to float upon his shoulders or winds about his head'.

His proper measure and value, by which his social position is ascertained and defended, is the wergyld, or price of a man. His life, his limbs, the injuries which may be done to himself, his dependants and his property, are all duly assessed; and though not rated so highly as the noble, yet he stands above the stranger, the serf or the freedman. In like manner his land, though not entirely exempt from charges and payments for public purposes, is far less burthened than the land of the unfree. Moreover he possesses rights in the commons, woods and waters, which the unfree were assuredly not permitted to exercise.

The great and essential distinction, however, which he never entirely loses under any circumstances, is that he aids in governing himself, that is in making, applying and executing the laws by which the free and the unfree are alike governed; that he yields, in short, a voluntary obedience to the law, for the sake of living under a law, in an orderly and peaceful community.

In the state of things which we are now consi

There were differences in this respect among the different races, and in some, the long hair may have been confined to the noble families. Among the Saxons, however, it seems that it was also used by the free gif freo wif, locbore, lyswæs hwæt gedó, if a free woman, that wears long hair, do any wrong. Lex Edelb. § 73. To cut a freeman's hair was to dishonour him. Lex Elfr. § 35. See also Grimm, Deut. Rechtsalt. pp. 240, 283. Eumenius speaks of the Franks as "prolixo crine rutilantes." Paneg. Constant. c. 18.

dering, the noble belongs to the class of freemen ; out of it he springs, in all its rights and privileges he shares, to all its duties he is liable, but in a different degree. He possesses however certain advantages which the freeman does not. Like the latter he is a holder of real estate; he owns land in the district, but his lot is probably larger, and is moreover free from various burthens which press upon his less fortunate neighbour. He must also take part in the Ding, placitum or general meeting, but he and his class have the leading and directing of the public business, and ultimately the execution of the general will'. The people at large may elect, but he alone can be elected, to the offices of priest, judge or king. Upon his life and dignity a higher price is laid than upon those of the mere freeman. He is the unity in the mass, the representative of the general sovereignty, both at home and abroad. The tendency of his power is continually to increase, while that of the mere freeman is continually to diminish, falling in the scale in exact proportion as that of the noble class rises.

The distinctive name of the noble is Ëorl*.

1 "De minoribus rebus principes consultant; de majoribus omnes. Ita tamen ut ea quoque quorum penes plebem arbitrium est, apud principes pertractentur." Tac. Germ. xi. Something similar to this probably prevailed in the Dorian constitution, and in the old Ionian before the establishment of the great democracy. The mass of the people might accept or reject, but hardly, I think, debate the propositions of the nobles. After all the póẞovλo seem necessary in all states. See Arist. Pol. iv. § 15.

2 In the Rigsmál, Jarl is the progenitor of all the noble races, as Karl is of the free.

Adele (nobilis) and Rice (potens), denote his qualities, and he bears other titles according to the accidents of his social position: thus ealdor, ealdorman, princeps; wita, weota, consiliarius; optimas; senior; procer, melior, etc. In addition to his own personal privileges, the noble possesses in the fullest extent every right of the freeman, the highest order of whose body he forms.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE KING.

As the noble is to the freeman, so in some respects is the King to the noble. He is the summit of his class, and completes the order of the freemen. Even in the dim twilight of Teutonic history we find tribes and nations subject to kings; others again acknowledged no such office, and Tacitus seems to regard this state as the more natural to our forefathers. I do not think this clear: on the contrary, kingship, in a certain sense, seems to me rooted in the German mind and institutions, and universal among some particular tribes and confederacies. The free people recognize in the King as much of the national unity as they consider necessary to their existence as a substantive body, and as the representative of the whole nation they consider him to be a mediator between themselves and the gods'. The elective principle is the safe

1 There is a tradition among the Swedes that if the gods expressed their anger with the people by scarcity, or ill success in war, the most acceptable offering to them was the King. See Yngling, Sag. c. xviii. (Laing, i. 230); again, c. xlvii. (vol. i. p. 256), where the scene is laid in Norway because, says the Yngl. Sag., the Swiar were wont to attribute to their kings the fruitfulness or dearth of the seasons. Yet they did not interfere with the succession in the son of the sacrificed king. See Geijer, Hist. i. 404.

guard of their freedom; the monarchical principle is the condition of their nationality. But this idea of kingship is not that which we now generally entertain; it is in some respects more, in others less, comprehensive.

And here it seems necessary to recur to a definition of words. With us, a king is the source both of the military and the judicial powers; he is chief judge and general in chief; among protestants he is head of the church, and only wants the functions of high priest, because the nature of the church of Christ admits of no priestly body exclusively engaged in the sacrifices, or in possession of the exclusive secrets, of the cult'. But in the eye of the state, and as the head of a state clergy, he is the high priest, the authority in which ultimately even the parochial order centres and finds its completion. He is an officer of the state; the highest indeed and the noblest, but to the state he belongs as a part of itself: with us a commission of regency, a stranger or a woman may perform all the functions of royalty: the houses of parliament may limit them; a successful soldier may usurp them. With the early Germans, the king was something different from this.

The inhabitants of the Mark or Gá, however numerous or however few they may be, must always have some provision for the exigencies of peace and war. But peace is the natural or normal state, that for which war itself exists, and the institu

1 1 Peter, ii. 5, 9.