ABSTRACT
All the Scandinavian countries were markedly agrarian in the eighteenth century. The farming population made up between 70 and 80 per cent of the total population. The economic factor underlying Denmark's rapid population increase after the late 1700's was a series of comprehensive agrarian reforms which chiefly benefited the peasantry. In conjunction with the steep rise in grain prices, especially during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the reforms led to a great deal of new cultivation and a large increase in agricultural employment. The practice of keeping church registers came late to the Scandinavian countries. It was probably introduced mainly by clergymen who had received their education in Northern Germany and learned the practice there. The short-and medium-term fluctuations in population growth were often related to a high or low frequency of poor harvests and or epidemics. These naturally checked the birth surplus and struck hardest at the poorest elements in the community.
