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Updated: June 22, 2025
The Norman settlement especially was so recent in the land, that none of that amalgamation between class and class which centuries had created in England, existed there; though in England the theowe was wholly a slave, and the ceorl in a political servitude to his lord, yet public opinion, more mild than law, preserved the thraldom from wanton aggravation; and slavery was felt to be wrong and unchristian.
What ground was actually occupied may have been assigned to each group and each family in the group by lot, and Eorl and Ceorl gathered round them their læt and slave as in their homeland by the Rhine or the Elbe. And with the English people passed to the shores of Britain all that was to make Englishmen what they are.
Upon this gate sate, quite unmoved and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or labourer, while behind it was a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad in those blue tunics of which our peasant's smock is the successor, and leaning on scythes and flails. Sour and ominous were the looks they bent upon that Norman cavalcade.
I will ask the King's leave to go to my East Anglians, and hold there a folkmuth, administer justice, redress grievances, and make thegn and ceorl content with Harold, their Earl. But vain is peace in the realm, if there is strife in the house. And Aldyth, the daughter of Algar, cannot be house-wife to me."
There he stood musing long after torch and ceorl had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till Gurth, springing from his panting horse, passed his arm round the Earl's shoulder, and cried: "How did I miss thee, my brother? and why didst thou forsake thy train?" "I will tell thee anon. Gurth, has my father ailed? There is that in his face which I like not."
The men stirred not. "No horse tramps the seeds we have sown for Harold the Earl to reap;" said the ceorl, doggedly, still seated on the gate. And the group behind him gave a shout of applause. Moved more than ever he had been known to be before, Edward spurred his steed up to the boor, and lifted his hand.
The Saxon Church invariably set the example of freeing the theowe and emancipating the ceorl, and taught that such acts were to the salvation of the soul.
Such was the people which had been growing into a national unity and a national vigour while English king and English baronage battled for rule. But king and baronage themselves had changed like townsman and ceorl.
There he stood musing long after torch and ceorl had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till Gurth, springing from his panting horse, passed his arm round the Earl's shoulder, and cried: "How did I miss thee, my brother? and why didst thou forsake thy train?" "I will tell thee anon. Gurth, has my father ailed? There is that in his face which I like not."
"They dared to say," replied the ceorl who had before spoken, "they had the sanction of the king." There was again a painful silence. We groaned in the bitterness of our hearts O Ethelred, son of Edgar, hast thou forgotten all truth and mercy? thou, the son of Edgar the Magnanimous?
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