The most general name for the fiscal, administrative and executive officer among the Anglosaxons was Geréfa, or as it is written in very early documents geróefa[358]: but the peculiar functions of the individuals comprehended under it, were further defined by a prefix compounded with it, as scírgeréfa, the reeve of the shire or sheriff: túngeréfa the reeve of the farm or bailiff. The exact meaning and etymology of this name have hitherto eluded the researches of our best scholars, and yet perhaps few words have been more zealously investigated[359]: if I add another to the number of attempts to solve the riddle, it is only because I believe the force of the word will become much more evident when we have settled its genuine derivation; and that philology has yet a part to play in history which has not been duly recognized. One of the oldest and most popular opinions was that which connected the name with words denoting seniority; thus, with the German adjective _grau_, Anglosaxon _grǽg_, grey. There was however little resemblance between geréfa and grǽg, the Anglosaxon forms, and the whole of this theory was applicable only to the Latino-Frankish form graphio, or gravio. The frequent use of words denoting advanced age, as titles of honour,—among which ealdor _princeps_, senior _seigneur_, ða yldestan _primates_, and many others, will readily occur to the reader,—favoured this opinion, which was long maintained: but especially in Germany, it has been entirely exploded by Grimm in his Rechtsalterthümer[360], and proof adduced that there cannot be the slightest connection between _graf_ and _grau_. ----- Footnote 358: Cod. Dipl. No. 235. The Chronicle even calls Cæsar’s Tribune, Labienus, geréfa. Footnote 359: The laws of Eádweard the Confessor show at how early a period the word was unintelligible. “Greve autem nomen est potestatis; apud nos autem nichil melius videtur esse quam praefectura. Est enim multiplex nomen; greve enim dicitur de scira, de wæpentagiis, de hundredo, de burgis, de villis: et videtur nobis compositum esse e grið anglice, quod est _pax_ latine, et _ve_ latine, videlicet quod debet facere grið, i. e. pacem, ex illis qui inferunt in terram ve, i. e. miseriam vel dolorem.... Frisones et Flandrenses comites suos meregrave vocant, quasi majores vel bonos pacificos; et sicut modo vocantur greves, qui habent praefecturas super alios, ita tunc temporis vocabantur eldereman, non propter senectutem, sed propter sapientiam.” Cap. xxxii. Footnote 360: Page 753. Gloss. _in voc._ Grafio. -----