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ABSTRACT
The author discusses the role of cartography in Danish place-name studies, particularly since the editorial work on the series titled Danmarks Stednavne (‘Place Names of Denmark’) began in the 1920s. Additionally, he examines how cartography has been used politically to implement linguistic changes in place names in the border regions of Schleswig/Sønderjylland and Scania (Skåne), by comparing name forms used on maps before, during and after shifts in state boundaries. The main finding is that for a considerable number of ‘minor’ place names, the oldest extant references can often be found in cartographical sources from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. As a consequence, the catalogues of Danmarks Stednavne contain more cartographical references for minor and more recent place names than for older settlement names, which are often sufficiently accounted for in medieval textual sources. The author concludes that when studying maps, it is vital to consider always why and by whom the maps have been made. This also holds true for toponymy, where the background of the map can often be seen to have affected the type and number of place names included on it, and sometimes even their spellings.
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Notes
1 Direct quotations from Danish texts have been translated into English by the author.
2 A similar phenomenon can be seen on an English map of Denmark by John Speed from 1626, for which he evidently had used a Dutch source. On each side of the narrow strait between the islands of Lolland and Falster, he placed two towns named t’Veer and Tveer, not realizing that the Dutch original merely marked the location of ferry berths (het Veer) (Dam Citation2019, 112–113).
3 Commonly referred to in Danish as Matriklen af 1688, alternatively as Christian V’s Matrikel.
4 Aakjær’s Introduction is paginated separately from the main text in the edited volume in which it appears.
5 The term ‘high’ refers to the fact that the maps were made in ‘portrait’ format (i.e. of greater height than width), in contrast to the later series of Lave Målebordsblade (‘low plane-table maps’) made in ‘landscape’ format.
6 In this particular case, the editors broke with the outlined division system of the publication, as by that time Samsø was a part of the county of Holbæk.
7 Markbøger (field lists) were preparatory works for the Land Register (Matriklen) of 1688. They were compiled for most of the Danish isles in 1682 and for Jutland (with Samsø) in 1683, and are therefore referred to in DS as ‘MB 1682’ and ‘MB 1683’ depending on the geographical region in question. Unlike the final land register, the field lists contain lists of the names of all field strips and acres belonging to each village.
8 However, that editorial standard was temporarily abandoned by Kristian Hald in DS 18:1–2 (Citation1976–1980) and by Bent Jørgensen in his earliest volumes, DS 19 (Citation1988) and DS 20 (Citation1990), but was reinstalled by Jørgensen in DS 22 (Citation1995) and subsequent volumes.
9 Birgit Eggert, who is working on place names in the counties of Læsø and Hjørring, and Rikke Steenholt Olesen and myself, who are working on place names in the county of Holbæk. Volume 27 on Læsø is planned for publication in 2021.
10 Some of Mejer’s Schleswig-Holstein maps were self-published in a book containing Caspar Danckwerth’s description of the duchies (Mejer & Danckwerth Citation1652).
11 The enclosure maps in the Kingdom (i.e. under the king’s direct rule) of Denmark were made at a scale of 1:4000, while the maps of the duchies (the ducal part of the Danish realm) were predominantly made at a scale of 1:5500.
12 In the period 1332–1360 political turmoil in Denmark led the Archbishop of Lund and the Scanian nobility to declare the province an independent region governed by King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden–Norway. The province was reunited with Denmark in 1360.
13 Seventeen volumes in the series Skånes ortnamn have been published up to 2016 (Skånes ortnamn Citation1958–2016) (with various editors); for its full completion, six administrative hundreds of in total 23 remain to be published.