$Unique_ID{bob00928} $Pretitle{} $Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages Notes To Book VIII: Part II} $Subtitle{} $Author{Hallam, Henry} $Affiliation{} $Subject{laws ceorl word eorl anglo-saxon find ceorls might thane law} $Date{} $Log{} Title: History Of Europe During The Middle Ages Book: Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England Author: Hallam, Henry Notes To Book VIII: Part II Note III The proper division of freemen was into eorls and ceorls: ge eorle - ge ceorle; ge eorlische - ge ceorlische: occur in several Anglo-Saxon texts. The division corresponds to the phrase "gentle and simple" of later times. Palgrave (p. II.) agrees with this. Yet in another place (vol. ii. p. 352) he says, "It certainly designated a person of noble race. This is the form in which it is employed in the laws of Ethelbert. The earl and the churl are put in opposition to each other as the two extremes of society." I cannot assent to this; the second thoughts of my learned friend I like less than the first. It seems like saying men and women are the extremes of humanity, or odd and even of number. What was in the middle? ^a Mr. Kemble, in his Glossary to Beowulf, explains eorl by vir fortis, pugil vir; and proceeds thus: - "Eorl is not a title, as with us, any more than beorn . . . We may safely look upon the origin of earl, as a title of rank, to be the same as that of the comites, who, according to Tacitus, especially attached themselves to any distinguished chief. That these fideles became under a warlike prince something more important than the early constitution of our tribes contemplated, is natural, and is moreover proved by history, and they laid the foundation of that system which recognizes the king as the fountain of honor. In the later Anglo-Saxon constitution, ealdorman was a prince, a governor of a country or small kingdom, sub-regulus; he was a constitutional officer; the earl was not an officer at all, though afterwards the government of counties came to be intrusted to him; at first, if he had a beneficium or feud at all, it was a horse, or rings, or arms; afterwards lands. This appears constantly in Beowulf, and requires no further remark." A speech indeed ascribed to Withred King of Kent, in 696, by the Saxon Chronicle, would prove earls to have been superior to aldermen in that early age. But the forgery seems too gross to impose on any one. Ceorl, in Beowulf, is a man, vir; it is sometimes a husband; a woman is said ceorlian, i. e. viro se adjungere. [Footnote a: An earlier writer has fallen into the same mistake, which should be corrected, as the equivocal meaning of the word eorl might easily deceive the reader. "Ceorls, or cyrlise men, are opposed, as the lowest description of freemen, to eorls, as the highest of the nobility." Heywood "On Ranks among the Anglo-Saxons," p. 278.] Dr. Lingard has clearly apprehended, and that long before Mr. Kemble's publication, the distributive character of the words eorl and ceorl. "Among the Anglo-Saxons the free population was divided into the eorl and ceorl, the man of noble and ignoble descent;" and he well observes that "by not attending to this meaning of the word eorl, and rendering it earl, or rather comes, the translators of the Saxon laws have made several passages unintelligible." (Hist. of England, i. 468.) Mr. Thorpe has not, as I conceive, explained the word as accurately or perspicuously as Mr. Kemble. He says, in his Glossary to Ancient English Laws, - "Eorl comes, satelles principis. This is the prose definition of the word; in Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon poetry it signifies man, though generally applied to one of consideration on account of his rank or valor. Its etymon is unknown, one deriving it from Old Norse, ar, minister, satelles; another from jara, proelium. (See B. Hald. voc. Jarl, and the Gloss. to Soemund, by Edda, t. i. p. 597.) This title, which seems introduced by the Jutes of Kent, occurs frequently in the laws of the kings of that district, the first mention of it being in Ethelbert, 13. Its more general use among us dates from the later Scandinavian invasions; and though originally only a title of honor, it became in later times one of office, nearly supplanting the older and more Saxon one of ealdorman." The editor does not here particularly advert to the use of the word in opposition to ceorl. That a word merely expressing man may become appropriate to men of dignity appears from bar and baro; and something analogous is seen in the Latin vir. Lappenberg (vol. ii. p. 13) says, - "The title of eorl occurs in early times among the laws of the Kentish kings, but became more general only in the Danish times, and is probably of old Jutish origin." This is a confusion of words: in the laws of the Kentish kings, eorl means only ingenuus, or, if we please, nobilis; in the Danish times it was comes, as has just been pointed out. Such was the eorl, and such the ceorl, of our forefathers - one a gentlemen, the other a yeoman, but both freemen. We are liable to be misled by the new meaning which from the tenth century was attached to the former word, as well as by the inveterate prejudice that nobility of birth must carry with it something of privilege above the most perfect freedom. But