Dictionary:

ceorl

  (chā'ôrl)

A freeman of the lowest class in Anglo-Saxon England.

[Old English.]

Ceorl is one of the terms used in the early (7th- and 9th-cent.) English laws for the lowest class of freeman. Thus in Wessex his blood-price was 200 shillings: that of other free classes was 600 and 1, 200. In Kent his status was higher. Even the West Saxon ceorl appears as the head of a free peasant household, owing military service, capable of owning slaves, and with significant legal status. In the 11th cent. the status of free peasants often fell and by 1300 the word was acquiring its modern sense of disparagement.