The same amusing author tells us[299] how on some occasion, in consequence of there being no queen in a court, the comites were ill supplied with clothes, a difficulty which they could only provide against by inducing their king to marry: “Igitur contubernales Frothonis circa indumentorum usum feminea admodum ope defecti, quum non haberent unde nova assuere, aut lacera reficere possent, regem celebrandi coniugii monitis adhortantur.” There seems no reason to doubt the fact thus recorded, however we may judge respecting its occurrence in the time of Frotho. Similarly when Siegfried set out upon his fatal marriage expedition into Burgundy, he and his twelve comrades were clothed by the care of the royal Síglint[300]. From this relation between the prince and the comites, are derived the names appropriated to the former in the epopoea, of hláford, lord, literally _bread-giver_: sinces brytta, beága brytta, _distributor of treasure, rings_; sincgifa, _treasure-giver_, and the like. It is clear also that a right to any share in the booty could not be claimed by the gesíð, as it undoubtedly could by the free soldier in the _Hereban_, but depended entirely upon the will of the chief, and his notions of policy: a right could not have been described as the result of his liberality. In the historical time of Charlemagne we have evidence of this[301]: “Quo accepto ... idem vir prudentissimus idque largissimus et Dei dispensator magnam inde partem Romam ad limina Apostolorum misit per Angilbertum dilectum abbatem suum; porro reliquam partem obtimatibus, clericis sive laicis, caeterisque fidelibus suis largitus est:” or, as it is still more clearly expressed in the annals of Eginhart[302], “reliquum vero inter optimates et aulicos, caeterosque in palatio suo militantes, liberali manu distribuit.” And similarly we are told of Æðelstán: “Praeda quae in castro reperta fuerat, et ea quidem amplissima, magnifice et viritim divisa. Hoc enim vir ille animo imperaverat suo, ut nihil opum ad crumenas corraderet; sed omnia conquisita, vel monasteriis, vel fidelibus suis, munificus expenderet[303].” The share of the freeman who served under his geréfa, and not under a lord, was his own by lot, and neither by _largitio_ nor _liberalitas_,—a most important distinction, seeing that where all was left to the arbitrary disposition of the chief, the subservience of the follower would very naturally become the measure of his liberality. ----- Footnote 296: Hist. Dan. p. 6. Footnote 297: Ibid. p. 144. Footnote 298: Sax. Gram. Hist. Dan. p. 33. Footnote 299: Hist. Dan. p. 68. Footnote 300: Nibelunge Nôt. 66. p. 10, Lachmann. Footnote 301: Annal. Laurish. an. 796. Pertz, Mon. Germ. i. 182. Footnote 302: An. 796. Pertz, i. 183. Footnote 303: Will. Malm. Gest. Reg. i. 213, § 134. -----