270 ?/orway and the Norwegians 



despite the fact that his personal character recalls that 

 of some of his forerunners, the two notable events of 

 Sigurd the Crusader's reign belong to the new era, to the 

 two new tendencies of life in Norway, the growth of the 

 towns, and the growth of the power of the Church. Sigurd 

 built the town of Kongsballa ; and while he was in the 

 Holy Land, he vowed that he would establish a metro- 

 politan see in his dominions, and that he would likewise 

 levy a tithe on the whole country for the support of the 

 clergy — in other words, that he would, as the modern 

 phrase goes, bring Norway into line with the more 

 southern states of Christendom, so far as regarded its 

 church-government. These vows were only partially 

 fulfilled. But the position of the Church grew much 

 stronger in this reign, and, indeed, it was growing 

 stronger day by day. 



Stronger, also, were beginning to grow the greater 

 landowners, the great leaders throughout the country. 

 Under the Olafs, and their immediate successors, they 

 had fallen much in position. The old race of earls had 

 pretty nearly decayed. The greatest among that body, 

 the Earls of Lade, who so often gave rulers to Norway, 

 had died out at the time that Magnus, tlie son of Olaf, 

 came to the throne. Of the great chiefs under the two 

 Olafs — Einar Tambarskelfir, Erling Skjalgsson, Finn 

 Arnason, and so forth — some only bore the title of earl. 

 As the old race of earls wei'& the representatives of a 

 still earlier race of independent kings, so now these 

 earls were replaced by a class of aristocracy not new but 

 less imposing in appearance, who went by the name of 

 lendermen. The lendermen had been in a manner 

 created by Harald Fairhair, Theoretically they were 



