What were the ranks and social classes of Anglo-Saxon England (starting from say, Æthelstan)? I know the basics like slaves, peasant farmers and serfs, ceorls, thegns, reeves, ealdormen/eorls/earls, and the king of course, but I'm not so sure as to they actually did and the subclasses for thegns confuse me even more.
Apparently an ealdorman had to be appointed and have titles revoked or even be banished unlike hereditary dukes (Tostig and Godwin)? And they only ruled individual shires (not sure what those are analogous to) up until Canute? I really have no idea what the earldoms looked like (at least not before Canute), so a map would be much appreciated.
At the bottom you've got your serf, these are essentially slaves to the land they are on (and its landowner). There are a few distinctions between them and slaves but in practice there is little difference.
Your next highest are Ceorls. These are free men but lowest of the low. They are you peasant farmers, they will form the rank and file of the Fyrd armies.
Thegns are above Ceorls, they are families the Eardermen rely on to govern their land. In the most part they were important military leaders but they could also be civic leaders or the premier family in a village.
Ealdormen were next. These men ruled a patch of land in the name of the King. You are right to point out there is a change in this during Canute's reign. Under Athelstan there were a lot of Ealdormen controlling a patchwork of burghs or shires. They usually ruled for life and the sons of ealdormen almost always were ealdormen themselves but not necessarily of the same area as their fathers. Often they were given a different region. This was to reinforce the notion that they did not inherit the land but were appointees of the King, who also had the power to revoke ealdoms. Now these are a lot of ealdormen for a king to manage and it does appear the system was prone to factionalism. Canute decides to simplify things. He creates Earls (an imported Danish term for Ealdermen) above the old Ealdermen who now act more like Thegns of their land. Instead of small shire sized areas these far fewer earls rule roughly what were the boundaries of the old anglo-saxon seven kingdoms. Map below
https://images.app.goo.gl/GQC4udcYJwDdfy689
Earls were massive powerful rulers. Canute is this great powerful leader with an empire behind him so he was more than capable of keeping the Earls in line and was happy with how much simpler these changes made ruling England, but he'd created a real difficulty for his successors. Edward the Confessor can not get himself out of control of the Godwins who have sown up the majority of ealdoms. William the conqueror's solution is to bring back the patchwork of little lords directly answerable to him and get rid of these big powerful Earls.
The King you know.
Reeves are the King's officials with a role specifically of administering the King's Justice and collecting taxation.