There can be no doubt that these offices were entirely Palatine or domestic, that is that they were household dignities, and did not appertain to the general administration. Only when the spirit and feeling of the comitatus had completely prevailed over the older free organization, did they rise into an importance which, throughout the course of mediæval history, we find continually on the increase. They were the grades in the comitatus of which Tacitus himself speaks, which depended upon the good pleasure of the prince: and with the power of the prince their power and dignity varied. The functionaries who held them were the heads of different departments to which belonged all the vassals, _leudes_ or _fideles_ of the king: and as by degrees the freemen perished away, and every one gladly rushed to throw himself into a state of thaneship, the trusted and familiar friends of the prince became the most powerful agents of his administration: till the feudal system having seized on everything, converted these court-functions also into hereditary fiefs, and rendered their holders often powerful enough to make head against the authority of the crown itself. As long as a vestige of the free constitution remained, we hear but little of the court offices: what they became upon its downfall is known to every reader of history. It seems to me improbable that Godwine, or Harald, or Leófríc or Sigeward should ever have filled them: these men were ealdormen or dukes, geréfan, civil and military administrators; but not officers of the royal household, powerful and dignified as these might be. It is probable that the first and most important of their duties was the administration of justice to the king’s sócmen in their various departments; from which in later times were clearly derived the extensive powers and attributions of the several royal courts: but as the intimate friends and cherished counsellors of the king, they must have possessed an influence whose natural tendency was to complete that great change in the social state, which causes of a more general nature,—increasing population, commerce and the disturbance of foreign and civil discord,—were hurrying relentlessly onward. ----- Footnote 232: Asser, an. 849. Footnote 233: Cod. Dipl. No. 148. Footnote 234: Ibid. No. 320. Footnote 235: Ibid. No. 1224. Footnote 236: Ibid. No. 1294. Footnote 237: Ibid. No. 813. Footnote 238: Ibid. No. 813. -----