The principle which had now become dominant, at least in the higher ranks, was that of personal allegiance. This principle was of course by no means new. Even in Tacitus' works we hear of the comites who lived and fought in their lord's service and thought it a disgrace to survive his death. In the Heroic Age however it is probable that among the more northern peoples every man, except the king himself, had a lord. In the Anglo-Saxon laws the lord shares with the kindred the duty of protecting his men, and when one of them is slain he receives a special payment (the manbot) when the wergeld was paid to the relatives. Also, when any of his men die, at all events a man of the higher classes, he is entitled to the heriot, i.e. the arms of the dead man, which in theory at least the latter had originally received from him[517].
But in the poems, as is natural, we hear most frequently of the knights who formed the courts and retinues of kings and princes. As a summary of the services rendered by such persons to their lord, Tacitus' brief description (Germ. 13) still holds good: their presence gave him dignity in time of peace and protection in war. They dwelt and served him at his court and joined him in hunting and other amusements, while he rewarded their services with gifts of treasure and arms. In the descriptions of kings which we meet with in the poems there is no characteristic—not even personal bravery—which receives more commendation than that of generosity to their followers. In return the knight was expected to give up to his lord whatever he gained by his own exploits—just as Beowulf renders up to Hygelac and his queen the valuable gifts which he had received from the king of the Danes. As an instance of personal devotion in time of war we may cite the surrender of Chonodomarius' retinue at the battle of Strassburg—an incident to which we have already referred (p. [340]). So also in the various accounts of the fall of Hrólfr Kraki given by Scandinavian authorities the king's knights are said to have perished to a man. The same spirit survived in England in later times, as we see from the story of Cynewulf's death, when in each of the two encounters only one member of the defeated party was left alive. It was also thoroughly in the spirit of the Heroic Age that Edwin's knight, Lilla, acted when he threw himself between the king and the assassin and received a mortal wound in so doing.
It was customary for the sons of noblemen to enter the king's service at an early age. Beowulf went to Hrethel's court when he was only seven years old; but this case may have been exceptional, as he was the king's grandson. When they reached manhood[518] the king was expected to provide them with estates or jurisdiction over land, which would enable them to marry and support a household of their own. Thus Beowulf, after proving his prowess at the Danish court, is presented by Hygelac on his return with seven thousand hides—a considerable province—together with a residence and a prince's authority. The grant is accompanied by the gift of a sword, signifying that the bond of personal allegiance was still preserved. Beowulf in turn presents his young relative Wiglaf with the dwelling-place of their family and the public rights appertaining thereto. The court minstrels Widsith and Deor receive grants of land from their lords. In two of these cases (those of Wiglaf and Widsith) we are told that the estate had previously been in the possession of the recipient's father; and we may probably assume that such cases were not uncommon. Yet it is plain that such practices must very largely have destroyed the tribal custom of succession—at least in the higher ranks of society.
Those who had received grants of land or jurisdiction did not thereupon cease to attend the court. In the English courts of the seventh century Bede distinguishes between the comites, who already held office, and the ministri or milites, who seem in general to have been young knights without such official positions. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Ecclesiastical History translates comes by gesið and minister or miles by þegn. In poetry both these words are of frequent occurrence, though they appear to be used more or less indiscriminately. It should be observed that the word þegn means properly no more than 'servant[519]' though (like knight in later times) it came to be specialised, while gesið is almost an exact equivalent of comes[520]. In Beowulf however we meet with the same classes under the collective terms geogoð and duguð, i.e. youths and men of tried valour respectively. To the latter may be assigned such persons as Aeschere, Hrothgar's "confidant and counsellor," who had stood by his side on the battlefield; but the former class were probably as a rule in the majority.
