Early Kings of Norway

Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, nothing but numerous jarls, essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but, in spite of Fylke Things (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had gradually formed themselves, often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them