we do not appreciate highly enough the value of the latter in a semi-barbarous society. The eorlcundman was generally, though not necessarily, a freeholder; he might, unless restrained by special tenure, depart from or alienate his land; he was, if a freeholder, a judge in the county court; he might marry, or become a priest, at his discretion; his oath weighed heavily in compurgation; above all, his life was valued at a high composition; we add, of course, the general respect which attached itself to the birth and position of a gentlemen. Two classes indeed there were, both "eorlcund," or of gentle birth, and so called in opposition to ceorls, but in a relative subordination. Sir F. Palgrave has pointed out the distinction in a passage which I shall extract: - "The whole scheme of the Anglo-Saxon law is founded upon the presumption that every freeman, not being a 'hlaford,' was attached to a superior, to whom he was bound by fealty, and from whom he could claim a legal protection or warranty, when accused of any transgression or crime. If, therefore, the 'eorlcund' individual did not possess the real property which, either from its tenure or its extent, was such as to constitute a lordship, he was then ranked in the very numerous class whose members, in Wessex and its dependent states, were originally known by the name of 'sithcundmen,' an appellation which we may paraphrase by the heraldic expression, 'gentle by birth and blood.' ^b This term of sithcundman, however, was only in use in the earlier periods. After the reign of Alfred it is lost; and the most comprehensive and significant denomination given to this class is that of 'sixhoendmen,' indicating their position between the highest and lowest law-worthy classes of society. Other designations were derived from their services and tenures. Radechnights, and lesser thanes, seem to be included in this rank, and to which, in many instances, the general name of sokemen was applied. But, however designated, the sithcundman, or sixhoendman, appears in every instance in the same relative position in the community - classed amongst the nobility, whenever the eorl and the ceorl are placed in direct opposition to each other; always considered below the territorial aristocracy, and yet distinguished from the villenage by the important right of selecting his hlaford at his will and pleasure. By common right the 'sixhoendman' was not to be annexed to the glebe. To use the expressions employed by the compilers of Domesday, he could 'go with his land wheresoever he chose,' or, leaving his land, he might 'commend' himself to any hlaford who would accept of his fealty." (Vol. i. p. 14.) ^c [Footnote b: Is not the word sithcundman properly descriptive of his dependence on a lord, from the Saxon verb sithian, to follow?] [Footnote c: This right of choosing a lord at pleasure, so little feudal, seems not indisputable enough to warrant so general a proposition. The conditions of tenure in the eleventh century, whatever they may once have been, had become exceedingly various.] It may be pointed out, however, which Sir F. P. has here forgotten to observe, that the distinction of weregild between the twelfhynd and syxhynd was abolished by a treaty between Alfred and Guthrum. (Thorpe's Ancient Laws, p. 66.) This indeed affects only the reciprocity of law between English and Danes. Yet it is certain that from that time we rarely find mention of the intermediate rank between the twelfhynd, or superior thane, and the twyhynd or ceorl. The sithcundman, it would seem, was from henceforth rated at the same composition as his lord; yet there is one apparent exception (I have not observed any other) in the laws of Henry I. It is said here (C. 76), - "Liberi alii twyhyndi, alii syxhyndi, alii twelfhyndi. Twyhyndus homo dicitur, cujus wera est 22 solidorum, qui faciunt 4 libras. Twelfhyndus est homo plene nobilis, id est, thainus, cujus wera est 1,200 solidorum, qui faciunt libras 25." It is remarkable that, though the syxhyndman is named at first, nothing more is said of him, and the twelfhyndman is defined to be a thane. It appears from several passages that the laws recorded in this treatise are chiefly those of the West Saxons, which differed in some respects from those of Mercia, Kent, and the Danish counties. With regard to the word sithcund, it does occur once or twice in the laws of Edward the Elder. It might be supposed that the Danes had retained the principle of equality among all of gentle birth, common, as we read in Grimm, to the northern nations, which the distinction brought in by the kings of Kent between two classes of eorls or thanes seemed to contravene. We shall have occasion, however, to quote a passage from the laws of Canute, which indicates a similar distinction of rank among the Danes themselves, whatever might be the rule as to composition for life. The influence of Danish connections produced another great change in the nomenclature of ranks. Eorl lost its general sense of good birth and became an official title, for the most part equivalent to alderman, the governor of a shire or district. It is used in this sense, for the first time, in the laws of Edward the Elder. Yet it had not wholly lost its primary meaning, since we find eorlish and ceorlish