What does statare mean?

Definition

A statare was a married, poor farm laborer who owned no property, land or animals¹. He was hired for one year at a time on a large estate and paid mostly in goods¹. The pay in goods was called stat: lodging, firewood, grain and milk¹. There was no such worker in the English-speaking world, so there is no good English word².

In the records

The title stands before the name in the household examination record³. Statare moved often between estates, and Högman calls them the nomads of the Mälardalen region¹.

What it meant

The whole family worked for the estate¹. The lodgings were often cold, damp barracks with one room that was also the kitchen¹. Families moved in the last week of October, which Högman says was called slankveckan, the "slim week" or "hungry week"¹. The statare system began in the middle of the 1700s^1,4, peaked at the end of the 1800s¹ and was abolished on 1 November 1945^1,5.

Do not confuse with

A torpare (crofter) had his own croft, cattle and fields and paid with days of work; a statare owned nothing and was a hired laborer¹. A dräng (farmhand) was usually unmarried².

Related

• torpare – A crofter – a man who farmed a small holding on someone else's land and paid for it with days of work.
• dräng – A farmhand – a male servant on a farm, usually unmarried and hired for one year at a time.
• backstugusittare – A poor cottager who lived in a small cabin on someone else's land, with no land to farm.
• Guide: How to Read Swedish Household Examination Records

Sources

Sources in English

1. Hans Högman, Statare – hhogman.se
2. Hans Högman, The Old Agricultural Society – hhogman.se

Sources in Swedish

These pages are in Swedish.

3. Umeå University (CEDAR), Kyrkböcker. 1800-talets kyrkoregister, Ulla Nilsdotter Jeub, 2019 (in Swedish) – umu.se
4. Länsstyrelsen Skåne, De obesuttna (in Swedish) – lansstyrelsen.se
5. Erik Magnusson, En social omvälvning på 1940-talet, Uppland yearbook 1979 (in Swedish) – aarsbokenuppland.se