Lastly, before leaving the comparison between the yard-land and hub it may be asked why the serf who held it in England was called a Gebur.
The word villanus of the Domesday Survey is associated with other words, such as villicus, villata, villenage, all connected with serfdom, and all traceable through Romance dialects to the Roman 'villa.'
But the Anglo-Saxon word was 'Gebur.' It was the Geburs who were holders of yard-lands.
We trace this word Gebur in High German dialects. We find it in use in the High German translation of the laws of the Alamanni, called the 'Speculi Suevici,' where free men are divided into three classes:—
(1) The 'semperfrien' = lords with vassals under them.
(2) The 'mittlerfrien' = the men or vassals of the lords.
(3) The 'geburen' = liberi incolæ, or 'fri-lant-sæzzen' [i.e. not slaves].[611]
The word 'gebur' or 'gipur' occurs also in the High German of Otfried's 'Paraphrase of the Gospels,' [612] of the ninth century, and in the Alamannic dialect of Notger's Psalms for vicinus.[613]
Here, again, the South German connexion seems to be the nearest to the Anglo-Saxon. [p395]