“11. And if his son and his son’s son so thrive that they have so much land after him, the offspring shall be of gesíðcund [noble] race at two thousand. “12. And if they have not that, nor to that amount can thrive, let them be paid for as ceorlish.” ----- Footnote 513: The royal messengers were often of the highest rank. The heroic character of the weapon-smith or armourer appears throughout the traditions of the North, and indeed in the epic poetry of all nations. Footnote 514: In the year 679 a battle was fought between Ecgfrið of Northumberland and Æðilræd of Mercia. “Anno regis Ecgfridi nono, conserto gravi praelio inter ipsum et Aedilredum regem Merciorum, iuxta fluvium Treanta, occisus est Aelfuini, frater regis Ecgfridi, iuvenis circiter decem et octo annorum, utrique provinciae multum amabilis. Nam et sororem eius quae dicebatur Osðryd, rex Aedilred habebat uxorem. Cumque materies belli acrioris et inimicitiae longioris inter reges populosque feroces videretur exorta, Theodorus, deo dilectus antistes, divino functus auxilio, salutifera exhortatione coeptum tanti periculi funditus exstinguit incendium: adeo ut pacatis alterutrum regibus ac populis, _nullius anima hominis pro interfecto regis fratre, sed debita solummodo multa pecuniae regi ultori daretur_. Cuius foedera pacis multo exinde tempore inter eosdem reges eorumque regna durarunt. In praefato autem praelio, quo occisus est _Rex_ Aelfuini,” etc. Beda, H. Eccl. iv. 21, 22. Footnote 515: Will. Malm. Gest. Reg. lib. i. Footnote 516: Flor. Wigorn. an. 694. Footnote 517: Æðelw. Chron. ii. cap. 10. Footnote 518: Chron. Saxon, an. 694. Footnote 519: Conf. Leg. Hloðh. § 13. Æðelr. § 7. Ælfred’s Beda, iii. 5. So, án fíftig, _one fifty_, means fifty _psalms_ to be sung or said. Æðelst. iv. § 3. v. 8. § 6. No one mistakes the meaning of _five hundred, five thousand a year_. Footnote 520: 1500 Kentish shillings, which are equivalent to rather more than 7800 Saxon shillings, were a sufficient sum, at a period when an ewe with her lamb was worth only one Saxon shilling. Leg. Ini, § 55. ----- Another, and perhaps more trustworthy document, printed at p. 190 of the same volume, gives us the following values as current in Mercia. “A ceorl’s wergyld is by Mercian law, two hundred shillings. A thane’s wergyld is six times as much, that is, twelve hundred shillings. Then is a king’s simple wergyld, six thanes’ wer by Mercian law, that is thirty thousand sceats and that is altogether one hundred and twenty pounds. So much is the wergyld in the folkright by Mercian law. And for the royal dignity such another sum is due, as compensation for cynegyld. The _wer_ belongs to the kindred, the cynebót to the people.”