Here I take it the þeningmen or _servientes regis_ and the leódscipe (leudes) are identical and opposed to the _Folc_ who under “God’s adversary” Eádwine made the bishop disgorge his plunder. We see who they were; Dunstan and various bishops, ealdorman Ælfhere and several of the king’s witan. This is the only instance I have been able to discover of anything approaching to a _curia regis_ apart from the great Witena gemót. There are, no doubt, several cases where the king appears to have been applied to in the first instance, by one of the parties; but in all of them trial subsequently was had before the shiremoot. It is natural that agreements should have been made by consent, before the king as arbitrator, and these were probably frequent among his intimate councillors, friends and relatives: but they were not trials, nor did they settle the litigation as a judgement of the courts would have done. Such arbitrements were also made by the ealdorman, who like the king received presents for his good offices. The advantage gained was this; both parties were satisfied, without the danger of trying the suit, which entailed very heavy penalties on the loser, amounting sometimes to total forfeiture. The disadvantage was that there was no _ge-endodu spræc_ or finished plea, and consequently the award was sometimes violated, when either party thought this could be done with impunity. Footnote 67: Excepting a very indefinite expression in the Law of Henry the First, § 13. Footnote 68: Cod. Dipl. No. 693. Cwichelmeshlǽw, now Cuckamsley or Cuckamslow Hills, in Berkshire; these run east and west and probably cut off the north-western portion of the county, forming the watershed from which the Ock and Lambourn descend on opposite sides. The exact spot of the gemót was probably near a mound which is now called Scutchamfly Barrow, and which is very plainly marked in the Ordnance Map, nearly due north of West Ilsey. Footnote 69: The lands are Bradfield, Hagborne and Datchet, in Berks and Bucks. Wulfamere I am unable to identify. At all events, had the matter been cognizable in a superior court of the king’s, Leófwine could not have carried his point of having it brought to trial before the shiremoot in Berkshire, which he clearly did against the king’s wish. ----- There can be no mistake about the fact; but it does not amount to a proof that the cause could not have been settled without this formality: both parties to it were of the highest rank; but if the king’s arbitration were refused, the title to the land at Bradfield could legally be tried only in the county of Berkshire in which it lay. Something similar may have been intended by the notice which occurs in the record of another shiregemót (held about 1038 at Ægelnóðes stán in Herefordshire) where it is said that Tófig Prúda came thither _on the kings errand_[70]. ----- Footnote 70: Cod. Dipl. No. 641. -----