opposed, as distributive appellations, in one of Athelstan. (Id. p. 96.) It is said in a sort of compilation, entitled, "On Oaths, Weregilds, and Ranks," subjoined to the laws of Edward the Elder, but bearing no date, that "It was whilom in the laws of the English . . . . that, if a thane thrived so that he became an eorl, then was he henceforth of eorl-right worthy." (Ancient Laws, p. 81). ^d But this passage is wanting in one manuscript, though not in the oldest, and we find, just before it, the old distributive opposition of eorl and ceorl. It is certainly a remarkable exception to the common use of the word eorl in any age, and has led Mr. Thorpe to suppose that the rank of earl could be obtained by landed wealth. The learned editor thinks that "these pieces cannot have had a later origin than the period in which they here stand. Some of them are probably much earlier" (p. 76). But the mention of the "Danish law," in p. 79, seems much against an earlier date; and this is so mentioned as to make us think that the Danes were then in subjection. In the time of Edgar eorl had fully acquired its secondary meaning; in its original sense it seems to have been replaced by thane. Certain it is that we find thane opposed to ceorl in the later period of Anglo-Saxon monuments, as eorl is in the earlier - as if the law knew no other broad line of demarcation among laymen, saving always the official dignities and the royal family. ^e And the distinction between the greater and the lesser thanes was not lost, though they were put on a level as to composition. Thus, in the Forest Laws of Canute: - "Sint jam deinceps quattuor ex liberalioribus hominibus qui habent salvas suas consuetudines, quos Angli thegnes appellant, in qualibet regni mei provincia constituti. Sint sub quolibet eorum quattuor ex mediocribus hominibus, quos Angli lesthegenes nuncupant, Dani vero yoongmen vocant, locati." (Ancient Laws, p. 183.) Meantime the composition for an earl, whether we confine that word to office or suppose that it extended to the wealthiest landholders, was far higher in the later period than that for a thane, as was also his heriot when that came into use. The heriot of the king's thane was above that of what was called a medial thane, or mesne vassal, the sithcundman, or syxhynder, as I apprehend, of an earlier style. [Footnote d: The references are to the folio edition of "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," 1840, as published by the Record Commission. I fear this may cause some trouble to those who possess the octavo edition, which is much more common.] [Footnote e: "That the thane, at least originally, was a military follower, a holder by military service, seems certain; though in later times the rank seems to have been enjoyed by all great landholders, as the natural concomitant of possession to a certain value. By Mercian law, he appears as a 'twelfhynde' man, his 'wer' being 1,200 shillings. That this dignity ceased from being exclusively of a military character is evident from numerous passages in the laws, where thanes are mentioned in a judicial capacity, and as civil officers." Thorpe's Glossary to Ancient Laws, voc. Thegen.] In the laws of the continental Saxons we find the rank corresponding to the eorlcunde of our own country, denominated edelingi or noble, as opposed to the frilingi or ordinary freemen. This appellation was not lost in England, and was perhaps sometimes applied to nobles; but we find it generally reserved for the royal family. ^f Ethel or noble, sometimes contracted, forms, as is well known, the peculiar prefix to the names of our Anglo-Saxon royal house. And the word atheling was used not as in Germany for a noble, but a prince; and his composition was not only above that of a thane, but of an alderman. He ranked as an archbishop in this respect, the alderman as a bishop. (Leges Ethelredi, p. 141.) It is necessary to mention this, lest, in speaking of the words eorl and ceorl as originally distributive, I should seem to have forgotten the distinctive superiority of the royal family. But whether this had always been the case I am not prepared to determine. The aim of the later kings, I mean after Alfred, was to carry the monarchical principle as high as the temper of the nation would permit. Hence they prefer to the name of king, which was associated in all the Germanic nations with a limited power, the more indefinite appellations of imperator and basileus. And the latter of these they borrowed from the Byzantine court, liking it rather better than the other, not merely out of the pompous affectation characteristic of their style in that period, but because, being less intelligible, it served to strike more awe, and also probably because the title of western emperor seemed to be already appropriated in Germany. It was natural that they would endeavor to enhance the superiority of all athelings above the surrounding nobility. [Footnote f: Thorpe's Glossary.] A learned German writer, who distributes freemen into but two classes, considers the ceorl of the Anglo-Saxon laws as corresponding to the ingenuus, and the thrall or esne, that is, slave, to the lidus of the continent. "Adelingus und liber, nobilis und ingenuus, edelingus und frilingus, jarl und karl, stehen hier immer als Stand der freien dem der unfreien, dem servus, litus, lazzus, thrall entgegen." (Grimm, Deutsche Rechts-Alterthumer, Gottingen, 1828, p. 226 et alibi.) Ceorl, however, he owns to have "etwas befremdendes," something peculiar. "Der Sinn ist bald mas, bald liber; allein colonus, rusticus, ignobilis; die Mitte zwischen nobilis und servus." It does not appear from the continental laws that the litus, or lidus, was strictly a slave, but rather a cultivator of the earth for a master, something like the Roman colonus, though of inferior estimation. ^g No slave had a composition due to his kindred by law; the price of his life was paid to his lord. By some of the barbaric laws, one-third of the composition for a lidus went to the kindred; the remainder was the lord's share. This indicates something above the Anglo-Saxon theow or slave, and yet considerably below the ceorl. The word, indeed, has been puzzling to continental antiquaries; and if, in deference to the authorities of Gothofred and Grimm, we find the lidi in the barbaric laeti of the Roman empire, we cannot think these at least to have been slaves, though they may have become coloni. But I am not quite convinced of the identity resting on a slight resemblance of name. [Footnote g: Mr. Spence remarks (Equitable Jurisdiction, p. 51) - "In the condition of the ceorls we observe one of the many striking examples of the adaptation of the German to the Roman institutions - the ceorls and servile cultivators or adscriptitii in England, as well as in the continental states, exactly corresponded with the coloni and inquilini of the Roman provinces.' Yet he immediately subjoins - "The condition of the rural slaves of the Germans nearly resembled that of the Roman coloni and Anglo-Saxon ceorls," quoting Tacitus, c. 21. But did the Germans at that time adapt their institutions to those of the Romans? Do we not rather see here an illustration of what appears to me the true theory, that similarity of laws and customs may often be traced to natural causes in the state of society rather than to imitation? My notion is, that the Germans, through principles of common sympathy among the same tribe, the Romans, through memory of republican institutions carried on into the empire, repudiated the personal servitude of citizens, while they maintained very strict obligations of praedial tenure; and thus the coloni of the lower empire on the one hand, the lidi and ceorls on the other, were neither absolutely free nor merely slaves. "In the Lex Frisiorum," says Sir F. Palgrave, in one of his excellent contributions to the Edinburgh Review (xxxii. 16), we find the usual distinctions of nobilis, liber, and litus. The rank of the Teutonic litus has been much discussed; he appears to have been a villein, owing many services to his lord, but above the class of slaves." The word villein, it should be remembered, bore severeal senses: the litus was below a Saxon ceorl but he wasz also above the villein of Bracton and Littleton.] The ceorl, or villanus, as we find him afterwards called in Domesday, was not generally an independent freeholder; but his condition was not always alike. He might acquire land, and if he did this to the extent of five hydes, he became a thane. ^h He required no enfranchisement for this; his own industry might make him a gentleman. This was not the case, at least not so easily, in France. It appears by the will of Alfred, published in 1788, that certain ceorls might choose their own lord; and the text of his law above quoted furnishes some ground for supposing that he extended the privilege to all. The editor of his will says - "All ceorls by the Saxon constitution might choose such man for their landlord as they would" (p. 26). But even though we should think that so high a privilege was conferred by Alfred on the whole class, it is almost certain that they did not continue to enjoy it. [Footnote h: This is not in the laws of Athelstan, to which I have referred in p. 363, nor in any regular statute, but in a kind of brief summary of law, printed by Wilkins and Thorpe. But I think that Sir Francis Palgrave treats this too slightly when he calls it a "traditionary notice of an unknown writer, who says, 'Whilom it was the law of England;' leaving it doubtful whether it were so still, or had been at any definite time." (Edinb. Rev. xxxiv. 263.) Though this phrase is once used, it is said also expressly: - "If a ceorl be enriched to that degree that he have five hydes of land, and any one slay him, let him be paid for with 2,000 thrymsas." Thorpe, p. 79. This, a few sentences before, is named as the composition for a thane in the Danelage. And, indeed, though no king's name appears, I have little doubt that these are real statutes, collected probably by some one who has inserted a little of his own.] In the Anglo-Saxon charters the Latin words for the cultivators are "manentes" or "casati." Their number is generally mentioned; and sometimes it is the sole description of land, except its title. The French word mamant is evidently derived from mamentes. There seems more difficulty about casati, which is sometimes used for persons in a state of servitude, sometimes even for vassals (Du Cange). In our charters it does not bear the latter meaning. (See Codex