resolve to leave William

In this poem, ludes and ledes are used indiscriminately, but most frequently in the sense of men, people. Sir Frederick Madden has shown, from the equivalent words in the French original of Robert of Brunne, "that he always uses the word in the meaning of possessions, whether consisting of tenements, rents, fees, &c.;" in short, wealth.

If, therefore, the word has this sense in old English, we might expect to find it in Anglo-Saxon, and I think it is quite clear that we have it at least in one instance. In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 184., an oath is given, in which the following passage occurs:

Mr. Thorpe has not translated the word, nor is it noticed in his Glossary; but I think there can be no doubt that it should be rendered by goods, chattels, or wealth, i.e., movable property.

This will be even more obvious from an extract given by Bishop Nicholson, in the preface to Wilkin's Leges Saxonicæ p. vii. It is part of the oath of a Scotish baron of much later date, and the sense here is unequivocal:—

"I becom zour man my liege king in land, lith², life and lim, warldly honour, homage, fealty, and leawty, against all that live and die."

Numerous examples are to be found in the M.H. German, of which I will cite a few:

And in the old translation of the Liber Dialogorum of St. Gregory, printed in the cloister of S. Ulrich at Augspurg in 1473:—

"In der Statt waren hoch Türen und schöne Heüser von Silber und Gold, und aller Hand leüt, und die Frawen und Man naÿgten im alle."

Lastly, Jo. Morsheim in his Untreuer Frawen:—

Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the serf-like vassalage, the Hörigkeit or Leibeigenthum, which prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified possessions should designate also the people. It must still, however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense.

The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:—

"Goth. liudan³ (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic, hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. lëóð; O.N. lióð: Goth. lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar -lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una æstate creverunt, Gl. Rhb. 926'b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S. i. 124'b. 2. 161'a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja (facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among them."—Deutsche Gram. ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach, Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr. i. 242.

In his Erlauterungen zu Elene, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:—

"The verb is leoðan, leað, luðon (crescere), O.S. lioðan, lôð, luðun. Leluðon (Cædm. 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and 3eloðen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus. Elene, 1227. 3eloðen unðep leápum (cretus sub foliis)."

It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N. hlÿt⁴—which not only signified sors, portio, but res consistentia—and the A.-S. hlet, hlyt, lot, portion, inheritance: thus, in the A.-S. Psal. xxx. 18., on hanðum ðinum hlÿt mín, my heritage is in thy hands. Notker's version is: Mín lôz ist in dínen handen. I have since found that Kindlinger (Geschichte der Deutchen Hörigkeit) has made an attempt to derive it from Lied, Lit, which in Dutch, Flemish, and Low German, still signify a limb; I think, unsuccessfully.

Ray, in his Gloss. Northanymbr., has "unlead, nomen opprobrii;" but he gives a false derivation: Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, "unleed or unlead, a general name for any crawling venomous creature, as a toad, &c. It is sometimes ascribed to a man, and then it denotes a sly wicked fellow, that in a manner creeps to do mischief. See Mr. Nicholson's Catalogue."

In the 2d edition of Mr. Brockett's Glossary, we have: "Unletes, displacers or destroyers of the farmer's produce."

This provincial preservation of a word of such rare occurrence in Anglo-Saxon, and of which no example has yet been found in old English, is a remarkable circumstance. The word has evidently signified, like the Gothic, in the first place poor; then wretched, miserable; and hence, perhaps, its opprobrious sense of mischievous or wicked.

"In those rude times when wealth or movable property consisted almost entirely of living money, in which debts were contracted and paid, and for which land was given in mortgage or sold; it is quite certain that the serfs were transferred with the land, the lord considering them as so much live-stock, or part of his chattels."

A vestige of this feeling with regard to dependants remains in the use of the word Man (which formerly had the same sense as lede). We still speak of "a general and his men," and use the expression "our men." But, happily for the masses of mankind, few vestiges of serfdom and slavery, and those in a mitigated form, now virtually exist.

S.W. SINGER.

April 16. 1850.

Footnote 1:(return)

It occurs many times in the Moeso-Gothic version of the Gospels for [Greek: ptochos]. From the Glossaries, it appears that iungalauths is used three times for [Greek: neaniskos], a young man; therefore lauths or lauds would signify simply man; and the plural, laudeis, would be people. See this established by the analogy of vairths, or O.H.G. virahi, also signifying people. Grimm's Deutsche Gram. iii. 472., note. "Es konnte zwar unlêds (pauper) aber auch unlêths heissen."—D. Gr. 225.

Footnote 2: