At the top is the king, and beneath him are his sons, and then come the ealdormen who are the chief nobles of the land and without land a man cannot be noble, though I was, because I have never abandoned my claim to Bebbanburg. The king and his ealdormen are the power of a kingdom, the men who hold great lands and raise the armies, and beneath them are the lesser nobles, usually called reeves, and they are responsible for law in a lord’s land, though a man can cease to be a reeve if he displeases his lord.
