Her insular position, continuity of political development and freedom from domestic broils played an important part in bringing about a steady and continuous growth of industry and manufactures for several generations before the modern era.
Many sanguinary broils now ensued, in the course of which Jugjevan was murdered, and the executive authority was much weakened by the usurpations of the Arabs and other chiefs.
Discord among the great families broke out again, and the attempt to put an end to it by a marriage between Buondelmonte de' Buondelmonti and a daughter of the Amidei, only led to further strife (1215), although the causes of these broils were deeper and wider, being derived from the general division between Guelphs and Ghibellines all over Italy.
It received civic rights in 1225, and soon became a prosperous place, but much of its history consists of broils between the bishops and the citizens.
It may be noticed that the Flatey Book narrative gives a somewhat different but much slighter account of Thorfinn's expedition, making both Thorvald Ericsson and Freydis undertake separate Vinland ventures - one before, the other after, Karlsefni's enterprise - Thorvald being killed on his (as in Red Eric Saga, but with divergent details), and Freydis on her committing atrocities upon her comrades, the Icelanders Helgi and Finnbogi, which are unnoticed in Red Eric. The latter, however, in its mention of the domestic broils which arose over the women of the colony in its third winter, points to something which may have been the germ of the highly elaborated Freydis story in Flatey.
