to effectively gather together their scattered possessions. For the men in Finnveden and Jämtland, most of the exchanges were carried out with unrelated parties. For the few women who exchanged in Finnveden, exchanges were always made with someone they knew, often a relative. In spite of the women’s exchanges with relatives, the exchange transactions could be classified according to the criterion of voluntary and equal relations between the parties at the top of the scale of free market relationships. The freedom to donate was restricted by rights of inheritance. That which had been given had usually been inherited by the donor, which meant that he or she gave away inherited land.With such donations, I have shown that the donor demanded consent for the donation from the prospective future direct heirs (and for women the procurement of consent applied, apart from relatives, even from the husband, if he was alive).The donor’s possibilities of donating were connected with whether he or she had inherited or acquired land over and above that which was required for his or her subsistence, which meant that the Jämtland freeholders seldom donated.This was reserved for the aristocracy (see Chapter 3). Another criterion the researchers used in order to be able to speak about a market relation was that the parties should be equal; that, for example, a lord didn’t purchase from a tenant, (as was done on the Continent) but that, as in my case, ordinary freeholders could purchase from one another without kinship or other personal bonds.When I investigated the personal ties between the parties in the few sales which took place in Jämtland in the 14th Century, I came to the conclusion that the purchaser in many cases was not a freeholder but a representative; for example a bailiff or some other person of lesser nobility. Sellers could not be found from the freeholder group until the end of the century. In Finnveden, both the purchaser and the seller were, until that time, amongst the elite in the society ie the noble families. First, towards the end of p a r t v i 1 289 Transactions between equals?
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