NOTE [G]

It appears from the ancient translations of the Saxon annals and laws, and from King Alfred's translation of Bede, as well as from all the ancient historians, that COMES in Latin, ALDERMAN in Saxon, and EARL in Dano-Saxon, were quite synonymous. There is only a clause in a law of King Athelstan's (see Spellm. Conc. p. 406) which has stumbled some antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an alderman. The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop; whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas. To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture, (see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in England, and stood at that time for the atheling or prince of the blood, heir to the crown. This he confirms by a law of Canute, Sec. 55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the same footing. In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the prince, or atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas. See Wilkins, p. 71. He is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.