Hence the great estimation in which the smith was held in the Anglo-Saxon times.

His person was protected by a double penalty.
He was treated as an officer of the highest rank, and awarded the first place in precedency.

After him ranked the maker of mead, and then the physician.

In the royal court of Wales he sat in the great hall with the king and queen, next to the domestic chaplain; and even at that early day there seems to have been a hot spark in the smith's throat which needed much quenching; for he was "entitled to a draught of every kind of liquor that was brought into the hall." The smith was thus a mighty man.

The Saxon Chronicle describes the valiant knight himself as a "mighty war-smith." But the smith was greatest of all in his forging of swords; and the bards were wont to sing the praises of the knight's "good sword" and of the smith who made it, as well as of the knight himself who wielded it in battle.