Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/112

 found employment for them in useful trades, or in the herring fishery, for which he furnished them with nets and salt. The same course of management is ascribed in the Saga of Saint Olaf to his stepfather, Sigurd Syr, who is celebrated for his prudence, and wisdom, and skill in husbandry; and it has probably been general among the slaveholders. The slaves who had thus obtained their freedom would belong to what appears to have been a distinct class from the peasants or bonders on the one hand, or the slaves on the other—the class of unfree men.

This class—the unfree—appears to have consisted of those who, not being udal-born to any land in the country, so as to be connected with, and have an interest in, the succession to any family estate, were not free of the Things; were not entitled to appear and deliberate in those assembles; were not Thingsmen. This class of unfree is frequently mentioned in general levies for repelling invasion, when all men, free and unfree, are summoned to appear in arms; and the term unfree evidently refers to men who had personal freedom, and were not thralls, as the latter could only be collected to a levy by their masters. This class would include all the cottars on the land paying a rent in work upon the farm to the peasant, who was udal-born proprietor; and, under the name of housemen, this class of labourers in husbandry still exists on every farm in Norway. It would include also, the house-carls, or freeborn indoor men, of whom Erling, we see, always kept ninety about him. They were, in fact, his body-guard and garrison, the equivalent to the troop maintained by the feudal baron of Germany in his castle; and they followed the bondi or peasant in his summer excursions of piracy, or on the levy when called out by the king. They appear to have been free to serve whom they pleased. We find many of the class of bonders