276 The Ancient Teutonic Priesthood.
law that the aldormen are rebuked by Alfred.^ Again it seems likely that in the village community the head man performed priestly functions. Such was certainly the case in the North, and there is evidence, at all events, that the villages of the continent had similar religious festivals.^ In none of these bodies do we ever hear of persons of exclu- sively priestly character. Priestly duties appear every- where to have been discharged by the temporal chief. The former prevalence of the patriarchal system is shown, further, by the use of the Old English poetical word, aldor^ ' chief,' ' prince,' which in the plural means ' forefathers.' In the sense of 'princeps' it has died out in prose, being displaced by the extended form aldorinan ; in official terminology, however, it remains in the forms hundredes ealdor, ' chief of a hundred,' burhealdor, ' mayor,' &c.
In the smaller organisations of society then, priestly duties seem to have been performed by the temporal chief. It is only the great organisation, the tribe or state, which possesses a class with exclusively priestly functions. This fact is rendered especially important by the loose character of the bonds by which the ancient German state was held together. Cassar says distinctly {B.C., vi., 23) that in time of peace the state had no common magistracy, and, so far as the the non-monarchical tribes are concerned, his words are amply confirmed by the evidence of Tacitus."* Each
' Camden's Asset; p. 21.
- The contributions paid by the villagers towards the maintenance of common festivals may very well have passed into the cyricsceat of the Christian period At all events the wording of Ine's law on the subject deserves attention. The cyricsceat was to be paid at Martinmas at the place " where the man has his hearth at mid-winter" (Ine, § 61 ; cf.% 4).
5 The word seems to be closely related to aldor, ' life,' and is, perhaps, identica with Lat. altor, 'foster-father.'
- Once, indeed, in a passage quoted above {Gertti., 10), Tacitus uses the
expression /;-2«i:£/i- ciuitatis. Yet from other passages it is clear that this can not denote any definite supremacy over the whole tribe {cf. Schroder, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte,^ p. 29, n. II.), It seems not unlikely that the chief, who accompanied the priest in the observation of the sacred horses, held the position of ' princeps ciuitatis ' for this duty only. Possibly the duty may have been undertaken by the various principes in turn.
d
