Ranhs and Classes among the Anglo-Saxons. 237 



admitted that they clearly support the view that the English 

 eorls were, like the Danishya?-^, appointed officers or magistrate?, 

 not hereditary noblemen. 



Let us now pass to the later group of laws, those of Alfred 

 and his successors. Here we find four passages in which the 

 words Earl and Ceorl are coupled in what appears to be a dis- 

 tributive use : these are, Laws of Alfred, 4, " all degrees, 

 whether enrl or ceorl"; Judicia Civitatis Lundoniaj : Intr.: 

 "as well eorlish as ceorlish"; Laws of Ethelred, vii. 2i: 

 " we know that through God's grace a thrall has become a 

 thane, and a ceorl has become an eorl." Of Peoples' Ranks 

 and Laws : "each according to his condition, eorl and ceorl, 

 thegen and tbeoden." These four are, I believe, all the in- 

 stances of the so-called distributive use of the terms Eorl and 

 Ceorl ; upon these, therefore, the prevailing theory is exclu- 

 sively founded. 



It may be observed, in the first place, that in the Latin trans- 

 lation of these document::?, dating probably from the twelfth 

 century. Earl is uniformly rendered by comes, a word which 

 has more than one use, but which certainly never has the gen- 

 eral meaning of gentlemen or noblemen, but always that of 

 some special rank or office, as follower, magistrate, or, in later 

 times, count or earl. I do not rest much upon this argument, 

 for the reason that this translation was made at a time when 

 earl had a fixed meaning in English, as designating particular 

 grades of nobility, so that it is very easy to suppose that the 

 translator confounded the meaning of the word in his own 

 day with that which it had in the original document. It is 

 more to the purpose to remark that we have an equal number 

 of cases, in genuine Latin laws of the tenth century,' in which 

 comes and villanus are used precisely as these same words are 

 used in the translation just referred to, and as earl and ceorl 

 are used in their originals. If therefore earl and ceorl are dis- 

 tributive, we have a right to infer that comes and villanus were 



> Aeth. Deer. Episc. 6.— Deer. Ssp. Ang. 3 and 6.— Eadm. Cone. Cul., vii. 



