Its purpose was to replace the scattered farmland in village communities to connected lands for each farm.
This was in fact a continuation of the previous land reform storskiftet, but it was more radical and effective, as it did not merely divide the land, as the previous reform, but also forced the villagers to move their farms from the village closer to the land they had been given, which signified the end of traditional village life.
[1] Enskiftet was initiated in the province of Scania by Carl Gideon Wadman at the estate Svaneholm Castle, owned by Rutger Macklean.
In 1785, Macklean had the 701 villagers of his estate evicted and forced to relocate their homes on the new land he divided to them.
The experiment was deemed so successful, that the government enforced it in the entire province in 1803.