Birk (biærk, berck, byrck) was during the Scandinavian Middle Ages the name for a demarcated area, especially a town or a market place, with its own laws and privileges.
[1] In Denmark, the name was used for areas were exempted from the ordinary jurisdictions of the hundreds and the towns.
The aristocratic birk privilege (known by the same name as Bjarkey laws, birkerett) was reduced in 1809 and it was completely abolished in 1849.
In Norway, some counties, baronies and noble estates also had birk privileges, but they were abolished in 1821.
have proposed that the place name Birka would have origins in birk, but this theory has not been generally accepted.