Another characteristic of these retinues, which deserves notice, is the fact that they were not always composed of born subjects of the king. Bede (H. E. III 14) says that Oswine, the popular king of Deira, attracted young noblemen to his service from all sides; and in the Heroic Age such cases appear to have been frequent. Perhaps the most striking case in the poems is that of Weohstan, who took service under the Swedish king Onela and consequently became involved in hostilities against his own nation. It is probably due to the same custom that we find so many Teutonic chieftains serving under the Romans during the Heroic Age. Among them we may mention Arbogastes, Stilicho, Ricimer and Odoacer. Most frequently perhaps the men who sought service abroad were those who had either lost their lords or had had to leave their homes through vendetta. Such cases occur frequently in the Anglo-Saxon poems; we may refer especially to the Wanderer and the Husband's Message. Further, it appears from the story of Waldhere and Hagena that even hostages were expected to fight for the prince to whom they had been given. In later times we may compare the case of the British hostage who was wounded in the fight following Cynewulf's murder. But there are a number of other stories which seem to indicate that it was at one time a regular custom for young princes to set out from their homes, on reaching manhood, and to seek the court of some foreign king with a view to marrying his daughter and thereby acquiring a share in the sovereignty. Such incidents are of the commonest occurrence in folk-tales; and we find them also in works, such as Hervarar Saga and Ynglinga Saga, which claim to be based on genuine tradition. It is in this light too that all northern authorities represent the position of Sigurðr at the home of Guðrún.
What has been said above applies primarily of course to the more northern peoples. The Goths were early exposed to Christian and Roman influence, and the same is true also of the Burgundians, especially after their settlement in Gaul. The Franks were no doubt less affected at first; but their customs seem from the beginning to have differed a good deal from those which we have been considering. They too had retinues of warriors (antrustiones or homines in truste regis) attached to the kings by personal service; but the prevalence of lordship in the lower ranks of society is by no means so clear. The possession of land also seems to have been governed at first by tribal principles and later by that of succession in the male line—without reference to the will of a superior. These differences are doubtless connected with certain features which distinguished the social organisation of the Franks from that of the other Teutonic peoples.
Every one of the early Teutonic nations possessed a more or less elaborate social system, with various class gradations. These gradations may be seen most clearly in the sums of money fixed for wergelds, for the compensations fixed for various injuries and insults and for fines; in some cases also they show themselves in the relative value attached to oaths. Apart from slaves, who do not come into consideration in these matters, the classes usually met with are those of nobles, freemen and freedmen. Sometimes however a class is subdivided; sometimes again one class is wanting altogether. Thus in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, except Kent, there were two grades of nobility, apparently landowning and landless, while freedmen did not form a distinct class. Among the Franks on the other hand we find no noble class. In general the freeman's wergeld is about double that of the freedman, while that of the noble is twice or thrice as great as the former; and the other payments usually follow more or less the same proportion. The actual sums fixed in the various laws differ greatly in each case, owing to the employment of different systems of currency. But it may be regarded as extremely probable that the normal wergeld of the freeman was originally a hundred head of cattle. Some nations, further, had special wergelds for certain high officials. Among the Franks persons in truste regis had threefold wergelds, and the same applied to the ordinary freeman when engaged in military service. In England the existence of special official wergelds is uncertain, at least before the great Danish invasion, though such persons were entitled to higher compensations in other respects. But in this country members of the royal families had wergelds six times as great as those of the higher class of nobles.
All the above classes (excluding officials of course) seem to have been as a rule hereditary. In some nations indeed the descendants of freedmen did become freemen. But it is scarcely probable that this class everywhere consisted only of manumitted slaves or their offspring. Sometimes we find the terms litus, latus, lazzus (laet in the Kentish laws) in place of libertus; and there is good reason for believing that this class was largely derived from subject populations. Its numbers seem to have been very large. As to the numbers of the nobility there was apparently great difference between one nation and another. Among the Bavarians it consisted only of six families, including that of the duke, whereas in England it appears to have formed a considerable element in the population. The term applied to it here was gesiðcund, i.e. of gesið origin (cf. p. [350]), which indicates clearly a hereditary official or rather military class. Indeed the evidence seems to show that the population consisted of two clearly defined classes, which we may describe as military and agricultural, and that all serious fighting was left to the former. This is another feature in which Anglo-Saxon custom differed from that of the Franks, whose armies in the sixth century appear to have been of a more truly national or even tribal character. With regard to the other nations we have less information; but it is probable that the military organisation of the Danes and other Baltic peoples approximated more nearly to the English type.