ceorls

Gothic ladies and gentlemen of the rank known as ceorls or villeins, full of importance to the country at large, and ramifying throughout the unwritten history of England.

The Trumpet-Major Thomas Hardy 1884

The wives and daughters of ceorls were not hlafdiges, they were simply wifs.

Swá we eác settað be eallum hádum, ge ceorle ge eorle Heo 2006

The wives and daughters of ceorls were not hlafdiges, they were simply wifs.

Archive 2006-01-01 Heo 2006

Hence, since the ceorls doubtless formed the bulk of the population, it has been thought that the Anglo-Saxon armies of early times were essentially peasant forces.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" Various

No doubt ceorls took part in military expeditions, but they may have gone as attendants and camp-followers rather than as warriors, their chief business being to make stockades and bridges, and especially to carry provisions.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" Various

We find a division of social ranks which reminds us of the threefold gradation of Lower Germany (edelings, frilings, lazzen-eorls, ceorls, laets), and not of the twofold Frankish one (_ingenui Franci, Romani_), nor of the minute differentiation of the Upper Germans and Lombards.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 Various

The _villani_, or villeins, corresponding to the Saxon _ceorls_, were the most important class of tenants in villeinage, and each held about thirty acres in scattered acre or half-acre strips, each a furlong in length and a perch or two in breadth, separated by turf balks.

English Villages 1892

Then the thane's house was not considered complete without its chapel; and in the scattered hamlets and village communities churches arose, rudely built of wood and roofed with thatch, wherein the Saxon _ceorls_ and _cottiers_ loved to worship.

English Villages 1892

At length one of the ceorls came riding in to say that the Bishop, with his retinue, was approaching the village, and Father Cuthbert went out to meet him.

Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune 1863

Close by the path they took, the hall was rapidly rising to more than its former beauty, for not only had the theows and ceorls all shown great alacrity in the work, but all the neighbouring thanes had lent their aid.

Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune 1863