Note 422 — Chapter VIII · THE UNFREE. THE SERF.
Reading edition
See Eichhorn, i. 333. Such a person resembles the Langobardic freedman per impans. Ibid. p. 331. I imagine the principle upon which the wergyld went to the king, to be this: the freedman either never had a free mǽgð, or they had forfeited the mǽgsceaft by suffering him to be reduced to serfage. Compare Leg. Eádw. § 9.