Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. (The districts of Nordmøre and Romsdal, and the municipality of Bindal, originally also was parts of Trøndelag - and the inhabitants there still speak dialects similar to Trøndersk.) The name, Trøndelag, consists of the tribal name trønder and the word lag (law), meaning the "area of the law of the trønders" (compare Danelaw). The region is, together with Møre og Romsdal, part of a larger administrative division called Central Norway.
A person from Trøndelag is called a trønder. The largest city, unofficial capital of Trøndelag and also the first capital of Norway, is Trondheim (Sør-Trøndelag). The dialect spoken in the area is characterized by dropping out most vowel endings; see apocope.
History
People have lived in this region for thousands of years. In the early iron-age Trøndelag was divided into several petty kingdoms called fylki. The different fylki had a common law, and an early parliament or thing. It was called Frostating and was held at the Frosta-peninsula. By some this is regarded as the first real democracy.
In the time after Håkon Grjotgardsson (838-900), Trøndelag was ruled by the Earl of Lade. Lade is located in the eastern part of Trondheim, bordering the Trondheimsfjord. The powerful Earls of Lade continued to play a very significant political role in Norway up to 1030.
Earls of Lade (Ladejarl) were:
Trøndelag was ceded to Sweden (together with Møre og Romsdal) in the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) and was ruled by Karl X Gustav until Denmark-Norway took it back two years later.
The Swedes conscripted 2,000 men in Trøndelag, forcing young boys down to 15 years of age to join the Swedish armies fighting against Poland and Brandenburg. King Karl X Gustav was afraid that the Trønders would rise against their Swedish occupiers, and thought it wise to keep a large part of the men away. Only about one third of the men ever returned to their homes; some of them were forced to settle in the then Swedish province of Estonia, as the Swedes thought it would be easier to rule the Trønders there,utilising the ancient maxim of divide and rule. A major fraction of Trøndelag men were already in the Dano-Norwegian army, so the Swedish forced conscription emptied Trøndelag of males. The result was devastating; farms now were left without enough hands to harvest the...
