Sem or Semsbyen is a village in Tønsberg Municipality in

Vestfold Vestfold () is a county and a current electoral district in Norway. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it borders Buskerud and Telemark counties. The county administration is located in Tønsberg, Norway's oldest city, and the larg ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The village is located about to the west of the city of Tønsberg. The village of Vear lies about to the southeast of Sem, along the shore of the Tønsbergfjorden. The historic Sem Church is located just northeast of the village. The village lies along the border with

Sandefjord Municipality Sandefjord () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Vestfold. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Sandefjord ...

to the southwest (in fact, a small portion of the urban area of Sem crosses over the border and has about 50 residents in the neighboring municipality). The village has a population (2023) of 2,733 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

of . The village of Sem was the

administrative centre An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgi ...

of the old Sem Municipality which existed from 1838 until 1988 when it became part of Tønsberg Municipality.

History

The historic Sem Manor () is located just outside the present-day village. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, Sem Manor was the residence of a royal and feudal overlord at the site where Jarlsberg Manor is located today. King

Harald Fairhair Harald Fairhair (; – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first Monarchy of Norway, King of Norway. Supposedly, two ...

chose to install his son Bjorn Farmann as the master of the estate. It was here that Bjorn Farmann was killed by

Eric Bloodaxe Eric Haraldsson ( , ; c.930−954), nicknamed Bloodaxe ( , ) and Brother-Slayer (), was a Norwegians#Viking Age, Norwegian king. He ruled as List of Norwegian monarchs, King of Norway from 932 to 934, and twice as List of monarchs of Northumbr ...

in 927. In 1673, Peder Schumacher Griffenfeld took over the property which until then had belonged to the

King of Denmark The monarchy of Denmark is a constitutional political system, institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes Denmark proper and the autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Is ...

. Griffenfeldt named the farm ''Griffenfeldgård'', but three years later it was renamed Jarlsberg Manor (). In 1682, the buildings on Jarlsberg burned and new buildings of stone were built by the new owner, the Danish-Norwegian Field Marshal Wilhelm Gustav Wedel.

Name

The village (originally the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

) is named after the old ''Sem'' farm (, a compressed form of ) since the first Sem Church was built there. The first element is which means "

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

" or "

ocean The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as ''oceans'' (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Indian, Southern Ocean ...

", likely referring to the local Tønsbergfjorden. The last element is which means "home" or "abode".

Media gallery

Semsbyen tidl E18.JPG Sem Idrettspark.jpg Sem bensinstasjon - SAS2009-10-2007.jpg Sem kirke (Mariagerfjord).JPG Sem stasjon.jpg Sem skole1.jpg

References

{{use dmy dates, date=February 2024 Tønsberg Villages in Vestfold