Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
"That thy suit is just," answered Harold, calmly, "but urged with small reverence." Earl Algar bounded like a stag that the arrow hath startled. "It becomes thee, who hast backed thy suits with warships and mail, to talk of reverence, and rebuke one whose fathers reigned over earldoms , when thine were, no doubt, ceorls at the plough.
"Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; Fulke sold them to Clapa, the Earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and pence Clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up from our own earnings in the Earl's noble service.
I left my ceorls and horses on the other side the river, and must go after them.
The hungry crowd of ceorls and serfs, who were, as we have said, fresh from field or forest, sat at the lower table, which was spread with huge joints of roasted meat, loaves of bread, wedges of cheese, piles of cabbage or other vegetables, rolls or coils of broiled eels, and huge pieces of boiled pork or bacon.
"Then," said Haco, halting at the threshold, "I will go across the woodland to your house, Harold, and prepare your ceorls for your coming." "I shall tarry here till Hilda returns," answered Harold, and it may be late in the night ere I reach home; but Sexwolf already hath my orders. At sunrise we return to London, and thence we march on the insurgents." "All shall be ready.
"So have I heard," said the Saxon, chuckling; "I have heard, indeed, that ye thegns, or great men, are free enow, and plainspoken. But what of the commons the sixhaendmen and the ceorls, master Norman? Dare they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and of captain?"
Some looked down abashed and mournful some regarded the accused with a cold, unpitying gaze. Only perhaps among the ceorls, at the end of the hall, might be seen some compassion on anxious faces; for before those deeds of crime had been bruited abroad, none among the sons of Godwin more blithe of mien and bold of hand, more honoured and beloved, than Sweyn the outlaw.
Close by the path they took, the hall was rapidly rising to more than its former beauty, for not only had the theows and ceorls all shown great alacrity in the work, but all the neighbouring thanes had lent their aid. "It will be more beautiful than ever," said Alfred, "but not quite so homelike. Still, when you come of age, Elfric, it will be a happy home for you."
"Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; Fulke sold them to Clapa, the Earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and pence Clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up from our own earnings in the Earl's noble service.
Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might have deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied: "It is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of England sharpens the scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all races, Saxon and Fin, Dane and Fleming, Pict and Walloon, it is not as with us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in honour: here, gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship; even their popular name for their national assembly of the Witan is, 'The Wealthy. He who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he may be earl to-morrow, marry in king's blood, and rule armies under a gonfanon statelier than a king's; while he whose fathers were ealdermen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his state, sinks into a class they call 'six-hundred men, in their barbarous tongue, and his children will probably sink still lower, into ceorls.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking