ATHELING, or /ETHELING. The indications, in the Saxon period of our history, of anything like the hereditary nobility of the times after the Conquest are exceedingly few: certainly, the sys tem which gives to particular families particular names of distinction and parti-, cular social privileges, which are to de scend in the families as long as the families endure, we owe entirely to the Normans. The Saxons had among them earls, but that word was used to designate, not as in these times only a rank of nobility, to which certain privileges are attached, but a substantial office bringing with it im portant duties ; he was the superintendent indeed, under the king, of one of the counties or shires, and the sheriff gerefa, in Latin vice-comes, was his inferior, his delegate or deputy. These earls, who were nominated by the king, held their offices as it seems for life, and were usually selected from the most opulent families. Even the kingship among the successors of Egbert seems not to have descended uniformly according to our modern prin ciples of hereditary succession.
When the word Atheling has been found following a name by which a Saxon was designated, it has been supposed by some persons to be of the nature of a surname; and especially in the instance in which it is found united with Edgar, in him who was the last male in that illustrious family. Polydore Virgil, an Italian, who in the middle of the six teenth century wrote a history of England in elegant Latin, falls into this error; for which he is rebuked by Selden, the author of the admirable work on the various titles of honour which have been in use in the countries of modern Europe. He
shows that Edgar Atheling is the same as Edgar the Atheling, or the noble, and that while some of our earlier chroniclers, as Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew Paris, so designate him, others, as Hove den and Florence, call him Edgaras .Clyto. Clyto is the Greek term answer ing to eminent, illustrious. It is rather a remarkable fact concerning the Saxon kings of England and their families, that they affected titles and denominations of Greek origin, as Clyto, Basileus (king), and adelphe (sister); the last appears on the seal of the royal abbess of Wilton.
Nothing is known of any peculiar pri vileges belonging to the Athelings. But those who in modern times have had occasion to speak of the term and the circumstances under which it was used, such as Lingard and Turner in their his tories of the Saxon period, speak of lands being usually even to the Atheling while still in his minority. And hence it is that this word Atheling has de scended to our times in the local nomen clature of England.