Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/66

the king in arms, and with ships, whenever they were called upon to serve him either at home or abroad. The king appears, in fact, not only not to have wanted any prerogative that feudal sovereigns of the same times possessed, but to have had much more power than the monarchs of other countries. The middle link in the feudal system—a nobility of great crown vassals, with their sub-vassals subservient to them as their immediate superiors, not to the crown—was wanting in the social structure of the Northmen. The kingly power working directly on the people was more efficient; and the kings, and all who had a satisfactory claim to the royal power, had no difficulty in calling out the people for war expeditions. These expeditions, often merely predatory in their object, consisted either of general levies, in which all able-bodied men, and all ships, great and small, had to follow the king; or of certain quota of men, ships, and provisions, furnished by certain districts according to fixed law. All the country along the coasts of Norway, and as far back into the land "as the salmon swims up the rivers," was divided into ship-districts or ship-rathes; and each district had to furnish ships of a certain size, a certain number of men, and a certain equipment, according to its capability; and other inland districts had to furnish cattle and other provision in fixed numbers. This arrangement was made by Harald Haarfager's successor, Hakon, who reigned between 933 and 961; and as Hakon was the foster-son of Athelstan of England, and was bred up to manhood in his court, it is not improbable that this arrangement may have been borrowed from the similar arrangement made by King Alfred for the defence of the English coast against the Northmen; unless we take the still more probable conjecture that Alfred borrowed it himself from them, as they were certainly in all naval and military affairs superior to his own