View to a farm
The village is nowadays mainly an administrative unit. Until the 19th century this concept included three inseparable parts - the commune, the territory used by it and the settlement.
Settled inhabitation appeared in Estonia in the 11th century, when continuous farming became the main way of living. The conquering of Estonia in the 13th century interrupted normal development. From that time on arable land was divided into manor, village and farm land, and the ownership relations of these changed substantially in time.
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In the beginning of the 19th century homestead villages prevailed. These consisted of average sized taxed farms. Solitary farms lying diffusely between them were sometimes considered as separate entities, sometimes as being a part of the village. The number of solitary farms rose from the beginning of the 18th century. From the second quarter of the 19th century the number of small farms rose, too. Villages of poorer farmers, later manor workers' villages,also emerged, but these diminished in number again in the 19th century. Most of their inhabitants moved to towns. At the same time, some of the villages developed into town-like settlements, where artisans, trade and societies concentrated, frequently a parish hall was situated there, too. |
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The farms - families making up a village commune - were tightly bound to each other by the system of land-use. The village territory consisted of fields, pastures, haylands and forest. Until the 19th century arable land was divided into patches or landshares so that the fields of one farm were scattered in tens of pieces among the fields of the other farms. This meant that all the farms had the use of different quality land, making the economic conditions of the farms almost equal. On the other hand, this resulted in field compulsion. If rye or summer corn was sown on the village field, or the field stood fallow, a single farm could not deviate from the whole. Agricultural tasks too, had to be started and finished approximately at the same time. |
| Pastures and forest were in communal use. Frequently a herdsman, blacksmith, sometimes a miller and gate- or field-keeper were also hired in common. As a remnant of community working traditions jobs such as spreading dung, hay making, corn harvesting and the transporting of building materials were done communally. The community supported the poor and the bereaved. If crops failed, corn was made available from communal granaries. Until the 17th century the village also had an administrative function. As serfdom deepened, the village elders, who had functioned as the local judges, came under the power of the landlords and the overseeing of the serfs' work became his main duty. |  Participants of a hay-making bee |
The location, planning and size of villages depended largely on the relief of the landscape, soil peculiarities, the availability of fresh water and the proximity of forest. "The farm had to be placed close to water and fire[wood]." People's traditions and socio-economic conditions played an important role as well. A more important change than the attempts at farmland regulation at the end of the 18th century was the consolidation of landholdings in the third quarter of the 19th century. This was closely connected to the expansion the manor lands and the buying up of farms outright. As a result many farms disappeared or were resettled.
The size of the village did not change appreciably until the 19th century, it varied from few families up to a rare 30 -35 homesteads. Villages of 5-10 homesteads prevailed. Hamlets (3-5 farmsteads, 2/5 of the total) were comparatively more numerous in South and South-West Estonia and in the Virumaa region; bigger villages (11-20 farmsteads, 1/5 of the total) were common in Central Estonia and in the central Läänemaa region.
Different types of villages were spread across Estonia. In North and West Estonia and on the islands irregular villages of dense inhabitation were common. In North-West Estonia diffuse solitary farms surrounded the central village. In the drumlin landscape of Central Estonia, on the lake shores and near the sea, villages in which the houses were located densely on one side of the street prevailed. Diffuse villages, with solitary houses were in the majority in South Estonia. In Setumaa and on the shores of Lake Peipsi Russian-type villages were common. Houses in these villages stood close together on both sides of the street.
