Now, if such in part was the relation between the gesithcundman and the tenants of the yardlands of his ‘geset-land’ arising from the allotment or loan of stock, may not something of the same kind lie at the root of the relation between the gesithcundman himself and the King? Lord as he may have been over his ceorlisc gafol-geldas, was not the gesithcundman himself a servant of the King looking after the King’s gafol, a kind of middleman, tied to his post with the ealdorman above him in the hierarchy of Royal service, liable to lose his land if he neglected his duty?
How far the gebur was adscriptus glebæ.
It is an interesting question how far the ceorlisc class were adscripti glebæ under the Laws of Ine, but when we try to find this out we discover that both classes seem to be under some kind of restraint as to ‘going away’ (fære). If a gesithcundman ‘fare’ we have seen under what restrictions it must be. There is another clause which deals with the case of persons who shall ‘fare’ without leave from their lords.
Gif hwa fare unaliefed fram his hlaforde oþþe on oðre scire hine bestele ⁊ hine mon geahsige fare þær he ær wæs ⁊ geselle his hlaforde lx scill.
(s. 39) If any one go from his lord without leave or steal himself away into another shire and he be discovered, let him go where he was before and pay to his lord 60 scillings.
Judged in the light of later laws to the same or nearly similar effect, this clause must probably be regarded rather as early evidence of the relation between lord and man established generally for the maintenance of the public peace, than as bearing directly upon the question of the attachment of the smaller class of tenants to the soil.[276] And yet if the relation of the ordinary freeman to, let us say, the ealdorman of the shire was such that he might not move into another shire without leave, and until it was ascertained whether his action was bona fide, or perhaps with the object to escape from debt or vengeance for a wrong committed, the restriction would be likely to be still stronger when a tenant was under fixed obligations to his lord, or had, by taking a yardland and homestead, settled on his lord’s land and accepted stock under conditions of gafol and week-work regulated by general usage.
The idea of freedom as a kind of masterful independence of the individual was not one inherited from tribal modes of thought, nor likely to be fostered by the circumstances of the times which followed upon the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. When this fact is fully recognised, the gulf between the gesithcund and ceorlisc classes does not seem so deep, after all, as it would be if, instead of approaching the question from a tribal point of view, we were looking for allodial landowners on the one hand and expecting the ceorl to be a member of a village community of independent peasant proprietors on the other hand.
The king’s food rents or gafol how paid.
But we are not doing this, and, returning to the gesithcundman, perhaps we have after all taken for granted quite enough that the general environment in Wessex was agricultural rather than pastoral. Even as regards King Ine himself, there may have been a good deal of the tribal chieftain still left in his relations to his gesithcund followers and officials. We have spoken of his tribal food rents; but how did he gather them?