We have seen that a law of King Edgar’s ordains that the ealdorman shall sit by the side of the bishop at the meeting of the shire, and shall expound worldly law while the bishop gives utterance to the divine. In the early period of the West Saxon monarchy, when there was an ealdorman to every shire, this enactment causes no difficulty; but it is clear that during the course of the ninth century there was a constant tendency to lessen the number of ealdormen and increase the size of their dominions, and we can then no longer say that every shire had its own ealdorman. Some men like Ethelred, brother-in-law of Edward the Elder, ealdorman of Mercia; like Athelstan the half-king of East Anglia; and like all the later Northumbrian earls, ruled over territories as large as the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the reign of Canute we have seen that three earls—as the ealdormen were now called—ruled over three-fourths of England. If the law of Edgar still continued in force, we must imagine these great officials travelling from shire to shire, and holding the gemôt in each. It is a probable suggestion, however, that when the power of the ealdorman was thus widely extended, new officers, the shire-reeves, from whom our modern sheriffs derive their title, were called into being, in order to administer the counties under the ealdorman. This suggestion can hardly, however, be yet spoken of as more than a conjecture.[226]
The ealdorman, as was just now remarked, changed his title in the eleventh century for that of earl. There can be no doubt that this change was due to Danish influence and was an imitation of the word jarl, by which the chiefs of the Danish host were often designated. Eorl was, however, also a word known to the Anglo-Saxons, and by its use in the laws of Ine and elsewhere it seems to have been very nearly equivalent to thegn. In the laws of Ethelred of Kent, of Alfred and of Athelstan, it is frequently used as the antithesis to ceorl, “no man whether eorl or ceorl” being used in the same way that “gentle or simple” was used in the middle ages. Between this generic use of the word, however, and the title of powerful rulers like Leofric and Godwine there was a wide and important difference; and to avoid confusion it seems better to use the word earl only in its later signification, in which it replaces the term ealdorman and is equivalent to the Danish jarl and the Latin comes. One important point to notice is that never before the Norman Conquest does the title of earl become absolutely hereditary, though there are certain great families which seem to have had practically an overwhelming claim to share the earldoms among them. No earl, however, even in the latest days of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, seems to have had a recognised right of transmitting his earldom to his son.[227]
We have several incidental evidences of the social changes wrought by the two unquiet centuries between Egbert and Canute. The tendency of all those marches and counter-marches, those harryings and hardly held “places of slaughter,” to depress the peaceful cultivator and raise the mere fighting man, is shown by a curious document called “The Northern People’s Laws” (North-leoda laga) and supposed to date from the tenth century. In this document we have the most complete table of wergilds that is anywhere to be found in Anglo-Saxon law.[228] In the following table they are, for convenience of comparison, converted into West Saxon shillings of five penings each:—
| The Wergild for the king is | 18,000 | shillings. |
| Archbishop and Etheling | 9,000 | „ |
| Bishop and ealdorman | 4,800 | „ |
| Hold and king’s high-reeve | 2,400 | „ |
| Mass-thegn (priest) and secular thegn | 1,200 | „ |
| Ceorl | 160 | „ |
Here we see that the ceorl, the free agriculturist, has sunk in the social scale. He was a two hundred, he is now only a hundred and sixty man. The wergilds in the upper ranks of society are, perhaps, unaltered, but, as before remarked, we have very imperfect information about these till we come to this very document. The important thing to observe is the position of the hold. This is a Danish word and signifies properly a fighting man. Here, however, this simple Danish warrior, possibly without any large landed possessions, has only by his sword carved his way up into a position in which he boasts a wergild fifteen times as great as that of the honest Saxon ceorl. He is half as big a man as a bishop or ealdorman, and twice as big as an ordinary thegn.[229]
* * * * *
Another interesting document which dates probably from the reign of Canute is that which is called the Rectitudines singularum personarum,[230] and is a compendium of the whole duty of man, or at least of the services which he is bound to render to those above him in the social order. The thegn has his obligations—in the language of a much later age, “property has its duties as well as its rights”—he must be “worthy of his book-right,” that is, observe the conditions of his charter and do three things on account of his land, serving with the fyrd, burh-building and bridge-work. Also on many estates other obligations accrue at the king’s behest: such as making the fence for the game on the king’s demesne; the equipment of a war-ship; keeping watch on the coast, at the royal headquarters or in the fyrd; alms-giving; Church-scot, and many other payments of various kinds.
The Geneat seems to have belonged to a class dependent on a lord, but in a certain sense superior. He had “to pay rent (land-gafol) in money or in kind, to ride and guide, lead loads, reap and mow, cut the deer-hedge and keep it in repair, build and fence round the fortress, make new roads to the tun, keep ward and go errands far and near just as one may order him about”. It is evidently supposed, however, that he has a horse, probably several horses of his own, although he has to be thus submissive to the bidding of a lord. We may, perhaps, see in these geneats the descendants of ceorls who, under the pressure of the times, have lost their absolutely independent position and have been fain to “commend” themselves to the protection of some great thegn or religious house.[231]
The cottager (cotsetla) is personally free and does not pay rent, but he has to render a certain amount of service to his lord in return for his holding, the normal size of which is five acres. The amount of service varies according to the custom of different estates; but a very usual arrangement is that he shall work every Monday throughout the year for his lord and three days every week in harvest time.
“The Gebur’s duties,” says the document, “are various; in some places they are heavy, in others they are quite moderate.” He seems, however, to have somewhat less of personal freedom than the men belonging to either of the two previous classes. His minimum of work is for two days in the week; he has to put in three days, not only in harvest time, but from the beginning of February to Easter; and all the time from Martinmas (Nov. 11) till Easter he may be called upon, in rotation with his fellows, to lie out at night beside his lord’s fold keeping watch over the sheep. On some lands the gebur pays gafol of honey, on some of meat and on some of ale. The lord provides him with implements for his work and utensils for his house, but then, per contra, when his time has come to take the journey (of death) his lord takes all that he leaves behind. Evidently the gebur is, if not yet actually a serf, in a condition much nearer serfdom than either the geneat or the cotsetla.