184
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i.
passed from the election of the freemen to the gift
of the crown ɪ, were now conferred upon him, and
the ealdorman, duke, geréfa, judge, and even the
bishop, were at length selected from the ranks of
the comitatus. Finally, the nobles by birth them-
selves became absorbed in the ever-widening whirl-
pool ; day by day the freemen, deprived of their old
national defences, wringing with difficulty a preca-
rious subsistence from incessant labour, sullenly
yielded to a yoke which they could not shake off,
and commended themselves (such was the phrase)
to the protection of a lord ; till a complete change
having thus been operated in the opinions of men,
and consequently in every relation of society, a
new order of things was consummated, in which
the honours and security of service became more
anxiously desired than a needy and unsafe freedom ;
and the alods being finally surrendered, to be taken
back as bénéficia, under mediate lords, the founda-
tions of the royal, feudal system were securely laid
on every side.
1 By this step, the crown became the real leader of the hereban, or
posse comitatus, as well as of the gesfδas and their power : and thus
also, the head of the juridical power in the counties, as well as the lords’
courts. Moreover it extended the powers and provisions of martial
law to the offences of the freemen.
18δ
CHAPTER VHL
THE UNFREE. THE SERF.
We have considered the case of the wife, the son
and the daughter1, as far as can be done until we
come to deal with the family relations ; and we
have examined the position of one peculiar class
of the unfree, namely the comités or gesi,δas of the
kingly leaders. Another, but less favoured, class
remain to be noticed, those namely whom the
Latin authors designate by the terms Libertus and
Servus, and who, among all the nations of Germa-
nic origin, are found under the corresponding de-
nominations of Lazzi or Dio, Læt or Deow, Lysingr
or præl. These have no honourable, no profitable
service to compensate for the loss of independence,
but form the large body of hired cultivators, the
artizans and handicraftsmen in various branches of
industry, the prædial, even the domestic or menial
servants of the free landowner.
The grounds as well as the degrees of slavery
(by which term I mean dependence, the being in
the round of another, and represented by him in
the folcmot) are various ; one, viz. poverty arising
1 Page 129.