Sem is a village in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative ce ...

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered th ...

county, Norway. Sem was a former municipality in Vestfold. The parish of ''Sæm'' was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see

formannskapsdistrikt () is the name for Norwegian local self-government districts that were legally enacted on 1 January 1838. This system of municipalities was created in a bill approved by the Parliament of Norway and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January ...

). According to the 1835 census the municipality had a population of 3,590. On 1 January 1965 the district Stang with 126 inhabitants was incorporated into the former municipality of Borre. On 1 January 1988 the rest was incorporated into the municipality of

. Prior to the merger Sem was about three times the size of Tønsberg, which had a population of 21,948. The village of Sem has a population of 1,981, of which 42 people live within the border of the neighboring municipality

Stokke Stokke is a town in Sandefjord municipality in Vestfold County, Norway. It lies in-between Sandefjord and Tønsberg, two of Vestfold's largest cities. It was a municipality from 1838 to 2016. The administrative centre of the municipality was the ...

. The village is situated five kilometers west of the city of

. Originally the municipality and the parish were named after the historic Sem Manor (''Sem hovedgård''). During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, Sem Manor was a royal and feudal overlord residence at the site where Jarlsberg Manor is located today. King

Harald Fairhair Harald Fairhair no, Harald hårfagre Modern Icelandic: ( – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first King of Nor ...

chose to install his son Bjorn Farmann as the master of the estate. It was here that Bjorn Farmann was killed by

Eric Bloodaxe Eric Haraldsson ( non, Eiríkr Haraldsson , no, Eirik Haraldsson; died 954), nicknamed Bloodaxe ( non, blóðøx , no, Blodøks) and Brother-Slayer ( la, fratrum interfector), was a 10th-century Norwegian king. He ruled as King of Norway from ...

in 927. In 1673,

Peder Schumacher Griffenfeld Count Peder Griffenfeld (before ennoblement Peder Schumacher) (24 August 1635 – 12 March 1699) was a Danish statesman and royal favourite. He became the principal adviser to King Christian V of Denmark from 1670 and the ''de facto'' ruler of ...

took over the property which until then had belonged to the

King of Denmark The monarchy of Denmark is a constitutional political system, institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes Denmark proper and the autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe ...

. Griffenfeldt named the farm Griffenfeldgård, but three years later it was renamed Jarlsberg Manor (''Jarlsberg Hovedgård''). In 1682 the buildings on Jarlsberg burned and new buildings of stone were built by the new owner, the Danish-Norwegian Field Marshal Wilhelm Gustav Wedel.

The name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old farm Sem ( Norse ''Sæmr'' - a compressed form of ''*Sæheimr''), since the first church was built there. The first element is ''sær'' m 'sea, water' (here the Tønsberg fjord), the last element is ''heimr'' m 'farm; home'.

References

* * *

External links

Jarlsberg Hovedgård

Former municipalities of Norway Populated places established in 1838 1838 establishments in Norway Populated places disestablished in 1988 Villages in Vestfold og Telemark Tønsberg {{Vestfold-geo-stub