for some reason they had become landless. Side by side with this democratic constitution, there was a peculiar institution known as the _Comitatus_. Each Princeps was allowed to collect around him, under a tie of personal dependence, a body of professed warriors, who were bound to him by the closest ties of honour; and the importance of each chief must have depended in a great degree upon this following. In case of conquest, it would naturally be the duty of the conquering chief to see to the welfare of his followers, and to give them grants, which might either be grants in perpetuity, or only the right of present possession, and which would be drawn from the conquered land remaining over after its distribution among the body of freemen. To cultivate these grants, the comrades of the king would have had to employ their own dependants, and these dependants would settle in villages, which took the form of village communities, except that the rights, which in the free communities would be vested in the whole body of the freemen, were in this case vested in the lord. We here have the germ of the relation between vassal and lord. But this element of feudalism soon acquired greater strength. The conquering chief would take upon himself the title of king, claim descent from the gods, and make his line hereditary. As the position of the king advanced, the position of the comrade or Gesith would advance also. As the king of a tribe became the king of a nation his dignity would greatly increase, and with his that of his followers, who, as the court became more formal, would accept as honours duties about the household, and the word _Gesith_, comrade, changed into _Thegn_ or servant. In times of war such nobles by service became natural leaders of the people, and the position of the chief men of the village proportionately sunk. So that there arose a class of nobles in immediate connection with the crown, possessing property not belonging to a village community, and exercising rights of lordship over its inhabitants. It is not difficult to see in what a superior position they were thus placed; what powers of encroachment they might have; and how willingly, in times of danger, village communities would put themselves in the same position with regard to them, as that occupied by those settlers on the Thegn’s lands, who had always acknowledged them as their lords. We have therefore two sources from which feudalism might have arisen; the village headman, in accordance with what seems to be a general law, as his powers came to be legally defined (especially in the matter of collecting the king’s taxes), would be regarded as the hereditary lord of the village, and would obtain the right of permanently enclosing his share of the common land; while the king’s Thegn, side by side with him, would plant his own subject villages, and accept by what is called _commendation_ the supremacy of such villages as might offer it to him.