Torshavn

Tórshavn, "Thor's harbor," grew around Tinganes, a narrow peninsula dividing its anchorage on the island of Streymoy. The Faroese assembly met on its flat rocks, and a market developed beside the gathering place. Under Norwegian rule the crown centralized trade here; a document of 1271 describes ships bringing salt, timber and grain from Bergen. Magnus Heinason built the small fort of Skansin around 1580 to defend the harbor. In the seventeenth century the trade monopoly passed into the hands of the Gabel family, whose rule brought complaints about prices and administration. A gunpowder explosion and fire in 1673 destroyed houses and records at Tinganes. The crown resumed direct control of the monopoly in 1709, the same year a smallpox epidemic devastated the town.