A more disciplined military force was provided by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to "thane-service," a step which recognized the change that had now substituted the thegn for the eorl and in which we see the beginning of a feudal system.

It was the gradual transfer of a whole German nation from the Elbe and Rhine to the Thames and the Humber, with their original village institutions, under the rule of their eorls, with the simple addition of kings,unknown in their original settlements, but brought about by the necessities which military life and conquest produced.

When the country was threatened the freemen flew to arms, under their eorls and ealdormen; and on this force the king was obliged to rely.

The old eorls and ealdormen were warriors; and yet to them had been committed the administration of justice, which they often abused,frequently deciding cases against the verdicts of jurors, and sometimes unjustly dooming innocent men to capital punishment.

The king appointed the alderman, or eorl, who was president of the shire gemot, or council, and chief judge of the county court as well as governor of the shire, but was assisted and probably controlled in his judicial capacity by justices appointed by the king, and not attached to the shire, or in any way dependent on the alderman.

The word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon eorls which signified the "gentle folk," as distinguished from the ceorls, the "churls" or "simple folk.