In the Anglosaxon laws we find many provisions respecting the powers and dignity of the ealdorman, which it will be necessary to examine in detail. It is highly probable that different races and kingdoms adopted a somewhat different course with respect to them,—a course rendered inevitable by the connection of the ealdorman with territorial government. The laws of the Kentish kings do not make any mention of such an officer: the ceorl, eorl and king are the only free classes whose proportionable value they notice; and if there were ealdormen at all, they were comprised in the great caste of eorls or nobles by birth, even as Æðelberht’s law uses _eorlcund_, that is of earl’s rank, as a synonym for _betst_, that is the best or highest rank[308]. In the law of Eádríc and Hlóðhere, though various judicial proceedings are referred to, we hear nothing of the ealdorman: suit is to be prosecuted at the king’s hall[309], before the stermelda[310], or the wícgeréfa[311], but no other officer is mentioned; probably because at this period, the little kingdoms into which Kent itself was divided, supplied ample machinery for doing justice, without the establishment of ealdormen for that or any other purpose. The law of Wihtræd has no provision of the sort, and it is remarkable that in the proem to his dooms, which a king always declares to be made with the counsel, consent and license of his nobles, the word _eádigan_, the wealthy or powerful, twice occurs[312], but not the word _ealdormen_. I therefore think it probable that Kent had no such officers at the commencement of the eighth century[313]. ----- Footnote 308: “Mund ðǽre betstan widuwan eorlcundre, fiftig scillinga gebéte.” For the mund of a widow of the highest class, that is of earl’s degree, be the bót fifty shillings. Æðelb. § 75. Thorpe, i. 20. Footnote 309: Eád. Hlóð. § 5. Thorpe, i. 28. Footnote 310: Eád. Hlóð. § 7, 16. Thorpe, i. 30, 34. Footnote 311: Eád. Hlóð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34. Footnote 312: Leg. Wiht. Thorpe, i. 36. Footnote 313: I do not think the expression of the Sax. Chron. an. 568 can be considered to contradict this. The ealdormen recorded there are merely princes in a general sense: as are Cerdíc and Cyneríc named an. 495, just as the same Chronicle an. 465 mentions twelve Welsh ealdormen. So also in 653, Peada the king of the Southangles is called aldorman. The Kentish charters in which we find Hamgisilus, _dux_, and Graphio, _comes_, are impudent forgeries. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 2, 3, 4. -----