"Das was mein Herr gar gerne hört,
Und ob es _Leut_ und Land bethort."

Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the
serf-like vassalage, the _Hörigkeit_ or _Leibeigenthum_, which
prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified
_possessions_ should designate also the _people_. It must still,
however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense.

The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet
it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:--

"Goth. liudan[3] (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic,
hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. lëóð; O.N. lióð: Goth.
lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar
-lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una æstate creverunt, _Gl.
Rhb._ 926'b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S.
i. 124'b. 2. 161'a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja
(facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among
them."--_Deutsche Gram._ ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach,
_Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr._ i. 242.

In his _Erlauterungen zu Elene_, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:--

"The verb is leoðan, leað, luðon (crescere), O.S. lioðan, lôð,
luðun. Leluðon (_Cædm._ 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and
3eloðen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus.
Elene, 1227. 3eloðen unðep leápum (cretus sub foliis)."

It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N.