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Queries.
"MERK LANDS" AND "URES."--NORWEGIAN ANTIQUITIES.
In Shetland, at the present day, all public assessments are levied, and
divisions made, according to the number of merk lands in a parish. All
arable lands were anciently, under the Norwegian law, rated as _merks_,--a
merk containing eight _ures_. These merks are quite indefinite as to
extent. It is, indeed, clear that the ancient denomination of _merk land_
had not reference to superficial extent of surface, but was a denomination
of value alone, in which was included the proportion of the surrounding
commonty or _scattald_. Merk lands are of different values, as sixpenny,
ninepenny, twelvepenny,--a twelvepenny merk having, formerly at least, been
considered equal to two sixpenny merks; and in some old deeds lands are
described as thirty merks sixpenny, otherwise fifteen merks twelvepenny
land. All assessments have, however, for a very long period, been levied
and all privileges apportioned, according to merks, without relation to
whether they were sixpenny or twelvepenny. The ancient rentals of Shetland
contain about fourteen thousand merks of land; and it will be noticed that,
however much the ancient inclosed land be increased by additional
improvements, the number of merks ought to be, and are, stationary. The
valued rent, divided according the merk lands, would make a merk land in
Shetland equal to 2l. Scots of valued rent. There are only one or two
places of Scotland proper where merks are in use,--Stirling and
Dunfermline, I think. As these two places were the occasional residences of
our ancient Scottish kings, it is possible this plan of estimating land may
have obtained there, to equalise and make better understood some
arrangements relating to land entered into between the kings of Norway and
Scotland. Possibly some of the correspondents of "N. & Q." in the north may
be able to throw some light on this subject. It was stated some time ago
that Dr. Munch, Professor in the University of Christiana, had presented to
the Society of Northern Archaeology, in {619} Copenhagen, a very curious
manuscript which he had discovered and purchased during a voyage to the
Orkneys and Shetland in 1850. The manuscript is said to be in good
preservation, and the form of the characters assigns the tenth, or perhaps
the ninth century as its date. It is said to contain, in the Latin tongue,
several episodes of Norwegian history, relating to important facts hitherto
unknown, and which throw much light on feudal tenures, holdings,
superstitions, omens, &c., which have been handed down to our day, with
their origin involved in obscurity, and on the darkness of the centuries
that preceded the introduction of Christianity into Norway. Has this
manuscript ever been printed?