Imatges de pàgina
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services and privileges of the gebur, that is, of the common peasant or small farmer, the villein of later times.

tudines

Personarum,

Persons

The peasant's services are various in some places burden- 42. Rectisome, in others light or moderate. On some land he must work Singuat week-work two days every week, at such work as he is re- larum quired through the year, and three days for week-work, and or Rules for from Candlemas to Easter three. If he do carrying he is not Various required to work while his horse is out. He shall pay on Michaelmas day 10 d. rent and on Martinmas day 23 measures of barley and 2 hens; at Easter a young sheep or 2 d., and he ⚫ shall watch from Martinmas to Easter at his lord's fold as often as it is his turn. And from the time that they first plow, to Martinmas, he shall each week plow one acre and himself prepare the seed in his lord's barn. Also three acres extra work and two of grass. If he needs more grass, then he plows for it, as he is allowed. For his plowing rent he plows three acres and sows it from his own barn. And he pays his hearth-penny. Two by two feed one hound, and each peasant gives six loaves to the swineherd when he drives his herd to pasture. On that land where this custom holds it pertains to the peasant that he shall have given to him for his outfit two oxen and one cow and six sheep and seven acres sown on his piece of land. After that year he must perform all services which pertain to him. And he must have given to him tools for his work, and utensils for his house. Then when he dies his lord takes back all.

The land law holds on some lands, but here and there, as I have said, it is heavier or lighter, for all land services are not alike. On some land the peasant must pay honey rent, on some meat rent, on some ale rent. Let him who holds the shire take care that he knows what the old land-right is and what are the customs of the people.

The battle of Brunanburh was fought in 937 by the West-Saxon king against an allied army of Danes, Scots, and Mercians. The following poem describing it was written in Anglo-Saxon and included in the Chronicle.

43. Battle of

Brunanburh

The translation is by Tennyson. Although it does not follow the rhythm of the original, it gives the spirit of the old Anglo-Saxon poem with great success.

I

Aethelstan, king,
Lord among earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of barons,

He with his brother,

Edmund Etheling,

Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,

Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh;
Brake the shield-wall,

Hewed the lindenwood,

Hacked the battleshield,

Sons of Edward with hammered brands.

II

Theirs was a greatness
Got from their grandsires

Theirs that so often in

Strife with their enemies

Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.

III

Bowed the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,

Fell the shipcrews

Doomed to the death.

All the field with blood of the fighters

Flowed, from when first the great

Sun-star of morningtide,

Lamp of the Lord God,

Lord everlasting,

Glowed over earth, till the glorious creature
Sank to his setting.

IV

There lay many a man
Marred by the javelin,

Men of the Northland

Shot over shield.

There was the Scotsman

Weary of war.

V

We the West-Saxons,
Long as the daylight

Lasted, in companies

Troubled the track of the host that we hated,

Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone, Fiercely we hacked at the flyers before us.

VI

Mighty the Mercian,
Hard was his hand-play,

Sparing not any of

Those that with Anlaf,

Warriors over the

Weltering waters

Borne in the bark's bosom,

Drew to this island:

Doomed to the death.

XII

Then with their nailed prows

Parted the Norsemen, a

Blood-reddened relic of

Javelins, over

The jarring breaker, the deep-sea billow,

Shaping their way toward Dublin again,
Shamed in their souls.

XIII

Also the brethren,

King and Etheling,

Each in his glory,

Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,
Glad of the war.

XIV

Many a carcase they left to be carrion,
Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin-

Left for the white-tailed eagle to tear it, and
Left for the horny-nibbed raven to rend it, and
Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and
That gray beast, the wolf of the weald.

XV

Never had huger
Slaughter of heroes

Slain by the sword-edge

Such as old writers

Have writ of in histories
Hapt in this isle, since
Up from the East hither
Saxon and Angle from
Over the broad billow
Broke into Britain with
Haughty war-workers who
Harried the Welshman, when
Earls that were lured by the
Hunger of glory gat
Hold of the land.

III. THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF ENGLAND

It will be noticed in the extracts from the Chronicle that the defense against the Danes was often carried out by the ealdorman and men of some particular shire.

The shire was the most important subdivision of the kingdom. The semiannual meeting of the greater men of the shire in a shire court for purposes of judicial and other action is referred to in various sections of the laws and records. The following record was placed in a blank leaf in a Bible.

from the

shire moot to

the lady who

Here is made known in this writing that a shire moot sat 44. A meetat Ægelnoth's stone, in the days of King Cnut. There sat shire moot Æthelstan, bishop, and Ranig, ealdorman, and Edwin, the (ab. 1000) ealdorman's son, and Leofwine, Wulfsige's son, and Thurkil White; and Tofig Prud came there on the king's errand; and Byrning, shite reeve, and Ægelweard of Frome, and Leofwine of Frome, and Godric of Stoke, and all the thanes in Herefordshire were there. Then came traveling there to the moot Edwin, Eanwen's son, and there raised a claim against his own mother to a portion of land, namely, at Wellington and Coadley. Then asked the bishop who would answer for his mother. Then answered Thurkil White and said that he would, if he Three mesknew the claim. Since he did not know the claim, they deputed sengers sent three thanes from the moot to where she was, which was at Fawley. These were Leofwine of Frome, and Ægelsig the Red, and Winsige Scægthman. And when they came to her they asked what claim she had to the lands for which her son was suing. Then said she that she had no land that in any way belonged to him, and was bitterly angry with her son. Then she called to her Leoflæd, her kinswoman, Thurkil's wife, and spoke to her as follows, before them all: "Here sits Leoflæd, my kinswoman, to whom I give not only my land, but my gold, and garments, and robes, and all that I own, after my day." And she then said to the thanes: "Do thanelike and well; announce my errand to the moot before all the good men, and tell them to whom I have given my land and all my property; and to my own son never anything, and bid them be witnesses of this." And they then did so, rode to the moot, and declared to all the good men what she had laid upon them. Then Thurkil White stood up in the moot and prayed all the thanes

owned the

land

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