19 - Rural society in Carolingian Europe

Summary

when, around 897, Helmstan of Fonthill in Wiltshire stole Æthelred’s belt, he found himself in serious trouble. Helmstan was a king’s man, probably a thegn, and a medium landowner, that is to say someone with several tenants: a man of local standing, at least in his village, and with royal connections – though these were not as hard to come by near to the centre of the still small kingdom of Wessex as they were in the huge Frankish empire, and Helmstan was not important enough to be recorded elsewhere. But a belt was not a small matter (it may well have been a cingulum militare, the symbol of military obligation itself); and proven theft cast doubt on Helmstan’s entire capacity to act at law. His enemies immediately began to claim his lands, including land to which he had clear written title, for Helmstan arguably was no longer legally able to defend himself, and anyway, as a thief, was now bereft of the friends and allies without whose supporting oaths no one could win at court. Helmstan had to go to an old patron, the ealdorman Ordlaf, and promise him the land itself in order to get the backing Helmstan needed to keep it; Ordlaf promised him life tenure, if he kept himself out of trouble, and then arranged both the court strategy and the oath-helpers that Helmstan needed. Helmstan, thanks both to Ordlaf’s backing and to his own charters, won his case.