Through comparing a record, which includes the names and titles of hunters that claimed bounties for carnivores, in the county of Jönköping in Sweden, with information from probate inventories from ten districts situated in the southern half of the country, this paper investigates the importance of hunting as an additional breadwinning activity in the household economy in the Swedish countryside 1822-1835; well before the effects of industrialisation were felt. In order to carry out the investigation it is necessary to deconstruct and investigate the importance of hunting by posing two questions to the sources. 1) Did people from all socio-economic classes hunt – gentry, farmers and land poor? 2) With what frequency does hunting equipment occur in the probate inventories? The presumption is that frequency signifies breadwinning importance.
The 398 hunters were grouped according to titles, which showed that hunting occurred in all three socio-economic classes. This was compared with the frequency of hunting equipment from the Tveta district in the county of Jönköping. The probate inventories, grouped identically, showed that 18 percent of inventories from the gentry contained hunting equipment. This compared to 8 percent for the farmers and 6 percent for the land poor; artisans, smallholders and landless. The mean average for the whole sample of 1 299 probate inventories from Tveta district was 8 percent.
Next, the frequency of hunting equipment in the probate inventories from all ten districts, situated between the 64th parallel in the north and the 56th parallel in the south, was calculated. 718 out of totally 10 571, or 6.8 percent, of inventories contained hunting equipment. The frequency of fishing equipment was double that of hunting equipment. These frequencies were then compared with the frequency of textile-making equipment, spinning wheel/loom or both, in a limited sample of 170 probate inventories from two parishes, 1825-1828, from one of our districts. The frequency of textile-making equipment was 71 percent. The conclusion is that hunting, in the southern half of Sweden, was of minor importance as a breadwinning activity.
