to the crown should be set apart for the support of the local government. Over each province he placed a jarl, whose duties were, to defend it against all enemies, to collect the revenues, to preside over the local administration. Associated with each jarl were four, at least two, herser or councillors, whose office was at once military and administrative; and to each was awarded a benefice of twenty marks in yearly value. In time of war each jarl was to support sixty, each of the herser twenty, armed men, at his own expense. So ample were the revenues of each province, that the jarls were more wealthy and more powerful than many royal chiefs of the period. Hence the dignity was an object of ambition, and he who could bestow it did not want applicants for it: in the hope of obtaining it, most of the nobles hastened to join him whenever he entered a province.
[171] 