Mantal

Mantal has been an official measure of land in Finland and in Sweden.

The mantal is a measure of the wealth of a farm, not a simple unit of area, as it depends on the productivity of the land. It is an apportionment figure. A cameral measurement instrument of the wealth of the farm. According to Sjöström (2011, page 433) the essence is that the mantal figures of farms in one village show their share of the lands of the village. A landed estate's share of the joint properties of a village (such as, water areas and undivided and some specific things) is defined by its mantal figure.

The mantal was also used as a basis for taxation. A farm had to pay a fixed annual land tax and several other taxes (so-called auxiliary taxes and tithes = tenth taxes).

Sjöström 2011 page 433 advances an explanation that one mantal meant, in perspective of late-medieval and early-modern government, originally one warrior who was provided by group of farmers. One mantal thusly represented a group of farms which provided one mounted warrior, his horse and equipment. according to Sjöström, the governments in those days viewed the country and its revenues a means to provide armed troops, rather than viewing the country in terms of a population to be fed. Another explanation of "mantal" is that of one man cultivating a plot to feed his nuclear family ("one mantal would be a farm which supports a single family"), but Sjöström 2011 page 433 argues against that idea, citing examples of bunches of farms of about 0.05 mantal which each fed satisfactorily one household (one nuclear family or even a few more persons than merely a nuclear family).

Kiesi however reports that mantal was unit that describes how many men there was in the household - i.e., if a family cultivating a farm had two adult brothers, then the farm was 2 mantal.

Sjöström 2011 page 433 reports that hectarages of estates of one mantal, were around 500-1000 hectares in some regions of Finland and was rather considered a manor, not merely one farm. According to Kiesi, a farm of one mantal was a big farm.

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