(57) Both _hlàford_ and _hlæfdige_ (_Lord_ and _Lady_) are very puzzling words as to the origin of their later syllables. It is enough for my purpose if the connexion of the first syllable with _hlàf_ be allowed. Different as is the origin of the two words, _hlàford_ always translates _dominus_. The French _seigneur_, and the corresponding forms in Italian and Spanish, come from the Latin _senior_, used as equivalent to _dominus_. This is one of the large class of words which are analogous to our _Ealdorman_. (58) This is fully treated by Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 350, 495, 505. (59) On the change from the _alod_, _odal_, or _eðel_, a man’s very own property, to the land held of a lord, see Hallam, Middle Ages, i. 113. (60) See Norman Conquest, i. 85-88. I have there chiefly followed Mr. Kemble in his chapter on the Noble by Service, Saxons in England, i. 162. (61) See the whole history and meaning of the word in the article _þegen_ in Schmid’s Glossary. (62) See Norman Conquest, i. 89. (63) Barbour, Bruce, i. 224: “A! fredome is A noble thing.” So said Herodotus (v. 78) long before: ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὡς ἔστι χρῆμα σπουδαῖον. CHAPTER II. (1) In the great poetical manifesto of the patriotic party in Henry the Third’s reign, printed in Wright’s Political Songs of England (Camden Society, 1839), there seems to be no demand whatever for new laws, but only for the declaration and observance of the old. Thus, the passage which I have chosen for one of my mottoes runs on thus:— “Igitur communitas regni consulatur; Et quid universitas sentiat sciatur, Cui leges propriæ maxime sunt notæ. Nec cuncti provinciæ sic sunt idiotæ, Quin sciant plus cæteris regni sui mores, Quos relinquant posteris hii qui sunt priores. Qui reguntur legibus magis ipsas sciunt; Quorum sunt in usibus plus periti fiunt; Et quia res agitur sua, plus curabunt, Et quo pax adquiritur sibi procurabunt.”