This was an important feature in a mountainous and northern nation like Sweden.
The system was exported with the Viking conquest to parts of England and Finland,[1] where evidence of it remains in the modern landscape.
In this method of tenure, a community was composed of a village and the surrounding lands.
The village was divided into individual tofts (where the residences were built) and into fields where agriculture took place.
[2][3] The village was then administered by a hallmoot court and the communities by-laws.