Bygdebok for Alenfit

This document is an amazing source for family history in a small area of Hordaland. It indicates most traditional farms were owned - some rented - by the resident farm families, records going back to mid-to-late 1500s. I am illiterate in Nynorsk but get the impression that, earlier than this, much of this land was owned by the church, or the king, or wealthy families. Is my impression more or less correct? Was there some change in society or law around this time that made land ownership more common for peasant families? Or, is it just a matter of lack of written records from earlier times?