the name of one of the classes or orders into which the people were distinguished among the Anglo-Saxons. The ceorls, who were persons completely free, and descended from a long race of freemen, constituted a middle class between the labourers and mechanics (who were generally slaves, or descended from slaves), on the one hand, and the nobility on the other. They might go where they pleased, and pursue any way of life that was most agreeable to their humour: but so many of them applied to agriculture, and farming the lands of the nobility, that a ceorl was the most common name for a husbandman or farmer in the Anglo-Saxon times. These ceorls, however, seem in general to have been a kind of gentlemen farmers; and if any one of them prospered so well as to acquire the property of five hydes of land, upon which he had a church, a kitchen, a bell-house, and great gate, and obtained a seat and office in the king's court, he was esteemed a nobleman or thane. If a ceorl applied to learning, and attained to priest's orders, he was also considered as a thane; his weregild, or price of his life, was the same, and his testimony had the same weight in a court of justice. When he applied to trade, and made three voyages beyond sea, in a ship of his own, and with a cargo belonging to himself, he was also advanced to the dignity of a thane. But if a ceorl had a greater propensity to arms than to learning, trade, or agriculture, he then became the fithcuman, or military retainer, to some potent and warlike earl, and was called the huscarle of such an earl. If one of these huscarles acquitted himself so well as to obtain from his patron either five hydes of land, or a gilt sword, helmet, and breastplate, as a reward of his valour, he was likewise considered as a thane. Thus the temple of honour stood open to these ceorls, whether they applied themselves to agriculture, commerce, letters, or arms, which were then the only professions esteemed worthy of a freeman.