238
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
bodies of men existing as corporations, founded
upon number and neighbourhood, and thus making
up the public units in the state itself. From the
first, we find the inhabitants of the Mark classed
in tens and hundreds (technically in England, Ti-
things and Hundreds) each probably comprising
respectively a corresponding number of members,
together with the necessary officers, viz. a tithing-
man for each tithing, and a hundred-man for the
hundred, thus making one hundred and eleven men,
or Heads of houses in the territorial hundred ɪ. The
Frankish law names the officers thus alluded to :
in it the tithing-man is Decanus, the hundred-man
Centenarius 2. The Anglosaxon law does not indeed
mention its divisions by these names till a compara-
tively late period, when their significations had be-
come in some respects altered ; but it seems probable
that it does imply them under the term Gegyldan,
fellows, brothers of the gyld. In a case of aggravated
crime it ⅛provided that the offender’s relatives shall
pay a third part of the fine, his gegyldan a third
part, and if he cannot pay the remainder himself, he
is to become an outlaw, i. e. forfeit his land and flee,
perhaps formally abjure the country3. Nowitis
ɪ There is some difficulty in deciding whether the head of the tithing
was included in the ten, or beside it. I have proceeded upon the sup-
position that he was not included, consequently that there were really
eleven men in the tithing. The leading authority (Jud. Civ. Lond.
√Eδelst. v. § 3. Thorpe, i. 230) is totally and irreconcilably contra-
dictory on the point.
3 The Decani appear to be the same as the Decimalee homines of
.E8elred,s law. Thorpe, i. 338.
j Leg. Ælf. § 27.
CH. IX.]
THE TITHING AND HUNDRED.
239
perfectly clear that a law expressed in such general
terms as these, cannot be directed to a particular
and exceptional condition; that it does not apply
to the accidental existence of gegyldan, but on the
contrary assumes every man to have such: we
cannot therefore construe it of voluntary associa-
tions formed for religious, social or funereal ob-
jects 1, and for the purposes of this law we must
look upon gegylda as a general name borne by
every individual in respect of some gyld or asso-
ciation of which he was taken to be a member.
The only meanings which the root gyld enables us
to attach to the word gegylda are these ; either,
one who shares with others in paying ; or, one who
shares with others in worshipping. If we adopt the
former rendering, we must suppose that certain con-
tributions were made by a number of persons to a
common purse, partly for festive purposes, partly
as a mutual guarantee and club-fund for legal costs,
for the expenses of reciprocal aict and defence, per-
haps even for mortuary celebrations and chari-
table distributions. Another, though perhaps a less
probable, suggestion is that such gegyldan may
have been jointly responsible for ta⅞∙es, or the out-
fit of armed men who attended in the fyrd or mi-
litary expedition, on behalf of them all. But this
we cannot further illustrate, in the absence of all
ɪ Such voluntary associations were not unusual. Several deeds of
Hgreement of such clubs are gir en in an Appendix to this Chapter.
There seems to have been similar clubs among the Hungarians : they
were called “ Kalender-Brudeischaften," from usually meeting on the
brst day of eιeιy month. Fessler, Gesch. der Ungein, i. 72δ.