The details of this law are of the most stringent description, regulating even the minutest points of social intercourse. Its extreme punishment was expulsion; but expulsion was nearly equivalent to death, situated as the Húscarlas were expected to be, among a hostile population. And though the offending brother had his election, whether he would retire from the gild by sea or land, yet the circumstances which attended his ejection were not those of mercy or alleviation. To the seashore, the whole body of his ancient comrades were to accompany him; then launching him in a boat, with oars or sails, they were to commit him to his fortune: henceforth he was not only a stranger but an enemy, an outlaw: if stress of weather or other accident brought him back to the shore, he might be fallen upon and slain without remorse or retribution. Or if he chose to retire by land, he was to be led to the nearest wood, and there to be watched till his form was lost in the darkness of the thickets: three successive shouts were then to be raised, to warn him of the direction in which his gild-brothers lay in wait. If then, through the devious error of the forest he returned into their presence, his life was forfeit. To insult, injure or dishonour a brother was an offence punished with the utmost severity; and if three of the Húscarlas concurred in accusing one of the body, there was neither denial nor exculpation allowed; the penalty followed inevitably. Such severe regulations as these fully explain their object; and it seems to have been successfully attained, for we are told that, at least during the life of Cnut, the penalties were never once incurred or enforced[[295]].
From the collocation of names among the witnesses to a very important charter of 1052-1054, we may infer that the Stealleras or Marshals were the commanding officers of the Húscarlas[[296]]. We cannot doubt that they did really exercise an important personal influence in England, although they filled no recognized position under the law: it is probable that they were reckoned as thanes or ministers, as far as their wergyld and heriot were concerned; but we have no evidence of this, and I should not dispute the assertion that from first to last they had a law of their own,—a personal right,—that they were not generally or originally landowners, and that their institution was a modified revival of the system of the Comitatus in its strictest form. But upon these points we cannot decide. It is very rarely that we find the Húscarlas acting as witnesses to charters, which perhaps may lead to the inference that they were not members of the Witena gemót[[297]]: but in 1041 we are told that Hardacnut sent two of his Húscarlas, Feader and Turstan, to collect an unpopular tax, and that a sedition was raised against them in Worcester, which was not suppressed till the force of several counties, under the most celebrated leaders of the day, was brought against the city[[298]].
In a charter of the Confessor, we find the word Húscarl translated by “praefectus palatinus[[299]],”—a title which scarcely seems applicable to all the members of a body numbering six, or even three, thousand men: but, however this may be, we must not confound these praefecti palatini with the other, earlier praefecti who occur in Anglosaxon history[[300]]: these are clearly only geréfan or reeves, and have nothing to do with the especial body of household troops.
It remains only to add that, in imitation of the king, the great nobles surrounded themselves with a body-guard of Húscarlas[[301]], who probably stood in the same relation to their lord, as he did to the king: in short the institution is only a revival of the Comitatus, described in the First Book, and must have gone through a similar course of development. Nay, the details which have reached us of the later establishment may possibly throw light upon the earlier, and serve to explain some of the peculiarities which strike us in the account of Tacitus. This difference indeed there is, that in the later form the king and the comites unite in a definite bond, with respective, stipulated rights; in the earlier form, the comites attach themselves to the king, without stipulation or reserve, although no doubt under the protection of a customary and recognized, although unwritten, law.
[200]. Speaking of the Pincerna regis Æðelstani, one of the great officers of the Household, in the early part of the tenth century, William of Malmesbury says, “Itaque cum forte die solenni vinum propinaret,” etc. Gest. Reg. § ii. 139.
[201]. Eichhorn, i. 197. § 25, b. Eichhorn argues the first from a passage in Greg. Turon. vii. 24. The latter portion of the Chamberlain’s duties is defined by Hincmar of Rheims, § 22. “De honestate vero palatii, seu specialiter ornamento reguli, necnon et de donis annuis militum, absque cibo et potu, vel equis, ad Reginam praecipue, et sub ipsa ad Camerarium pertinebat: et sollicitudo erat, ut tempore congruo semper futura prospicerent, ne quid, dum opus esset, defuisset. De donis vero diversarum legationum ad Camerarium aspiciebat.”
[202]. “Cubicularios regis duos.” Will. Malm., ii. § 180.
[203]. Cod. Dipl. No. 320.
[204]. Ibid. No. 1246.