TÚNGERÉFA.—The Túngeréfa is literally the reeve of a tún, enclosure, farm, vill or manor: and his authority also must have fluctuated with that of his lord. He is the _villicus_ or bailiff of the estate, and on the royal farms was bound to superintend the cultivation, and keep the peace among the cultivators. In London he appears to have been subordinate to the portgeréfa, and was probably his officer[459]; it was his business to see that the tolls were paid. Ælfred commands, in case a man is committed to prison in the king’s tún, that the reeve shall feed him, if necessary[460]. This I suppose to be the túngeréfa, the officer on the spot who would be responsible for his security. So Eádgár forbids his reeves to do any wrong to the other men of the tún, in respect to the tracking of strange cattle[461]. Here the túngeréfa represents the king, among the class that would in earlier times have formed a court of free markmen. That the túngeréfa was the manager of a royal estate appears plainly from an ordinance of Æðelstán, respecting the doles or charities which were to issue from the various farms’ domain[462]. “I Æðelstán, with the consent of Wulfhelm my archbishop, and all my other bishops and God’s servants, command all you my reeves, within my realm, for the forgiveness of my sins, that ye entirely feed one poor Englishman, if ye have him, or that ye find another. From every two of my farms, be there given him monthly one amber of meal, and one shank of bacon, or a ram worth four pence, and clothing for twelve months every year. And ye shall redeem one wíteþeów: and let all this be done for the Lord’s mercy, and for my sake, under witness of the bishop in whose diocese it may be. And if the reeve neglect this, let him make compensation with thirty shillings, and let the money be distributed to the poor in the tún where this remains unfulfilled, by witness of the bishop.” ----- Footnote 459: Æðelr. iv. § 3. Footnote 460: Ælfr. § 1. Thorpe, i. 61. Footnote 461: Eádg. Supp. § 13. Thorpe, i. 276. Footnote 462: Æðelst. i. § 1. Thorpe, i. 196. ----- Lastly, in the law of Æðelred[463] I find the Tungravius, decimates homines, and presbyter charged with the care of seeing certain alms bestowed and fasts observed; which seems to denote a special authority exercised by the Túngeréfa together with the heads of the tithings. The geréfa in a royal vill may easily have been a person of consideration: if the Æðelnóð who in 830 was reeve at Eastry in Kent[464], were such a one, we find from his will that he had no mean amount of property to dispose of. ----- Footnote 463: Æðelr. viii. § 2. Thorpe, i. 338. Footnote 464: Cod. Dipl. No. 191. -----