There were many large landholders such as the King, earls [Danish word for Saxon word "eorldormen"], and bishops. Earls were noblemen by birth, and often relatives of the King. They were his army commanders and the highest civil officials, each responsible for a shire. A breach of the peace of an eorldorman would occasion a fine. Lower in social status were freemen, then sokemen, and then, in decreasing order, villani, bordarii, cottarii, and servi (slaves). There was a great expansion of arable land. Some land was common land, held by communities. If a family came to pay the dues and fines on it, it became personal to that family and was known as heir land. Kings typically granted land in exchange for services of military duties, repairing of fortresses, and work on bridges. Less common services required by landlords include equipping a guard ship and guarding the coast, guarding the lord, military watch, maintaining the deer fence at the King's residence, alms giving, and church dues. Since this land was granted in return for service, there were limitations on its heritability and often an heir had to pay a heriot to the landlord to obtain the land. A heriot was originally the armor of a man killed, which went to the King. There were several thousand thegns, rich and poor, who held land directly of the King. Free farmers who had sought protection from thegns in time of war now took them as their lords. A free man could chose his lord, following him in war and working his land in peace. In return, the lord would protect him against encroaching neighbors, back him in the courts of law, and feed him in times of famine. Often knights stayed with their lords at their large houses, but later were given land with men on it. The lords were the ruling class and the greatest of them sat in the King's council along with bishops, abbots, and officers of the King's household. The lesser lords were local magnates, who officiated at the shire and hundred courts. A free holder's house was wood, perhaps with a stone foundation, and roofed with thatch or tiles. There was a main room or hall, with bed chambers around it. Beyond was the kitchen, perhaps outside under a lean-to. These buildings were surrounded by a bank or stiff hedge. Simple people lived in huts made from wood and mud, with one door and no windows. They slept around a fire in the middle of the earthen floor. They wore shapeless clothes of goat-hair and unprocessed wool. They ate rough brown bread, vegetable broth, small-ale from barley, bacon, beans, milk, cabbage, onion, and honey for sweetening or mead. In the summer, they ate boiled or raw veal and wild fowl and game snared in the forest. In the fall, they slaughtered and salted their cattle for food during the winter because there was no more pasture for them. However, some cows and breed animals were kept through the winter.