[198]. Domesd. Berks. “Tanias vel miles regis dominicus moriens pro relevamento dimittebat regi omnia arma sua, et equum unum cum sella, unum sine sella. Quod si essent ei canes vel accipitres, praesentabantur regi, ut si vellet, acciperet.”

[199]. Fleta, ii. cap. 57, § 1, 2. “Imprimis autem debet quilibet qui testaverit dominum suum de meliori re quam habuerit recognoscere, et postea aecclesiam de alia meliori, et in quibusdam locis habet aecclesia melius animal de consuetudine, in quibusdam secundum vel tertium melius, et in quibusdam nihil: et ideo observanda est consuetudo loci.” § 2. “Item de morte uxoris alicuius viri, dum vir superstes fuerit, de toto grege communi secundum melius averium, quasi de parte sua: sed hoc non nisi de permissione et gratia viri.” This Melius catallum, Bestehaupt or Best-head was in fact a servile due: but in this sense it was an alleviation; for strictly speaking the lord could take the whole inheritance of his unfree tenant. In 1252 Margaret Countess of Flanders gave this alleviation to the serfs of the crown: “Tous les serfs demeurant en Flandre, sous la justice propre de la comtesse, furent affranchis de servitude en 1252, à charge de payer par homme trois deniers, et par femme un denier annuellement; et le droit qu’elle avait à la moitié des meubles en catteux des serfs morts, fut reduit au meilleur cattel, [melius catallum] autre que maison ou bête de somme.” Warnkönig. Hist. Fland. i. 259. On this subject generally see Nelson, Lex Maneriorum, p. 154.[p. 154.]

CHAPTER III.
THE KING’S COURT AND HOUSEHOLD.

The Anglosaxon Court appears to have been modelled upon the same plan as that of the Frankish Emperors: our documents do not however permit us to judge whether this was the case before a sufficient intercourse had taken place to render a positive imitation probable.

It is not at all unlikely that, from the very first establishment of the Comitatus, the possession of those household offices was coveted, which brought the holder into closer personal connection with the prince: and more or less of dependence could be of little moment with those who had erected into a system the voluntary sacrifice of the holiest of all possessions, their freedom of action. Hence we can readily account for the assumption by men nobly born of offices about the royal person, which were at first directly and immediately menial[[200]]. Nor, as the opportunities of personal aggrandisement through favouritism or affection were multiplied, does it seem strange to us that these offices should assume a character of dignity and real power, which, however little in consonance with their original intention, yet made them objects of ambition with the wealthy and the noble. We do not any longer wonder at the struggles of dukes and barons for the offices of royal cupbearer at a coronation, or Steward or Chamberlain of the Household, because time and the attribution of judicial or administrative functions have given those offices a distinction which at the outset they did not possess: and we see without surprise the electors of Germany personally serving at his table the member of their body whom they had invested with imperial rank; and, when they fixed the throne hereditarily in him, providing for the succession in their own families of Butlers, Stewards, Marshals or Chancellors of the empire.

As the progress of society drew larger and larger numbers of men into the circle of princely influence, and, by withdrawing them from the jurisdiction of the free courts, rendered a systematic establishment of the Lord’s court more necessary, the officers who were charged with the superintendence of the various royal vassals, rose immeasurably in the social scale. Thus the Major Domus or Mayor of the palace, at first only a steward, who had to regulate the affairs of the Household, gradually assumed the management of those of the kingdom, and ended by placing on his own head the crown which he had filched from his master’s. So was it with the rest.

The four great officers of the Court and Household in the oldest German kingdoms are the Chamberlain, the Marshal, the Steward and the Butler.

The names by which the Chamberlain was designated are Hrægel þegn, literally thane or servant of the wardrobe, Cubicularius, Camerarius, Búrþegn, perhaps sometimes Dispensator, and Thesaurarius or Hordere. It is difficult to ascertain his exact duties in the Anglosaxon Court, but they probably differed little from those of the corresponding officer among other German populations, and there is reason to compare those of the Frankish Cubicularius with the functions of the Comites sacrarum largitionum and rerum privatarum of the Roman emperors. Hence we may presume that he had the general management of the royal property, as well as the immediate regulation of the household[[201]]. In this capacity he may have been the recognized chief of the cyninges túngeréfan or king’s bailiffs, on the several estates; for we find no traces of any districtual or missatic authority to whom these officers could account. At the same time it appears that this officer was not what we now call the Lord Great Chamberlain, but rather the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and that more than one officer of the same rank existed at the same time[[202]]. Hence we can hardly suppose that the dignity of the office was comparable to that of the Lord Chamberlain at present, with the great and various powers and duties which are now committed to that distinguished member of the Court. Among the nobles who held this office I find the following named:—

Ælfríc thesaurarius,underÆlfred, 892[[203]].
Æðelsige camerarius,...Eádgár, 963[[204]].
Leófríc hræglþegn,...Æðelred, 1006[[205]].
Eádríc dispensator regis,...Hardacnut, 1040[[206]].
Hugelinuscamerarius,...Eádweard, 1044[[207]].
cubicularius...Eádweard, 1060[[208]].
stiweard,...Eádweard[[209]].
búrþegn...Eádweard[[210]].

The Marshal (among the Franks Marescalcus, and Comes stabuli) was properly speaking the Master of the Horse, and had charge of everything connected with the royal equipments, in that department. But as he gradually became the head of the active and disposable military force of the palace, he must be looked upon rather as the general of the Household troops. It was thus that the high military dignity of Constable, or Grand Marshal, by degrees developed itself. This office was held by nobles of the highest rank, and frequently by several at once,—a sufficient explanation of a fact which otherwise would appear strange, viz. that we never find the royal power endangered by that of this influential minister. The Anglosaxon titles are Steallere and Horsþegn, Stabulator and Strator régis. We have no evidence of the existence of the office before the close of the ninth century, and it might therefore be imagined that it was introduced into England after the establishment of the family of Ecgberht had familiarized our countrymen with the Frankish court and its customs, did we not find it as an essential institution in all German courts, of all periods. Among the Anglo-Saxon Marshals the following names occur:—