BOOK
VII.

It is obvious from the connection of this singular character with Croyland monastery, that no one could furnish us with more authentic particulars of him than Ingulf, who lived at the time, and was a monk in the same place. I will add a few more circumstances, which the same writer has recorded concerning him.

It was in Flanders that Hereward heard that the Normans had conquered England; that his father was dead; that the Conqueror had given his inheritance to a Norman; and that his mother's widowhood was afflicted by many injuries and distresses. Transported with grief at the account, he hastened with his wife to England, and, collecting a body of her relations, he attacked the oppressors of his mother, and drove them from her territory.

At this period of the narration, the important passage occurs, which gives such complete evidence to the Anglo-Saxon chivalry.

“ Considering then, that he was at the head of very brave men, and commanded some milites, and had not yet been legally bound with the belt, according to the military custom, he took with him a very few tyros of his cohort, to be legiti. mately consociated with himself to warfare, and went to his uncle, the abbot of Peterborough, named Brand, a very religious man, (as I have heard from my predecessor, my lord Ulketul, abbot, and many others,) much given to charity, and adorned with all the virtues; and having first of all made a confession of his sins, and received absolution, he very urgently prayed that he might be made a legitimate miles. For it was the custom of the English, that every one that was to be consecrated to the legitimate militia, should, on the evening preceding the day of his consecration, with contrition and compunction, make a confession of all his sins to a bishop, an abbot, a monk, or some priest; and, devoted wholly to prayers, devotions, and mortifications, should pass the night in the church; in the next morning should hear mass, should offer his sword on the altar,

2 Ingulf, p. 70.

CHAP.
XII.

and after the Gospel had been read, the priest having blessed the sword, should place it on the neck of the miles, with his benediction. Having communicated at the same mass with the sacred mysteries, he would afterwards remain a legitimate miles.”

He adds, that the Normans regarded this custom of consecrating a miles as abomination, and did not hold such a one a legitimate miles, but reckoned him a slothful equitem and degenerate quiritem.

From the preceding account we collect these things :

1st, That a man might take up arms, head warriors, fight with them, and gain much military celebrity, and yet not thereby become a legitimate miles.

2d, That he could not reputably head milites, without being a legitimate miles.

3d, That to be a legitimate miles was an honorary distinction, worthy the ambition of a man who had previously been of such great military celebrity as Hereward.

4th, That to be a miles, an express ceremony of consecration was requisite.

5th, That the ceremony consisted of a confession and absolution of sins, on the day preceding the consecration; of watching in the church, all the previous night, with prayers and humiliations; of hearing mass next morning; of offering his sword on the altar ; of its being blessed by the priest ; of

' its being then placed on his neck; and of his afterwards communicating. He was then declared a legitimate miles.

6th, The mode above described was the AngloSaxon mode ; but there was another mode in ex

BOOK
VII.

istence after the Conquest : for it is expressly mentioned, that the Normans did not use, but detested, the custom of religious consecration.

7th, That a legitimate miles was invested with a belt and a sword.

Another passage, which alludes to the AngloSaxon chivalry, is in Malmsbury, in which he expressly declares, that Alfred made Athelstan a miles. He says, that Alfred, seeing Athelstan to be an elegant youth, prematurely made him a miles, investing him with a purple garment, a belt set with gems, and a Saxon sword, with a golden sheath. 3

The investiture of the belt, alluded to in the account of Hereward, and in Malmsbury's account of Athelstan's knighthood, is also mentioned by Ingulf, on another occasion. Speaking of the fa

. mous Saxon chancellor Turketul, who died in 975, he says,

that he had, among other relics, the thumb of St. Bartholomew, with which he used to cross himself in danger, tempest, and lightning. A dux Beneventanus gave this to the emperor, when he girded him with the first military belt. 4 The emperor gave it to the chancellor. Another author who died in 1004 says, “ Whoever uses the belt of

, his knighthood (militiæ) is considered as a knight (miles) of his dignity.” 5

That there was a military dignity among the Saxons, which they who wrote in Latin expressed by the term miles, is, I think, very clear from other numerous passages.

There are many grants of kings and others extant to their militibus. Thus

5

3 Malmsbury, p. 49.

4 Ingulf, p. 51. 5 Abb. Flor. in Can. c. 51. Quisquis militiæ suæ cingulo utitur, dignitatis suæ miles adscribitur.

CHAP
XII.

7

Edred, “ cuidam meo ministro ac militi," “ meo fideli ministro ac militi,” “ cuidam meo militi.” 6 The word miles cannot here mean simply a soldier. So to many charters we find the signatures of several persons characterised by this title.? Bede frequently uses the term in passages and with connections which show that he meant to express dignity by it. We are at least certain that his royal AngloSaxon translator believed this, because he has always interpreted the expression, when it has this signification, by a Saxon word of peculiar dignity. Ingulf mentions several great men, in the AngloSaxon times, with the addition of miles as an augmentation of their consequence; and once introduces a king styling a miles his magister. '

6 MS. Claud. B. 6. So an archbishop gives land, Heming. Chart. 191. 210. 234.

7 To a charta of Edward Confessor, five sign with the addition of miles. MS. Claud. B. 6. Eleven sign with miles to a charta of Ethelwulph. Text. Roff. In the Saxon chartulary of Wilton, which Sir Richard Colt Hoare has printed, the charters are usually signed by several milites. In this, one of Edred's after four duces has twelve names with the addition of miles to each, p. 21. Another in 946, after the prelates and duces, has also twelve milites, p. 22. The next by Ethelred, in 994, after the prelates, abbots, and duces, has no milites, but instead of them twenty ministri, p. 24. This curious variation intimates that miles and minister were synonymous. The Saxon term for minister was thegn, and this is the word by which Alfred translates the miles of Bede. Bede :

Alfred : alium de militibus,

othepne cyninges thegn, cum his — militibus,

mid his theynum, milite sibi fidelissimo, his thegne — yetpeopeste, prefato milite,

forerprecenam his chegne, comitibus ac militibus, his geforum, cyninper thegnum, de militia ejus juvenis, sum yeong thos cyninges thegn.

P. 511. 525. 539. 551. 590. 9 Ingulf, p. 6. 14. 20. 25. 63. This use of the word miles is one

p of Hicke's reasons for his attack on Ingulf; an attack which is clearly ill founded. I feel every gratitude to Hickes for his labours on the Northern languages ; but I cannot conceal that I think him mistaken on several very important points of the Saxon antiquities.

VII.

BOOK Domesday-book mentions several milites as holding

lands.

But although the Anglo-Saxons had a military dignity which their Latin writers called miles, I do not think that the word cniht was applied by them to express it; at least, not till the latter periods of their dynasty.

It has been shown, in the chapter on their infancy and education, that a youth was called a cniht. By the same term they also denoted an attendant. 10

In Cedmon it occurs a few times; but it seems to have been used to mean youths. Speaking of Nabochodonossor, he says,

He commanded his gerefas,
out of the miserable relics of the Israelites,
to seek some of the youth
that were most skilled
in the instruction of books.
He would, that the cnihtas
should learn the craft
to interpret dreams. 11
Then they there found
for their sagacious lord

noble cnihtas. 12
SPEAKING of the adoration of the image of Dara,

he says,