In politics the homestead, with its franklin-owner, was the unit;
the "thing", or hundred-moot, the primal organisation, and the
"godord", or chieftainship, its tie. The chief who had led a
band of kinsmen and followers to the new country, taken
possession of land, and shared it among them, became their head-
ruler and priest at home, speaker and president of their Thing,
and their representative in any dealings with neighbouring chiefs
and their clients. He was not a feudal lord, for any franklin
could change his "godord" as he liked, and the right of "judgment
by peers" was in full use. At first there was no higher
organisation than the local thing. A central thing, and a
speaker to speak a single "law" for the whole island, was
instituted in 929, and afterwards the island was divided in four
quarters, each with a court, under the Al-thing. Society was
divided only into two classes of men, the free and unfree, though
political power was in the hands of the franklins alone; "godi"
and thrall ate the same food, spoke the same tongue, wore much
the same clothes, and were nearly alike in life and habits.
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