Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/139

 and revenues, could scarcely be called a class. They were temporary functionaries, not hereditary nobles; and had no feudal rights or jurisdiction, but had to plead in the Things like other bonders. As individuals they appear to have obtained power and influence, but not as a class; and they never transmitted it to their posterity.

The earls, or jarls, were still less than the lender-men a body of nobility approaching to the feudal barons of other lands. The title appears to have been altogether personal; not connected with property in land, or any feudal rights or jurisdiction. The Earls of Orkney—of the family of Rognvald Earl of More, the friend of Harald Haarfager, and father of Rolf Ganger—appear to have been the only family of hereditary nobles under the Norwegian crown exercising a kind of feudal power. The Earls of More appear to have been only functionaries or lendermen collecting the king's taxes, and managing the royal lands in the district, and retaining a part for their remuneration. The Earls of Orkney, however, of the first line, appear to have grown independent, and to have paid only military service, and a nominal quit-rent, and only when forced to do so. This line appears to have been broken in upon in 1129, when Bala, the son of Koll, was made earl, under the name of Earl Rognvald. His father Koll was married to the sister of Earl Magnus the Saint; but the direct male descendants of the old line, the sons of Earl Magnus's brothers, appear not to have been extinct. In Norway, from the time of Earl Hakon of Lade, who was regent or viceroy for the Danish kings when they expelled the Norwegian descendants of Haarfager, there appears to have been a jealousy of conferring the title of earl, as it probably implied some of Earl Hakon's power in the opinion of the people. Harald Haarfager had appointed sixteen earls, one