Duties owed to the estate owner

[Karen Kelsey]

My ancestors, the Ahlgrens, leased their property in Skåne from the Blixen-Finecke family at the Näsbyholm estate. I think the Ahlgrens were in the class of åbo, and they stayed in the same cottage for almost 100 years. I am writing a narrative about their lives, and I wonder about their work requirements to the estate landlord.  I know that the old hoveri system was abolished around 1868, after the family was already living on the Sjöhus property. The letters talk about the oldest daughter, Johanna, doing laundry four times a month at the manor house - until she was 70 years old! Did lease-holders owe work obligations to the estate landlords, and how much work were they required to provide free?
   Thanks for whatever help you can give me.

[Karen Kelsey]

I made one mistake in the description of the Ahlgrens. The elder Nils Gustaf Ahlgren was called an Arrendator Snickare, since he leased from a private estate, rather than from the crown.

[Ingela Martenius]

An åbo was a farmer with a lease that could be inherited or sold. The lease was paid in cash (money) or in produce (often butter and flax or linen fabrics).
This was true for all of Sweden except for the old Danish provinces of Blekinge, Skåne and Halland. The Danish (or rather, continental) hoveri system was here enforced, although the Swedish authorities started abolishing it from 1682. It was however still around in 1867-69 when the so-called Tullberg unrest (de Tullbergska oroligheterna) took place. After this, the hoveri system was abolished for good in Sweden.
 
In Sweden all crofters (torpare) - but not farmers - paid their lease by doing dagsverke (a day's work - women and children under 15 counted for half a day). This however caused no unrest. The difference was that in the Swedish system the contract between the owner and the leaser spelled out exactly how many days the leaser had to work to pay for his lease. In the Danish (and Norwegian) hoveri system, this was originally also the case, but in time the estate owner started deciding on the number of days as it suited him.
It is impossible to generalize and say that a dagsverksbonde (farmer that pays his lease working days for the owner) did so and so many days. Some estate owners abolished the system already in the 17th century, some held on to it until it was forbidden and used it to the hilt. Some used the system to improve the farmers' situation, like building a school-house, others abused it so much that the tenants had no time for their own farms.
The Swedish torpare system was not abolished until 1943.
 
That a woman of 70 did laundry was not so strange. There were after all no retirement plans; if you couldn't work your children had to support you and if they couldn't, you were declared a pauper and had to live on charity - and at all times you were expected to help out with what you could.
Also, conditions were harder for women than for men: men were allowed a rest when they came in from the fields but a woman worked every minute she was awake - even when walking, e.g. to church, she was expected to busy herself with something and there are lots of pictures showing women walking and knitting at the same time. A woman never sat down unless the task she performed demanded it, like weaving e.g. The only time a woman didn't have to work was the four weeks (ought to have been 40 days but in practice ended on the 4th Sunday) she was confined to her room after giving birth.
 
However, you cannot say that the land owner had the farmers' work for free - it was payment for the leases, even if it in some cases were too much.
 
The word arrendator means only tenant, it does not say from whom you lease. The word arrendator replaced the old-fashioned åbo during the 19th century. (And a snickare is a joiner or carpenter; this man was evidently both a craftsman and a farmer - a not uncommon combination.)
 
Ingela

[Karen Kelsey]

Thanks for the thorough answer!  You have been very helpful!  Johanna Ahlgren was taken care of by her son, so she did not need to work at the manorhouse, but she must have felt an obligation.  Johanna's father had a lease on a piece of property, but I am sure that he was originally given the home because he was the carpenter for the estate.  He also farmed the Sjöhus property.  He had the type of lease that could be handed down to the next generation, and then his grandson took over (1899).  Eventually, his grandson became a foreman, and he no longer farmed his own property.  He stayed in the same house as a paid worker of the estate, and his mother lived with him.  She continued to do laundry four days a month for Näsbyholm.