Heimrustir

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Published Jan 1, 1960
E.A. Bjørk

Abstract

In the old Faroese village, heimrustir are the areas round the houses of the village, which are used for building, grazing, and for digging turf and clay for house-building. In the southern islands these areas are called skattagrundir or rustari. Etymologically, heimrustir means the areas cleared of stones near the houses of the village, while skattagrundir means the plots on which taxes are paid.

Sometimes these areas are also called almenningur; but, in fact, this is only the part of the cultivated area used for traffic for people (public roads) or animals (Faroese: geilir), or for other public purposes. The historical trend has been towards the fact that while almenningur remained communal property, the division into village districts in the Middle Ages brought about the fact that each district got its separate heimrustir, which formed the basis of the assessment of the King's tax (land tax assessment), and to which, perhaps, the number of merkur (mørk: Faroese unit of land valuation based on estimated
capability of feeding a certain number of sheep) was attached. Thus, a considerable resemblance seems to have been between heimrustir and the paddocks in the Danish and Swedish communal ownerships of land.

The »pulverizing« of the freeholJs through distributions brought about the fact that the individual owner got landed property, and in that way a share in heimrustir in different districts of the village, which in many places — especially in the northern islands brought about the opinion that heimrustir were communal property for all the village.

In other places this development brought about the state of things that the King's yeomen, who paid the King's tax for a district, considered themselves as solely entitled to the heimrustir or skattagrundir belonging to the district.

Nowadays it is like this: in many places especially in the northern islands — heimrustir are considered as belonging to the number of merkur of all the village, while in other places — especially in the southern islands — they are considered as adjoining land to particular landed properties.

Anyone who has a share in heimrustir, is entitled to use them for building, grazing, etc. when not infringing the well-earned rights of others of using the piece in question of the heimrust. It must be regarded as certain that one may gain a prescriptive right to heimrustir, while proprietary rights are out of the question for the participants in the communal property.

Transfer of ownership to separate pieces of heimrustir may take place with the consent of all the participants in the piece in question, or by abandoning the collective system. Through the exchange of strip holdings for separate compact holdings, the heimrustir are disappearing, the shares of the individual owners, together with their scattered fields, being included in the new title numbers.

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Section
History