Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850 | Page 8

Gregory, printed in the cloister of S. Ulrich at Augspurg in 1473:--
"In der Statt waren hoch T��ren und sch?ne He��ser von Silber und Gold, und aller Hand _le��t_, und die Frawen und Man na?gten im alle."
Lastly, Jo. Morsheim in his _Untreuer Frawen_:--
"Das was mein Herr gar gerne h?rt, Und ob es Leut und Land bethort."
Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the serf-like vassalage, the _H?rigkeit_ or _Leibeigenthum_, which prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified possessions should designate also the people. It must still, however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense.
The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:--
"Goth. liudan[3] (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic, hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. l?��e; O.N. li��e: Goth. lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar -lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una ?state creverunt, _Gl. Rhb._ 926'b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S. i. 124'b. 2. 161'a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja (facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among them."--_Deutsche Gram._ ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach, _Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr._ i. 242.
In his _Erlauterungen zu Elene_, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:--
"The verb is leoean, leae, lueon (crescere), O.S. lioean, l?e, lueun. Lelueon (_C?dm._ 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and 3eloeen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus. Elene, 1227. 3eloeen uneep le��pum (cretus sub foliis)."
It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N. hl?t[4]--which not only signified _sors, portio_, but _res consistentia_--and the A.-S. hlet, hlyt, lot, portion, inheritance: thus, in the A.-S. Psal. xxx. 18., on haneum einum hl?t m��n, my heritage is in thy hands. Notker's version is: M��n l?z ist in d��nen handen. I have since found that Kindlinger (_Geschichte der Deutchen H?rigkeit_) has made an attempt to derive it from _Lied, Lit_, which in Dutch, Flemish, and Low German, still signify a _limb_; I think, unsuccessfully.
Ray, in his _Gloss. Northanymbr._, has "unlead, nomen opprobrii;" but he gives a false derivation: Grose, in his _Provincial Glossary_, "unleed or unlead, a general name for any crawling venomous creature, as a toad, &c. It is sometimes ascribed to a man, and then it denotes a sly wicked fellow, that in a manner creeps to do mischief. See Mr. Nicholson's Catalogue."
In the 2d edition of Mr. Brockett's _Glossary_, we have: "Unletes, displacers or destroyers of the farmer's produce."
This provincial preservation of a word of such rare occurrence in Anglo-Saxon, and of which no example has yet been found in old English, is a remarkable circumstance. The word has evidently signified, like the Gothic, in the first place _poor_; then _wretched_, _miserable_; and hence, perhaps, its opprobrious sense of mischievous or wicked.
"In those rude times when wealth or movable property consisted almost entirely of living money, in which debts were contracted and paid, and for which land was given in mortgage or sold; it is quite certain that the serfs were transferred with the land, the lord considering them as so much live-stock, or part of his chattels."
A vestige of this feeling with regard to dependants remains in the use of the word Man (which formerly had the same sense as _lede_). We still speak of "a general and his men," and use the expression "our men." But, happily for the masses of mankind, few vestiges of serfdom and slavery, and those in a mitigated form, now virtually exist.
S.W. SINGER.
April 16. 1850.
[Footnote 1: It occurs many times in the Moeso-Gothic version of the Gospels for [Greek: ptochos]. From the Glossaries, it appears that iungalauths is used three times for [Greek: neaniskos], a young man; therefore lauths or lauds would signify simply _man_; and the plural, laudeis, would be people. See this established by the analogy of vairths, or O.H.G. virahi, also signifying people. Grimm's _Deutsche Gram._ iii. 472., note. "Es konnte zwar _unl��ds_ (pauper) aber auch _unl��ths_ heissen."--_D. Gr._ 225.]
[Footnote 2: Sir F. Palgrave has given this extract in the Appendix to his _Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth_, p. ccccvii., where, by an error of the press, or of transcription, the word stands lich. It may be as well to remark, that the corresponding word in Latin formulas of the same kind is "catallis," _i.e. chattels_. A passage in Havelok, v. 2515., will clearly demonstrate that lith was at least one kind of _chattel_, and equivalent to fe (fee).
"Thanne he was ded that Sathanas Sket was seysed al that his was, In the King's hand il del, Lond and _lith_, and other _catel_, And the King ful sone it yaf Ubbe in the hond with a fayr staf, And seyde, 'Her ich sayse the In al the lond in al the fe.'"]
[Footnote 3: