The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

III. THE THANE AND HIS SERVICES.

The thane's 'three needs.'

The 'Rectitudines' begins with the thane or lord of the manor; and informs us that he owed his military and other services (for his manor) to the king—always including the three great needs—the trinoda necessitas; viz. (1) to accompany the king in his military expeditions, or fyrd; (2) to aid in the building of his castles, or burhbote; (3) to maintain the bridges, or brigbote.

Thane's 'inland.'

The lord's demesne land was called the 'thane's inland.' So, too, in a law of King Edgar's already quoted, the tithes are ordered to be paid 'as well on the thane's inland as on geneat land,' showing that this distinction between the two was exhaustive.

So also in Scotland, where the old Saxon words were not so soon displaced by Norman terms as in [p135] England, the lord of a manor was long called the thane of such and such a place. In the chronicler Wintoun's story of Macbeth, as well as in Shakespeare's version of it, there are the 'thane of Fyfe' and the 'thane of Cawdor.'

Scotch example of burhbote.

And the circumstance which, according to Wintoun, gave rise to Macbeth's hatred of Macduff is itself a graphic illustration of the 'burhbote,' or aid in castle-building due from the thane to his king:—

And in Scotland than as kyng

This Makbeth mad gret steryng

And set hym than in hys powere

A gret hows for to mak off were

Upon the hycht off Dwnsynane.

Tymbyr thare-till to draw and stane

Off Fyfe and off Angws he

Gert mony oxin gadryd be.

Sa on a day in thare traivaile

A yhok off oxyn Makbeth saw fayle,

Than speryt Makbeth quha that awcht

The yhoke that fayled in that drawcht.

Thai awnsweryd till Makbeth agayne,

And sayd, 'Makduff off Fyffe the Thane

That ilk yhoke off oxyn awcht

That he saw fayle in to the drawcht.'

Than spak Makbeth dyspytusly,

And to the Thane sayd angryly,

Lyk all wythyn in hys skin,

Hys awyn nek he suld put in

The yhoke and gev hym drawchtis drawe.[159]

The thane as a soldier.

But the military service was by far the most important of 'the three needs' or services due from the thane to the king. The thane was a soldier first of all things. The very word thane implies this. In translating the story of the centurion who had soldiers under him, the Saxon Gospel makes the [p136] 'Hundredes ealdor' say, 'I have thanes under me' (ic hæbbe þegnas under me).[160] And though the text of the translation may not be earlier than the tenth century, yet, as the meaning of words does not change suddenly, it shows that the military service of the thane dated from a still earlier period.

And just as in Norman times the barons and their Norman followers (Francigenæ eorum) were marked off from the population in villenage as companions or associates of the king or some great earl, or as they might now be called 'county men,' so the Saxon thanes 400 years before the Norman Conquest were 'Gesithcundmen,' in respect of their obligation to 'do fyrd-færeld,' i.e. to accompany the king in his royal expeditions. But this association with the king did not break the bond of service. By the laws of King Ine[161] the gesithcundmen were fined and forfeited their land if they neglected their 'fyrd:'—

LI. Gif gesiðcund mon land-agende forsitte fyrde geselle .c.xx. scill.

þolie his landes.

51. If a gesithcund man owning land neglect the fyrd, let him pay cxx. shillings and forfeit his land.

As a landlord.

But the 'gesithcund' thanes were landlords as well as soldiers. And King Ine found it needful to enact laws to secure that they performed their landlord's duties. They must not absent themselves from their manors without provision for the cultivation of the land. When he færes, i.e. goes on long expeditions, a gesithcundman may take with him on his journey his reeve, his smith to forge his weapons, and his child's fosterer, or nurse.[162] But if he have xx. hides of land, he must show xii. hides at least of [p137] gesettes land on his manor; if he have x. hides, vi. hides of gesettes land; and if he have iii. hides, one and a half hides of gesettes land before he absents himself from his manor.[163]

The geneat, geset, or gafol land.

That 'geset land' was a general and rather loose term meaning the same thing as 'geneat land' is clear from a charter of A.D. 950, which will be referred to hereafter, wherein a manor is described as containing xxx. hides, ix. of inland and xxi. of 'gesettes land,' and the latter is said to contain so many yard-lands ('gyrda gafol-landes'). This instance also helps us to understand how gafol land, and gesettes land, and geneat land were all interchangeable terms—all, in fact, meaning 'land in villenage,' to the tenants on which we must now turn our attention.