Among the free men there was equality in all but wealth and the
social standing that cannot be separated therefrom. The thrall
was a serf rather than a slave, and could own a house, etc., of
his own. In a generation or so the freeman or landless retainer,
if he got a homestead of his own, was the peer of the highest in
the land. During the tenth century Greenland was colonised from
Iceland, and by end of the same century christianity was
introduced into Iceland, but made at first little difference in
arrangements of society. In the thirteenth century disputes over
the power and jurisdiction of the clergy led, with other matters,
to civil war, ending in submission to Norway, and the breaking
down of all native great houses. Although life under the
commonwealth had been rough and irregular, it had been free and
varied, breeding heroes and men of mark; but the "law and order"
now brought in left all on a dead level of peasant
proprietorship, without room for hope or opening for ambition.
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