This will be even more obvious from an extract given by Bishop Nicholson, in the preface to Wilkin's _Leges Saxonicæ_ p. vii. It is part of the oath of a Scotish baron of much later date, and the sense here is unequivocal:-- "I becom zour man my liege king in land, _lith_[2], life and lim, warldly honour, homage, fealty, and leawty, against all that live and die." Numerous examples are to be found in the M.H. German, of which I will cite a few: "Ir habt doch zu iuwere hant Beidin _liute_ unde lant." _Tristr._ 13934. "Und bevelhet ir _liute_ unde lant." _Iwein._ 2889. {432} "Ich teile ir _liute_ unde lant." _Id._ 7714. And in the old translation of the _Liber Dialogorum_ of St. Gregory, printed in the cloister of S. Ulrich at Augspurg in 1473:-- "In der Statt waren hoch Türen und schöne Heüser von Silber und Gold, und aller Hand _leüt_, und die Frawen und Man naÿgten im alle." Lastly, Jo. Morsheim in his _Untreuer Frawen_:-- "Das was mein Herr gar gerne hört, Und ob es _Leut_ und Land bethort." Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the serf-like vassalage, the _Hörigkeit_ or _Leibeigenthum_, which prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified _possessions_ should designate also the _people_. It must still, however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense. The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:-- "Goth. liudan[3] (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic, hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. lëóð; O.N. lióð: Goth. lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar -lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una æstate creverunt, _Gl. Rhb._ 926'b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S. i. 124'b. 2. 161'a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja (facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among them."--_Deutsche Gram._ ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach, _Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr._ i. 242. In his _Erlauterungen zu Elene_, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:-- "The verb is leoðan, leað, luðon (crescere), O.S. lioðan, lôð, luðun. Leluðon (_Cædm._ 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and 3eloðen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus. Elene, 1227. 3eloðen unðep leápum (cretus sub foliis)." It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N. hlÿt[4]--which not only signified _sors, portio_, but _res consistentia_--and the A.-S. hlet, hlyt, lot, portion, inheritance: thus, in the A.-S. Psal. xxx. 18., on hanðum ðinum hlÿt mín, _my heritage is in thy hands_. Notker's version is: Mín lôz ist in dínen handen. I have since found that Kindlinger (_Geschichte der Deutchen Hörigkeit_) has made an attempt to derive it from _Lied, Lit_, which in Dutch, Flemish, and Low German, still signify a _limb_; I think, unsuccessfully.