in Scandinavian countries during the early Middle Ages, all freemen who had their own farm and did not belong to the aristocracy. As landholding and social inequality became more profound, prosperous landowners, as well as impoverished peasants, who were drawn into a dependency on the important landowners, began to stand out from the general mass of bonders. The bonders (with the exception of those living in certain sections of Denmark) were not enslaved and were considered individually as freemen throughout the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, as a class they did not enjoy full civil rights and were subjected to feudal exploitation both by the owners of the land on which they settled and by the state.