Birkarls
Sign in to savethumb|Trading near Pello, as depicted by the Carta Marina (1539). The Birkarls (; ) were a small, unofficially organized group that controlled taxation and commerce in central Lappmarken in Sweden from the 13th to the 17th century.
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Background
- Sami trade and tax monopoly
- Area of influence
- Decline and end
- Further reading
- References
thumb|Trading near Pello, as depicted by the Carta Marina (1539). The Birkarls (; ) were a small, unofficially organized group that controlled taxation and commerce in central Lappmarken in Sweden from the 13th to the 17th century.
==Background== Birkarls (bircharlaboa) are first mentioned in 1328, when they are listed as one of the settler groups in northern Hälsingland, a designation that covered the western coast of Gulf of Bothnia all the way up and around the gulf to Oulu River.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Birkarls” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.