CHAPTER V.
THE GERÉFA.
The most general name for the fiscal, administrative and executive officer among the Anglosaxons was Geréfa, or as it is written in very early documents geróefa[[358]]: but the peculiar functions of the individuals comprehended under it, were further defined by a prefix compounded with it, as scírgeréfa, the reeve of the shire or sheriff: túngeréfa the reeve of the farm or bailiff. The exact meaning and etymology of this name have hitherto eluded the researches of our best scholars, and yet perhaps few words have been more zealously investigated[[359]]: if I add another to the number of attempts to solve the riddle, it is only because I believe the force of the word will become much more evident when we have settled its genuine derivation; and that philology has yet a part to play in history which has not been duly recognized. One of the oldest and most popular opinions was that which connected the name with words denoting seniority; thus, with the German adjective grau, Anglosaxon grǽg, grey. There was however little resemblance between geréfa and grǽg, the Anglosaxon forms, and the whole of this theory was applicable only to the Latino-Frankish form graphio, or gravio. The frequent use of words denoting advanced age, as titles of honour,—among which ealdor princeps, senior seigneur, ða yldestan primates, and many others, will readily occur to the reader,—favoured this opinion, which was long maintained: but especially in Germany, it has been entirely exploded by Grimm in his Rechtsalterthümer[[360]], and proof adduced that there cannot be the slightest[slightest] connection between graf and grau.
More plausibility lay in the etymology of geréfa adopted by Spelman; this rested upon the assumption that geréfa was equivalent to gereáfa, and that it was derived from reáfan, to plunder; this view was strengthened by the circumstance of the word being frequently translated by exactor, the levying of fines and the like being a characteristic part of a reeve’s duties. But this view is unquestionably erroneous: in the first place geréfa could not have been universally substituted for the more accurate ggereáfa, which last word never occurs, any more than on the other hand does réfan for reáfan. Secondly, an Anglosaxon geréfa, if for gereáfa, would necessarily imply a High-dutch garaupjo, a word which we not only do not find, but which bears no sort of resemblance to krávo and grávo which we do find[[361]]. Lambarde’s derivation of geréfa from gereccan, regere, may be consigned to the same storehouse of blunders as Lipsius’s graf from γράφειν. Again, as words compounded with ge- and ending in -a, often denote a person who participates with others in something expressed by the root, geréfa has been explained to be one who shares in the roof, i. e. the kings roof: and this has been supported by the fact that graf is equivalent to comes, and that at an early period the comites are found occupying the places of geréfan. But a fatal objection to this etymon lies in the omission of the h from geréfa, which would not have been the case had hróf really been the root. Grimm says, “I will venture another supposition. In old High-dutch rávo meant tignum, tectum (Old Norse rǽfr, tectum), perhaps also domus, aula; garávjo, girávjo, girávo, would thus mean comes, socius, like gistallo, and gisaljo, gisello (Gram. ii. 736)[[362]].” There is however a serious objection to this hypothesis: were it admitted, the Anglosaxon word must have been gerǽfa, not geréfa for geróefa, that is, the vowel in the root must have been a long ǽ, not a long é, springing out of and representing a long ó. I am naturally very diffident of my own opinion in a case of so much obscurity, and where many profound thinkers have failed of success; still it seems to me that geréfa may possibly be referable to the word róf, clamor, róf, celeber, famosus, and a verb rófan or réfan, to call aloud: if this be so, the name would denote bannitor, the summoning or proclaiming officer, him by whose summons or proclamation the court and the levy of the freemen were called together; and this suggestion answers more nearly than any other to the nature of the original office: in this sense too, a reeve’s district is called his mánung, bannum[[363]]. In this comprehensive generality lay the possibility of so many different degrees of authority being designated by one term; so that in the revolutions of society we have seen the German markgraf and burggraf assuming the rank of sovereign princes, while the English borough-reeve has remained the chief magistrate of a petty corporation, or the pinder of a village has been designated by the title of a hogreeve.
Whatever were the original signification of the word, I cannot doubt that it is of the highest antiquity, as well as the office which it denotes. In all probability it was borne by those elected chiefs who presided over the freemen of the Gá in their meetings, and delivered the law to them in their districts[[364]]. Throughout the Germanic constitutions, and especially in this country, the geréfa always appears in connexion with judicial[judicial] functions[[365]]: he is always the holder of a court of justice: thus:—“Eádweard the king commandeth all the reeves; that ye judge such just dooms, as ye know to be most righteous, and as it in the doombook standeth. Fear not, on any account, to pronounce folkright; and let every suit have a term, when it may be fullfilled, that ye may then pronounce.” Again:—“I will that each reeve have a gemót once in every four weeks; and so act that every man may have his right by law; and every suit have an end and a term when it shall be brought forward.”
