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Skriv ut sidan - US city girl needs help with Swedish farming words
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Titel: US city girl needs help with Swedish farming words
Skrivet av: Anna-Carin Betzén skrivet 2012-06-06, 11:33
I have the feeling that the wide range of different terms (torpare, arrendator, brukare (a head of household farming but not owning land) , hemmansägare etc) is largely a thing of the 19th century, while in the 18th century you mainly had torpare and three different types of bonde depending on if he owned the land or who he leased it from (specified by different prefixes; skattebonde, kronobonde and frälsebonde).
You may want to visit Hans Högman's site which has a wealth of information i English, including thorough explanations of torpare, land ownership etc in the past (scroll down to Swedish history, then look under the heading The Agricultural Society / Nobility).
The arrendator paid his rent in cash, as opposed to the torpare who payed by doing work.
I doubt that a torpare would ever have been called bonde in his day. Up to 1865, the Swedish parliament was made up of representatives from the four social estates, one of which was the land-owning farmers (bönder - while e.g. the torpare and the emerging class of factory workers had no representation at all), so there was a decided difference in status between a bonde and a torpare. Also, I've read that torpare had worse living conditions in the 19th century than earlier.