Two different kinds of field measuring and distribution of strips among farms are discussed and the concepts clarified on the basis of previous historical research. The two concepts are then related to the historical development of the villages. 

The "bolskifte" is related to a dynamic land owner and user structure in the medieval village, a structure which still allowed inheritance and selling of single strips between the village farms. The article demonstrates that the "bol" system - with the "bol" as the connecting link between the farms and the fields, and with the "bol" divided into four or eight parts - in principle and practice was applicable under changing owner - user relations. 

The "solskifte" on the other hand implies in principle an unchangeable relation between each farm of the village and its land. This measuring system, therefore, belongs to an era when it was not permitted to cede land from one farm to another. This became a common structure in the Late Middle Ages and should be viewed in the light of an important development in the relation between land owners and tenants to the advantage of the owners. 

Following this attempt at concept clarification the article sketches a new and more unambiguous grouping of categories and sub-categories among the measuring systems as they were in the Danish villages before the village agricultural community was dissolved.