chieftaincies declined and power started to centralize in individual chieftains controlling larger regions of the country. By ca 1220, the country was a loose federation of 10-12 regional powers.

According to historian Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, "a chieftain based his power on his personal qualities, his wealth, friends, assembly men, kinsmen and in-laws. The cleverest, the most helpful, the wealthiest and the most generous became the most powerful ones." Historian Árni Daniel Júliusson further notes that the food production of the peasantry