Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive

by Jared Diamond

The Christian churches that were created in Iceland and Greenland after A.D. 1000 were not independent entities owning their own land and buildings, as are modern churches. Instead, they were built and owned by a leading local farmer/chief on his own land, and the farmer was entitled to a share of the taxes collected as tithes by that church from other local people. It was as if the chief negotiated a franchise agreement with McDonald’s, under which he was granted a local monopoly by McDonald’s, erected a church building and supplied merchandise according to uniform McDonald’s standards, and kept a part of the proceeds for himself while sending the rest of the proceeds to central management—in this case, the pope in Rome via the archbishop in Nidaros (modern Trondheim).