May 4. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
431 
from a homily occurring in a MS. in Corpus 
Christi College, s. 14. :— 
“Men a leogertan hep yezp ye halza yer 
Johs pep ye Heel. eode ofep pone bupnan 
the Ledpon hacce, on mén enne pyptun. 
Tha pice ye unlabde iudar ye pe line co 
beape beleaped haeybde.” 
In Grimm’s Elucidations to Andreas he thus 
notices it : — 
« Unled, miser, improbus, infelix. (A.142. 744. 
Judith, 134, 43.) A rare adjective never occurring in 
Beowulf, Coedmon, or the Cod. Exon., and belonging 
to those which only appear in conjunction with un. 
Thus, also, the Goth. unleds, pauper, miser ; and the | 
oO. H. G. unlat (Graff 2. 166.) ;. we nowhere find a 
léds, laed,. lat, as an antithesis. It must have sig- 
nified dives, felix ; and its root is wholly obscure.” 
In all the Anglo-Saxon examples of unled, 
the sense appears to be wretched, miserable ; in the 
Gothic it is uniformly poor* > but poverty and 
wretchedness are nearly allied. Léd, or led, would 
eyidently therefore signify rich, and by inference 
y. Now we have abundant examples of the 
use of the word ledes in old English; not only 
for people, but for riches, goods, movable property. 
Lond and lede, or ledes, or lith, frequently oe- 
eur unequivocally in this latter sense, thus :— 
«“ He was the first of Inglond that gaf God his tithe 
Of isshue of bestes, of londes, or of lithe.” 
P. Plouhm. 
“IT bed hem bothe lond and Jede 
To have his douhter in worthlie wede, 
And spouse here with my ring.” 
K. of Tars, 124. 
“ For to have lond or ede, 
Or other riches, so God me spede! 
Yt ys to muche for me.” 
Sir Cleges, 409. 
“ Who schall us now geve londes or lythe, 
Hawkys, or houndes, or stedys stithe, 
As he was wont to do.” 
Le B. Florence of Rome, 841. 
“No asked he lond or lithe, 
Bot that maiden bright.” 
Sir Tristrem, xviii. 
In “ William and the Werwolf” the cowherd 
and his wife resolve to leave William 
* It occurs many times in the Mceso- Gothic version of 
the Gospels for rwxés. From the Glossaries, it appears 
that iungalauths is used three times for veavioxos, a 
young man; therefore lauths or lauds would signify 
simply man ; and the plural, laudeis, would be people. 
See this established by the analogy of vairths, or 
0. 1. G. virahi, also signifying people. Grimm's 
Deutsche Gram. iii. 472., note. “ Es konnte zwar un- 
léds (pauper) aber auch unléths heissen.” — D. Gr. 225. 
«< AT here godis 
Londes and Judes as ether after her lif dawes.” p. 4. 
In this poem, dudes and ledes are used indis- 
criminately, but most frequently in the sense of 
men, people. Sir Frederick Madden has shown, 
from the equivalent words in the French original 
of Robert of Brunne, “that he always uses the 
word in the meaning of possessions, whether con- 
sisting of tenements, rents, fees, &c.;” in short, 
wealth. 
If, therefore, the word has this sense in old 
English, we might expect to find it in Anglo-Saxon, 
and I think it is quite clear that we have it at least 
in one instance. In the Ancient Laws and Insti- 
tutes af England, vol. i. p. 184., an oath is. given, in 
| which the following passage occurs : — 
Do as I teach : 
be thou with thine, 
and let me be with mine: 
I covet not thine, 
nor ‘* leth ’’ nor land, 
nor ‘‘sac” nor ** socn,”” 
nor needest thou mine 3 
nor design I to thee any 
thing.” 
Mr. Thorpe has not translated the word, nor is. 
it noticed in his Glossary ; but I think there can 
be no doubt that it should be rendered by gaods, 
chattels, or wealth, i. e. movable property. 
This will be even more obvious from an extract 
given by Bishop Nicholson, in the preface to 
Wilkin’s Leges Saxonica, p. vii. It is part of the 
oath of a Scottish baron, of much later date, and 
the sense here is unequivocal :— 
“ T becom zour man my liege king in land, lith®, life 
and lim, warldly honour, homage, fealty, and leawty, 
against all that live and die.” 
Numerous examples are to be found in the 
M. H. German, of which I will cite a few :— 
“© Tr habt doch zu iuwere hant 
Beidin Jiute unde lant.” 
** Do rra ic lane 
beo bé be binum 
J let me be minum 
ne synne 1c hiner 
ne leSey ne lander 
be yac ne socne 
pe bu minefy ne beanye 
ne minv 1¢ ie nan pins. 
Tristr. 13934. 
“ Und bevelhet ir liute unde kant.” 
Iwein. 2889. 
* Sir F. Palgrave has given this extract in the Ap- 
pendix to his Rise and Progress of the English Common-~ 
wealth, p. ececvil., where, by an error of the press, or of 
transcription, the word stands lich. It may be as well to 
remark, that the corresponding word in Latin formulas 
of the same kind is “‘catallis,” i. e. chattels. A passage 
in Havelok, v. 2515., will clearly demonstrate that Lith 
was at least one kind of chattel, and equivalent to fe 
| (fee). 
“ Thanne he was ded that Sathanas 
Sket was seysed al that his was, 
In the King’s hand il del, 
Lond and lith, and other catel, 
And the King ful sone it yaf 
Ubbe in the hond with a fayr staf, 
And seyde, ‘ Her ich sayse the 
In al the lond in al the fe.’” 