Upon this point it is unnecessary to multiply evidence, and I shall content myself with saying that wherever there was a court there was a reeve, and wherever there was a reeve, he held some sort of court for the guidance and management of persons for whose peaceful demeanour he was responsible. From this it is to be inferred that the geréfan were of very different qualities, possessed very different degrees of power, and had very different functions to perform, from the geréfa who gave law to the shire, down to the geréfa who managed some private landowner’s estate. It will be convenient to take the different classes of geréfan seriatim, and collect under each head such information as we can now obtain from our legal or historical monuments.
HEÁHGERÉFA.—In general the word coupled with geréfa enables us to judge of the particular functions of the officer; but this is not the case with the heáhgeréfa or high reeve, a name of very indefinite signification, though not very rare occurrence. It is obvious that it really denotes only a reeve of high rank, I believe always a royal officer; but it is impossible to say whether the rank is personal or official; whether there existed an office called the heáhgeréfscipe (highreevedom) having certain duties; or whether the circumstance of the shire- or other reeve being a nobleman in the king’s confidence gave to him this exceptional title. I am inclined to believe that they are exceptional, and perhaps in some degree similar to the Missi of the Franks,—officers dispatched under occasional commissions to perform functions of supervision, hold courts of appeal, and discharge other duties, as the necessity of the case demanded; but that they are not established officers found in all the districts of the kingdom, and forming a settled part of the machinery of government. In this particular sense, our judges going down upon their several circuits, under a commission of jail delivery, are the heáhgeréfan of our day.
We are told in the Saxon Chronicle that in the year 778, Æðelbald and Heardberht of Northumberland slew three heáhgeréfan, namely Ealhwulf the son of Bosa, Cynewulf and Ecga: and the immediate consequence of this appears to have been the expulsion of Æðelred, and the succession of Ælfwold to the throne of Northumberland. These high-reeves were therefore probably military officers of Æðelred, and Simeon of Durham, in recording the events of the same year calls them dukes, duces.
Again, in 780, Simeon mentions Osbald and Æðelheard as dukes, but the Chronicle calls them heáhgeréfan.[[366]]
In a preceding[preceding] chapter I have shown that the dux is properly equivalent to the ealdorman, but this can hardly have been the case with the heáhgeréfa. Again, in 1001, the Chronicle mentions three high-reeves, Æðelweard, Leófwine and Kola, and apparently draws a distinction by immediately naming Eádsige, the king’s reeve, not his high-reeve. In 1002 the Chronicle again mentions Æfíc, a high-reeve, who though a great favourite of the king, certainly never attained the rank of a duke or ealdorman, or, as far as we know, ever performed any public administrative functions. He was a minion of Æðelred’s, but not an officer of the Anglosaxon state.
SCÍRGERÉFA OR SHERIFF.—The Scírgeréfa is, as his name denotes, the person who stands at the head of the shire, pagus or county: he is also called Scírman or Scírigman[[367]]. He is properly speaking the holder of the county-court, scírgemót or folcmót, and probably at first was its elected chief. But as this geréfa was at first the people’s officer, he seems to have shared the fate of the people, and to have sunk in the scale as the royal authority gradually rose: during the whole of our historical period we find him exercising only a concurrent jurisdiction, shared in and controlled by the ealdorman on the one hand and the bishop on the other. The latter interruption may very probably have existed from the very earliest periods, and the heathen priest have enjoyed the rights which the Christian prelate maintained: but the intervention of the ealdorman appears to be consistent only with the establishment of a central power, exercised in different districts by means of resident superintendents, or occasional commissioners especially charged with the defence of the royal interests. In the Anglosaxon legislation even of the eighth century, the ealdorman is certainly head of the shire[[368]]; but there is, as far as I know, no evidence of his sitting in judgment in the folcmót without the sheriff, while there is evidence that the sheriff sat without the ealdorman. Usually the court was held under the presidency of the ealdorman and bishop, and of the scírgeréfa, who from his later title of vicecomes, vicedominus, was probably looked upon as the ealdorman’s deputy,—a strange revolution of ideas. The shiremoot at Ægelnóðes stán in the days of Cnut was attended by Æðelstán, bishop of Hereford, Ranig the ealdorman, Eádwine his son, Leófwine and Ðurcytel the white, Tofig the king’s missus or messenger, and Bryning the scírgeréfa[[369]]. But in a celebrated trial of title to land at Wouldham in Kent, where archbishop Dunstán himself was a party concerned, the case seems to have been disposed of by Wulfsige the shireman or sheriff alone[[370]]. The bishop of Rochester, being in some sort a party to the suit, could probably not take his place as a judge, and the ealdorman is not mentioned at all. Again in an important trial of title to land at Snodland in Kent, there is no mention whatever of the ealdorman: the king’s writ was sent to the archbishop; and the sheriff Leófríc and the thanes of East and West Kent met to try the cause at Canterbury[[371]]. It may then be concluded that the presence of the sheriff was necessary in any case, while that of the ealdorman might be dispensed with[[372]]. By the provisions of our later kings it appears that the scírgemót or sheriff’s court for the county was to be holden twice in the year, and before this were brought all the most important causes, and such as exceeded the competence of the hundred[[373]].