Hanks and Classes among the Anglo-Saxons. 235 



an hereditary rank, but always a personal office or relation. 

 It is admitted that this was the case in the eleventh, and par- 

 tially in the tenth centuiy ; it appears to me that the weight 

 of evidence is as to havitig always been so — that it never es- 

 sentially changed its meaning until after the Norman Conquest, 

 when, in its modern form earl^ it became an hereditary title of 

 nobility. 



The passages in which the word Eorl occurs, may, for oar 

 purposes, be classified iuu) three groups: — the early Kentish 

 laws of the seventh century ; the laws of Alfred and his suc- 

 cessors; and the Saxon Chronicle and other works of litera- 

 ture. Between the two groups of laws there is an interval of 

 about 200 years ; and it is to be noticed that the arguments 

 for "the distributive cliaracter of the words" eor^ and ceor?, 

 i. e., as, with the meanings " Nobleman " and " freeman," mak- 

 ing up the entire free population, are derived wholly from two 

 or three passages in iht; later laws. Taken by themselves, 

 neither the early laws nor the scattered passages in the Saxon 

 Chronicle and other documents, would suggest any such mean- 

 ing. Now it may fairly be urged that the use of the words 

 in the seventh century, if explicit enough, is sufficient by 

 itself to establish their ongiiial signification. 



First, however, it will oe proper to compare the English 

 Eorl with the Danish Jm i, which is of course the same word,, 

 and may fairly be presunjed to have the same original mean- 

 ing. The settlers of Kent, it will be remembered, in which 

 kingdom we first meet the term as a legal one, were neither 

 Angles nor Saxons, but Jutes, or natives of the peninsula of 

 Denmark. That is, while itie English as a whole are more 

 nearly related to the Scandinavians than to the Germans, the 

 Kentishmen stand in a f ( culiarly near relation to the Scandi- 



very limited in numbers — amoDga'! (he Saxons, there were only about twenty-five noble 

 familie!<; audin the next placi.', tba; tht-y migrated, not under kinge, bat chiefs— /t^reio^a 

 —and that these chiefs und ubtodiy included whatever nobles chose to join in the enter- 

 pjise. It is hard to see, therefoio, what can have been the origin of the eorls ,as au^he- 

 reditary class. 



