CYNINGES GERÉFA, or Royal Reeve.—There is some difficulty with regard to this officer, because in many cases where the cyninges geréfa is mentioned, it is plain that the scírgeréfa is meant. For example, Ælfred twice mentions the cyninges geréfa as sitting in the folcmót and administering justice there[432], which is hardly to be understood of any but the sheriff. However it is consistent with the general principles of Teutonic society that as there was a scírgeréfa to do justice between freeman and freeman, so also there should be a cyninges geréfa, before whom the king’s tenants should ultimately stand to right, and who more particularly administered the king’s sacu and. sócn in his own private lands. To this officer, under the ealdorman, would belong the investigation of those causes which the king’s manorial courts could not decide: perhaps he might possess some sort of appellate jurisdiction: and it cannot be doubted that it was his duty to superintend the management of the king’s private domains, and to lead the array of the king’s private tenants in the general levy. It is therefore not unlikely that this officer may be identical with the heáhgeréfa already noticed. But in many cases where a king’s reeve is mentioned, and where we cannot understand the term of the scírgeréfa, it is clear that a wícgeréfa or burh- or túngeréfa are intended, and that they are called royal officers merely because the wíc, burh or tún happened to be royal property. The Chronicle under the year 787 mentions a geréfa who was slain by the Northmen:—“This year king Beorhtríc took to wife Eádburh, king Offa’s daughter: and in his time first came three ships of Northmen from Hæretha land. And then the geréfa rode to the place, and would have driven them to the king’s tún, for he knew not who they were: and there on the spot they slew him. These were the first Danish ships that ever sought the land of the English.” ----- Footnote 432: “Gif mon on folces gemóte cyninges geréfan ge-yppe eofot,” etc. § 22. “And gebrengen beforan cyninges geréfan on folcgemóte ... gecýðe in gemótes gewitnesse cyninges geréfan.” § 34. See also Æðelred, iii. § 13. Cnut, ii. § 8, 33. Thorpe, i. 76, 82, 380, 396. In Cod. Dipl. No. 789, appears a king’s reeve Wulfsige: but is not this the same Wulfsige as we find sheriff of Kent at the same period? ----- Now Florence of Worcester under the same date tells us that this officer was “regis praepositus,” that is, a king’s reeve: and Henry of Huntingdon improves him into a sheriff[433], “praepositus regis illius provinciae:” Æðelweard however, who is obviously much better acquainted with the details of the story than his Norman successors, records that this officer’s name was Beadoheard, and that he was the royal burggrave in Dorchester[434]. ----- Footnote 433: Hen. Hunt. lib. iv. Footnote 434: