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warriors from other war bands by the promise of loot. By the late 7th century the kings of the now fewer but larger kingdoms would have had bands of perhaps 300 warriors.

If a chief or king died in battle, his men died avenging him, though a few might survive after being struck down and left for dead. It was dishonourable to leave the battlefield on which your lord had been slain, and those few who did were freąuently executed by the successor for their disloyalty.

From the beginning of the gth century the kingdoms were under attack by other professional warriors- the Vikings. We know from accounts of battles before Alfred’s reign (879-899) that some form of levy existed to deal with these raids—and dealt with them ąuite adeąuately on occasions— but we have no details of the organization. However, it is obvious that the king and his corps of elite warriors, now usually referred to as the Hird or Hearth Troop, could not be everywhere at once, and the onus must have fallen chiefly on the earls. It was their job to summon the able-bodied małe population in emergencies, and tliis they or their thegns could have done reasonably swiftly in the localized areas which were alfected by the raids; but such a force would in generał have been poorly armed farmers who could not have had much success against Vikings. We must assume, there-fore, that the organization which we know to have existed from the reign of Alfred must have been functioning at an earlier datę.

The personal followers of the leaders, the thegns, and numbers ofhired mercenaries—often Scandi-navians, and mercenaries in the true sense, with all the modern connotations of the Congo—formed the spearhead of any force; but it would appear that from quite early in the gth century this was backed up by what is later referred to as the Select Fyrd. This was raised by selective recruitment, rather than a generał levy, by drawing one man for every five hides of land. Many of the Select Fyrd would therefore have been thegns, but when no thegn was available—either because the unit of five hides was part of a larger estate held by one thegn, or because the land was held by a ceorl or ceorls -it could also contain these members of the upper peasantry. In these cases the men involved com-bined to send one of their number to the Select

Fyrd, and normally it would be the same man sent whenever the Fyrd was summoned. He would naturally ensure that he was well eąuipped, and ambition and experience would soon create a worthy warrior.

The towns were also assessed in hides and the inhabitants reąuired to send representatives. In some instances the towns could commute their service by paying the crown twenty shillings in lieu of each warrior, the exact sum necessary to hire a replacement.

All these warriors were mounted to give them the mobility necessary to counter the Viking raids, but the men normally fought on foot, unless in pursuit of a defeated enemy. Thus the thegns, ceorls and the townsmen (or their substitutes) of the Select Fyrd were all well-equipped, experienced men, and were by no means merely peasant farmers.

In those regions of England which were assessed in geld carucates rather than hides (approximately the areas where the Danish settlement was heav-iest) some analogous ratio of carucates to warriors would have been in operation, probably in units of six carucates.

The Select Fyrd could be called out at any time and active service depended entirely on the need: it might be called out several times a year, yet serve for only a few days each time. Each hide was charged four shillings towards the maintenance and wages of the selected representative, that is twenty shillings for the five hide unit, and as sixty days was the customary period of service anti-cipated, this meant a wagę of fourpence per day. This is roughly comparable to the wages of a knight post-conquest, so it can be plainly secn that the Select Fyrd was indeed a select body of men.

In later years there was also an alternative obligation to supply a warrior-seaman for the fleet, and for this purpose the five hide units were combined in some regions into districts of 300 hides, which were called ship-sokes. These were required to produce sixty warrior-seamen and also to pay for the construction and maintenance of a warship which the men manned. Some ports, particularly those known later as the Cinque Ports, were also required to supply smaller ships to augment the fleet.

In addition to the Select Fyrd there was the Great Fyrd, a generał levy of all able-bodied