“10. And though he thrive so that he have a helm and coat-of-mail, and a sword ornamented with gold, if he have not that land, he is notwithstanding a ceorl.
“11. And if his son and his son’s son so thrive that they have so much land after him, the offspring shall be of gesíðcund [noble] race at two thousand.
“12. And if they have not that, nor to that amount can thrive, let them be paid for as ceorlish.”
Another, and perhaps more trustworthy document, printed at p. 190 of the same volume, gives us the following values as current in Mercia.
“A ceorl’s wergyld is by Mercian law, two hundred shillings. A thane’s wergyld is six times as much, that is, twelve hundred shillings. Then is a king’s simple wergyld, six thanes’ wer by Mercian law, that is thirty thousand sceats and that is altogether one hundred and twenty pounds. So much is the wergyld in the folkright by Mercian law. And for the royal dignity such another sum is due, as compensation for cynegyld. The wer belongs to the kindred, the cynebót to the people.”
A passage already cited in this chapter gives the wergylds of the freeman and noble in Wessex as respectively two hundred and twelve hundred scillingas, whence those classes are called twýhynde and twelfhynde: these denominations correspond to the old and usual ceorl and eorl; and as the original expression for all classes of society was, be it churl, be it earl, Cnut could use as perfectly equivalent, be it twýhynde, be it twelfhynde[[521]]. But in Wessex a third class is mentioned, whose wergyld was half that of the twelfhynde, and three times that of the ceorl: they are called sixhynde, men of six hundred. It is difficult to say whether they are the original nobles, three times as valuable as the freeman, and whether the twelfhynde are an exclusive class of magnates, raised above them during the progressive development of the royal power; or whether, on the contrary, the twelfhynde and twýhynde are the original divisions, and the sixhynde a middle class of ministerials, which sprang up when ceorls had entered the service of the crown, and thus became raised above their fellow freemen. I incline to the latter opinion, partly from the apparent absence of this sixhynde class in Mercia, partly from the apposition noticed above, and the omission of the sixhynde altogether from the passage in Eádweard’s law, which regulates the payments for the other two classes. There is no statement of a royal wergyld in Wessex, but from what has been said of the composition made for Múl, it may be inferred that it was thirty thousand sceattas or 120 pounds, like that of Mercia. The total inconsistency of these several values will be apparent if we arrange them tabularly:
| Northumb. | Mercia. | Wessex. | Kent. | |
| þrymsas. | Scil. | Scil. | Scil. | |
| King | 15000 | 7200 | 7200 | 1500 |
| +15000 | +7200 | +7200 | +1500 | |
| Archbishop | 15000 | |||
| Æðeling | 15000 | |||
| Bishop | 8000 | 1200 | 1200 | 360 |
| Ealdorman | 8000 | 1200 | 1200 | 360 |
| Hold | 4000 | 600 | ||
| Heáhgeréfa | 4000 | 600 | ||
| Priest | 2000 | 600 | ||
| Þegen | 2000 | 600 | ||
| Freeman | 266 | 200 | 200 | 180 |
If these data be accurate, we must conclude that the ratio of the king and noble to the ceorl in the different states varied as follows:
| North. | king: | ceorl::113:1 nearly. |
| Merc. | king: | ceorl:: 72:1. |
| Wessex | king: | ceorl:: 72:1. |
| Kent | king: | ceorl:: 172⁄9:1. |
| North. | noble, | 1st class:ceorl::56 :1 nearly. |
| 2nd class:ceorl::30½:1 nearly. | ||
| 3rd class:ceorl::15¼:1 nearly. | ||
| 4th class:ceorl:: 7½:1 nearly. | ||
| Merc. | noble : | ceorl::6 : 1. |
| Wessex | noble, | 1st class: ceorl::6:1. |
| 2nd class: ceorl::3:1. | ||
| Kent | noble : | ceorl::2:1. |
Now this variety, which is totally irrespective of the real value of the þryms and the shilling, seems to involve this part of the subject in impenetrable darkness. All that we can permit ourselves to guess is, that circumstances had in process of time altered the original relations between the classes, but in different ratios in the different kingdoms. This however is not all the difficulty: we have to contend with the complication arising from the fact, that the scilling, the currency in which all the southern calculations are nominally made, really differed in value in the several states: and thus when we attempt to compare one freeman with another, we find their respective prices to be in Mercia 833⅓ sceats, in Kent 3600.