Diplomaticus, passim. Spence on Equitable Jurisdiction, p. 50.) But when we turn over the pages of Domesday Book, a record of the state of Anglo-Saxon orders of society under Edward the Confessor, we find another kind of difficulty. New denominations spring up, evidently distinguishable, yet such as no information communicated either in that survey or in any other document enables us definitely and certainly to distinguish. Nothing runs more uniformly through the legal documents antecedent to the Conquest than the broad division of freemen into eorls, afterwards called thanes, and ceorls. In Domesday, which enumerates, as I need hardly say, the inhabitants of every manor, specifying their ranks, not only at the epoch of the survey itself, about 1085, but as they were in the time of King Edward, we find abundant mention of the thanes, generally indeed, but not always in reference to the last-named period. But the word ceorl never occurs. This is immaterial, for by the the name villani we have upwards of 108,000. And this word is frequently used in the first Anglo-Norman reigns as the equivalent of ceorl. No one ought to doubt that they expressed the same persons. But we find also a very numerous class, above 82,000, styled bordarii; a word unknown, I apprehend, to any other public document, certainly not used in the laws anterior to the Conquest. They must, however, have been also ceorls, distinguished by some legal difference, some peculiarity of service or tenure, well understood at the time. A small number are denominated coscetz, or cosceti; a word which does in fact appear in one Anglo-Saxon document. There are also several minor denominations in Domesday, all of which, as they do not denote slaves, and certainly not thanes, must have been varieties of the ceorl kind. The most frequent of these appellations is "cotarii." But, besides these peasants, there are two appellations which it is less easy, though it would be more important, to define. There are the liberi homines and the socmanni. Of the former Sir Henry Ellis, to whose indefatigable diligence we owe the only real analysis of Domesday Book that has been given, has counted up about 12,300; of the latter, about 23,000; forming together about one-eighth of the whole population, that is, of male adults. This, it must be understood, was at the time of the survey; but there is no appearance, as far as I have observed, that any material difference in the proportion of these respective classes, or of those below them, had taken place. The confiscation fell on the principal tenants. It is remarkable that in Norfolk alone we have 4,487 liberi homines and 4,588 socmen - the whole enumerated population being 27,087. But in Suffolk, out of a population of 20,491, we find 7,470, liberi homines, with 1,060 socmen. Thus these two counties contained almost all the liberi homines of the kingdom. In Lincolnshire, on the other hand, where 11,504 are returned as socmen, the word liber homo does not occur. These Lincolnshire socmen are not, as usual in other counties, mentioned among occupiers of the demesne lands, but mingled with the villeins and bordars; sometimes not standing first in the enumeration, so as to show that, in one country, they were both a numerous and more subordinate class than in the rest of the realm. ^i [Footnote i: Socmen are returned in not a few instances as sub-tenants of whole manors, but only in Cambridgeshire and some neighboring counties. Ellis' Introd. to Domesday, ii. 389. But this could, it seems, have only orginated in the phraseology of different commissioners; for the counties in which we find socmen so much elevated had not belonged to the same Anglo-Saxon kingdom; some were East-Anglian, some Mercian, some probably, as Hertfordshire, of either Kent or Wessex law.] The concise distinction between what we should call freehold and copyhold is made by the forms of entering each manor throughout Domesday Book. Liberi homines invariably, and socmen I believe, except in Lincolnshire, occupied the one, villani and bordarii the other. Hence liberum tenementum and villenagium. What then, in Anglo-Saxon language, was the kind of the two former classes? They belong, it will be observed, almost wholly to the Danish counties; not one of either denomination appears in Wessex, as will be seen by reference to Sir H. Ellis' abstract. Were they thanes or ceorls, or a class distinct from both? What was their were? We cannot think that a poor cultivator of a few acres, though of his own land, was estimated at 1,200 shillings, like a royal thane. The intermediate composition of the sixhyndman would be a convenient guess; but unfortunately this seems not to have existed in the Danelage. We gain no great light from the laws of Edward the Confessor, which fix the manbote, or fine, to the lord for a man slain, regulated according to the were due to his children. Manbote, in Danelage, "de villano et de sokemanno 12 oras; de liberis hominibus, tres marcas" (c. 12). Thus, in the Danish counties, of which Lincolnshire was one, the socman was estimated like a villanus, and much lower than a liber homo. The ora is said to have been one-eighth of a mark, consequently the liber homo's manbote was double that of the villein or socman. If this bore a fixed ratio