Tiundaland is a historic region, '' Folkland'', and since 1296 part of the modern province of

Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...

. It originally meant the ''land of the ten

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

s'' and referred to its duty of providing 1000 men and 40 ships for the Swedish king's

leidang The institution known as ''leiðangr'' (Old Norse), ''leidang'' ( Norwegian), ''leding'' ( Danish), ''ledung'' ( Swedish), ''expeditio'' (Latin) or sometimes lething (English), was a form of conscription ( mass levy) to organize coastal fleets for s ...

. A list from 1314 defines Tiundaland as Bälinge Hundred,

Gästrikland Gästrikland () is a historical province or ''landskap'' on the eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Uppland, Västmanland, Dalarna, Hälsingland and the Gulf of Bothnia. Gästrikland is the southernmost of the Norrland provinces. Other f ...

, Håbo Hundred, Hagunda Hundred, Norunda Hundred, Närding Hundred, Oland Hundred, Rasbo Hundred,

Ulleråker Hundred Ulleråker Hundred, or ''Ulleråkers härad'', was a hundred of Uppland and Uppsala County in Sweden. The area of the hundred stretches from the border of Hagunda hundred in the south-west to the Rivers Jumkilsån and Fyrisån in the northwest an ...

and Vaksala Hundred. During the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...

it probably extended from the coast of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

Norrtälje Norrtälje is a locality and the seat of Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 17,275 inhabitants in 2010. It is one of the largest towns in Roslagen. History Norrtälje’s early history dates back to the Iron Age. Around 225 ...

to the bay which today is the lake

Mälaren Mälaren ( , , or ), historically referred to as Lake Malar in English, is the third-largest freshwater lake in Sweden (after Vänern and Vättern). Its area is 1,140 km2 and its greatest depth is 64 m. Mälaren spans 120 kilometers from e ...

. A very strategic position. According to

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

in the ''

Heimskringla ''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...

'' it was the location of

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...

and the Thing of all Swedes, where every year there were great

blót ( Old Norse) and or ( Old English) are terms for "blood sacrifice" in Norse paganism and Anglo-Saxon paganism respectively. A comparanda can also be reconstructed for wider Germanic paganism. A ' could be dedicated to any of the Germanic ...

s which were attended by many kings. He relates that Tiundaland was the richest and most fertile region of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

where was the seat of the Swedish kings at

, the Swedish

Archbishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

and from which Uppsala öd had taken its name. All the Swedish

lawspeaker A lawspeaker or lawman ( Swedish: ''lagman'', Old Swedish: ''laghmaþer'' or ''laghman'', Danish: ''lovsigemand'', Norwegian: ''lagmann'', Icelandic: , Faroese: '' løgmaður'', Finnish: ''laamanni'', kl, inatsitinuk) is a unique Scandina ...

s were subordinate to the one of Tiundaland. :''The third portion of Svithjod proper is called Tiundaland; the fourth

Attundaland Attundaland (or the land of the eight hundreds) was the name given to the southeastern part of the present day province of Uppland, north of Stockholm. Its name refers to its role of providing 800 men and 32 ships for the leidang of the Swedis ...

; the fifth Sialand (

Roslagen Roslagen is the name of the coastal areas of Uppland province in Sweden, which also constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Historically, it was the name for all the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, including the eastern p ...

), and what belongs to it lies eastward along the coast. Tiundaland is the best and most inhabited part of Svithjod, under which the other kingdoms stand. There Upsala is situated, the seat of the king and archbishop; and from it Upsala-audr ( Uppsala öd), or the domain of the Swedish kings, takes its name. Each of these divisions of the country has its Lag-thing, and Its own laws in many parts. Over each is a lagman'' [

], ''who rules principally in affairs of the bondes'' [yeomen]'': for that becomes law which he, by his speech, determines them to make law: and if king, earl, or bishop goes through the country, and holds a Thing with the bondes, the lagmen aw speakersreply on account of the bondes, and they all follow their lagmen; so that even the most powerful men scarcely dare to come to their Al-thing without regarding the bondes' and lagmen's law. And in all matters in which the laws differ from each other, Upsala-law is the directing law; and the other lagmen are under the lagman who dwells in Tiundaland''

'

See also