Anglo saxon society

There were 4 classes in Anglo-saxon times:

• Earls
• Thegns
• Ceorls (Churls)
• Thralls

Thralls were effectivly slaves during the anglo-saxon times, they had no rights and were treated as property. There was little or no punishment for killing them.

Ceorls were like thralls only they had rights and could move between lords at free will. They were worth 200 shillings if you killed one. They owed military service to the king as well as paying the king rent in food. 

Thegns were the aristocrats of the Anglo-Saxon times, they had 6 times as much land as the ceorls, a lot more money and they also owned big manor houses with churches.  they were very influential in the local community.

Earls were the most powerful people in england other than the king, they had big armies, a lot of money, sat on the witan and in some cases challenged the king for power. some of the earls could even become more powerful than the king an example of this is Harold Godwinson who had a bigger army and more money than the king 

All of england was split into earldoms, then shires, then hundreds and finally tithings

a shire is how an earl would split his land to help govern the area, it had a number of functions:

• politacal - it would have a shire reeve who was the kings representative, they ran courts and carried out the kings instructions
• military - each shire gave troops to a fyrd, which was like a local army, there were two types: a select fyrd, which gathered men to fight anywhere and a general fyrd which gathered men to fight who wouldnt leave the local area. each hundred would give five men to the fyrd.
• economic - each shire had a burh in the middle, this was a fortified town in which most of the administration and trading was done.
• social - each shire had its own court for trying cases and giving punishments

shires were divided into hundreds which usually had 100 hides of land and hundreds became tithings, which had 10 households on them.