The "hundreds" make up the province or subkingdom.

They may be granted to king's thanes, who became "hundred-elders".

Twelve hundreds are in one case bestowed upon a man.
The "yeoman's" estate is not only honourable but useful, as Starcad generously and truly acknowledges.

Agriculture should be fostered and protected by the king, even at the cost of his life.
But gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously resented.
The "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that expressed in St.Patrick's "Lorica", and derived from the smith's having inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and charms.

The curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern explanation: Weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of metal.