Mantal is a little bit difficult to explain in short way. It is originally unit describing how many men in your household there was. Then mantals told what was the farm's portion of the fields of whole village. One "whole farm" gave living to one family (about). The whole farm was originally 1 mantal farm. The farms were splitted by legacies and deals, the villages began consist of farms with a fractional mantal instead of integer mantals. Then the mantal was developed to a taxation unit. The farm had to pay a fixed yearly land tax (fin: maakirjavero, swe: jordebokränta)and several other taxes so called auxiliary taxes (fin: apuverot, swe: gärd) and tenth taxes (?) (fin: kymmennykset, swe: tionde). Auxiliary taxes were collected on the bases of mantals. Finally mantals had changed a cameral measurement instrument of the wealth of the farm. It was also a kind of land area unit, but 1 mantal was very varying in size and it is not right to say that 1 mantal is about so many hectares, the size of 1 mantal farm (which was a big one) was totally depending on what kind of land the farm owned (what was it's productivity). In northern Finland 1 mantal farms were huge in area compared with southern Finland's more fertile 1 mantal farms. So in the end of 1600's it was necessary to invent all farms and the commissions put a new mantal figure to describe the real situation on farms productivity (how much taxes the crown could collect from the farm). Since then in land records there are two mantal figures the old one (fin: vanha manttaali, swe: oförmedlat mantal) and the new one (fin: uusi manttaali, swe: förmedlat mantal). Förmedling means a tax revision to correspond the situation after many changes in farms' conditions during severe years in 1600's. From the beginning of 18th century (about 1720) you will find following information in land records. Every independent farm was put in the records. There was the jurisdictional district (fin: kihlakunta, swe: härad)parish or county (fin: pitäjä, swe: socken), village (fin: kylä, swe: by) and number of the farm in village starting from 1. From every farm was announced "number of farms" (fin: taloluku, swe: hemmantal), which normally was one (ínteger), but it could be ½ if the farm was splitted or 2 if another farm was joint with it . Then there was the old mantal (an integer or a fraction). After that the new mantal was written down in certain columns, which described three natures of land(?) (fin: maanluontoa, swe: jordnatur). They could be heritary farm with certain mantal (fin: perintötalo, swe: skattehemman), crown farm (fin: kruununtalo, swe: kronohemman) or free farm (fin: rälssitalo, swe: frälsehemman). Finally it was ordered in land records how the farm's taxes were used (mostly for the army). Mantals and land natures were left away from land records in 1922 or 23, I guess.
So what is mantal? It is not an area unit. Originally telling the number of labor age men, then developing gradually a taxing unit and finally it was a cameral unit describing the wealth of a farm (often describes the size , too?). Today it is used only in connection of some rural obligations and rights, but the size of farms is announced in hectares.
The text was sent to Finngen mailing list by Kalevi Kiesi
on April 4, 1998.