United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied ceorls in his employ, had joined the forces of the King, under Gurth, as Earl of the county . But many aged theowes, past military service, and young children, grouped around: the first, stolid and indifferent the last, prattling, curious, lively, gay.
We crossed the drawbridge, and entered the courtyard under the gateway; before us was the door of the great hall, merrily illumined by its blazing fire. There, then, was the supper table bountifully spread, and the theows and ceorls awaiting the arrival of their lord. We entered, Elfwyn and I, and soon after Bertric, Ethelgiva, and Alfgar followed. A loud horn was blown upon the battlements.
"How shouldst thou, poor Norman?" replied the Saxon, compassionately. "The tale is soon told. Know that when Harold our Earl was banished, and his lands taken, we his ceorls helped with his sixhaendman, Clapa, to purchase his land, nigh by London, and the house wherein thou didst find me, of a stranger, thy countryman, to whom they were lawlessly given.
We belong to a land where men are valued for what they are, not for what their dead ancestors might have been. So has it been for ages in Saxon England, where my fathers, through Godwin, as thou sayest, might have been ceorls; and so, I have heard, it is in the land of the martial Danes, where my fathers, through Githa, reigned on the thrones of the North."
Whatever doubts may exist as to the influence of the Norman Conquest upon the mass of the people the FREEMEN, the ceorls, and the serfs there can be no doubt that its effect upon the higher classes was very great. It added to the existing FEUDALISM the system of Baronage, with its concomitants of castellated residences filled with armed men.
Hospitable, liberal, and beneficent to the poor; and an easy mistress over numerous ceorls, while the vulgar dreaded, they would yet have defended her. Proofs of her art it would have been hard to establish; hosts of compurgators to attest her innocence would have sprung up.
The ceorls in the Roman house had caught the alarm, and were hurrying down the knoll, with arms snatched in haste, while a loud whoop broke from the forest land hard by; and a troop of horse, headed by Vebba, rushed through the bushes and brakes.
Loveday's great-grandparents had been eight in number, and his great-great-grandparents sixteen, every one of whom reached to years of discretion: at every stage backwards his sires and gammers thus doubled and doubled till they became a vast body of Gothic ladies and gentlemen of the rank known as ceorls or villeins, full of importance to the country at large, and ramifying throughout the unwritten history of England.
And, if the King remains as aloof as now from his royal kinsman, Edward the Atheling, who" the Earl hesitated and looked round "who so near to the throne when I am no more, as Harold, the joy of the ceorls, and the pride of the thegns? he whose tongue never falters in the Witan, and whose arm never yet hath known defeat in the field?" Githa's heart swelled, and her cheek grew flushed.
"I fear me," answered the large-souled Harold, with a victorious effort of justice over resentment, "that if you reject his suit you will drive him into some perilous extremes. Despite his rash and proud spirit, he is brave against foes, and beloved by the ceorls, who oft like best the frank and hasty spirit.
Word Of The Day