Note 318 — Chapter VII · THE NOBLE BY SERVICE.

Montesquieu has seen this very clearly, when he considers even the horse and framea of Tacitus in the light of beneficia. From a charter of Æðelflǽd, an. 915-922, it would seem that in Mercia a thane required the consent of the lord, before he could purchase an estate of bookland: “Ego Æðelflǽd ... dedi licentiam Eádríco meo ministro comparandi terram decem manentium æt Fernbeorgen, sibi suisque haeredibus perpetualiter possidendam.” Cod. Dipl. No. 343. About the close of the ninth century, Wulfhere, a duke, having left the country, and so deserted the duties of his position, was adjudged to lose even his private lands of inheritance: “Quando ille utrumque et suum dominum regem Ælfredum et patriam, ultra iusiurandum quam regi et suis omnibus optimatibus iuraverat, sine licentia dereliquit; tunc etiam, cum omnium iudicio sapientium Geuisorum et Mercensium, potestatem et haereditatem dereliquit agrorum.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1078. The importance of this passage seems to me to rest upon the words “sine licentia.”