credits can be market oriented. In line with Franzén’s view, my results should thus point towards a finding that Jämtland was more market directed than Finnveden, since the predominant form of acquisition there during the 15th Century was sales. On the other hand, according to his interpretation, Finnveden should be well ahead of Jämtland with regard to market direction, since there were so many more pledges given there than in Jämtland. However, according to Franzén, gift transactions, in any form, cannot be directed towards the market – and in Finnveden there are many such transactions, which should indicate that Finnveden was not market directed. Finnveden should, using his interpretation, be both market directed and not market directed. And that is in itl e g a l a c q u i s i t i o n , l a n d m a r k e t s a n d m o n e t i s at i o n 282
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