to the were, we have a new and unheard-of-rank who might be called fourhyndmen. But such a distinction is never met with. It would not in itself be improbable that the liberi homines who occupied freehold lands, and owed no praedial service, should be raised in the composition for their lives above common ceorls. But in these inquiries new difficulties are always springing forth. We must upon the whole, I conceive, take the socmen for twyhyndi, for ceorls more fortunate than the rest, who had acquired some freehold land, or to whose ancestors possibly it had been allotted in the original settlement. It indicates a remarkable variety in the condition of these East-Anglian countries, Norfolk and Suffolk, and a more diffused freedom in their inhabitants. The population, it must strike us, was greatly higher, relatively to their size, than in any other part of England; and the multitude of small manors and of parish churches, which still continue, bespeaks this progress. The socmen, as well as the liberi homines, in whose condition there may have been little difference, except in Lincolnshire, where we have seen that, for whatever cause, those denominated socmen were little, if at all, better than the villani, were all commended; they had all some lord, though bearing to him a relation neither of fief nor of villenage; they could in general, though with some exceptions, alienate their lands at pleasure; it has been thought that they might pay some small rent in acknowledgment of commendation; but the one class undoubtedly, and probably the other, were freeholders in every legal sense of the word, holding by that ancient and respectable tenure, free and common socage, or in a manner at least analogous to it. Though socmen are chiefly mentioned in the Danelage, other obscure denominations of occupiers occur in Wessex and Mercia, which seem to have denoted a similar class. But the style of Domesday is so concise, and so far from uniform, that we are very liable to be deceived in our conjectural inferences from it. It may be remarked here that many of our modern writers draw too unfavorable a picture of the condition of the Anglo-Saxon ceorl. Few indeed fall into the capital mistake of Mr. Sharon Turner, by speaking of him as legally in servitude, like the villein of Bracton's age. But we often find a tendency to consider him as in a very uncomfortable condition, little caring "to what lion's paw be might fall," as Bolingbroke said in 1745, and treated by his lord as a miserable dependant. Half a century since, in the days of Sir William Jones, Granville Sharp, and Major Cartwright, the Anglo-Saxon constitution was built on universal suffrage; every man in his tything a partaker of sovereignty, and sending from his rood of land an annual representative to the witenagemot. Such a theory could not stand the first glimmerings of historical knowledge in a mind tolerably sound. But while we absolutely deny political privileges of this kind to the ceorl, we need not assert his life to have been miserable. He had very definite legal rights, and acknowledged capacities of acquiring more; that he was sometimes exposed to oppression is probable enough; but, in reality, the records of all kinds that have descended to us do not speak in such strong language of this as we may read in those of the continent. We have no insurrection of the ceorls, no outrages by themselves, no atrocious punishment by their masters, as in Normandy. Perhaps we are a little too much struck by their obligation to reside on the lands which they cultivated; the term ascriptus glebae denotes, in our apprehension, an ignoble servitude. It is, of course, inconsistent with our modern equality of rights; but we are to remember that he who deserted his land, and consequently his lord, did so in order to become a thief. Hlafordles men, of whom we read so much, were invariably of this character. What else, indeed, could he become? Children have an idle play, to count buttons, and say, - Gentleman, apothecary, ploughman, thief. Now this, if we consider the second as representative of burgesses in towns, is actually a distributive enumeration, setting aside the clergy of the Anglo-Saxon population; a thane, a burgess, a ceorl, a hlafordles man; that is, a man without land, lord, or law, who lived upon what he could take. For the sake of protecting the honest ceorl from such men, as well as of protecting the lord in what, if property be regarded at all, must be protected, his rights to services legally due, it was necessary to restrain the cultivator from quitting his land. Exceptions to this might occur, as we find among the liberi homines and others in Domesday; but it was the general rule. We might also ask whether a lessee for years at present is not in one sense ascriptus glebae? It is true that he may go wherever he will, and, if he continue to pay his rent and perform his covenants, no more can be said. But if he does not this, the law will follow his person, and, though it cannot force him to return, will make it by no means his interest to desert the premises. Such remedies as the law now furnishes were not in the power of the Saxon landlord; but all that any lord could desire was to have the services performed, or to receive a compensation for them.