Birk (market place)

Birk (biærk, berck, byrck) was during the Scandinavian Middle Ages the name for a demarcated area, especially a town or a market place, with its own laws and privileges.^[1]

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Denmark

In Denmark, the name was used for areas were exempted from the ordinary jurisdictions of the hundreds and the towns. There were royal, ecclesiastical and aristocratic birks with their own law courts and birk assemblies.^[1] After the Protestant Reformation, the ecclesiastical birks passed to the king.^{[citation needed]}

The royal birks were after some time abolished, but more and more aristocratic ones were established, where the aristocratic landlord (the patronus) appointed birk judges, birk bailiffs, and birk notaries. The aristocratic birk privilege (known by the same name as Bjarkey laws, birkerett) was reduced in 1809 and it was completely abolished in 1849. The term birk was to endure for some time, however.

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Birk (market place)

Denmark

Norway

Toponymy

References

Sources

See also

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