A thrall ( non, þræll, is, þræll, fo, trælur, no, trell, træl, da, træl, sv, träl)
was a
slave or
serf in
Scandinavian lands during the
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...
. The corresponding term in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
was . The status of slave (, ) contrasts with that of the
freeman
Freeman, free men, or variant, may refer to:
* a member of the Third Estate in medieval society (commoners), see estates of the realm
* Freeman, an apprentice who has been granted freedom of the company, was a rank within Livery companies
* Free ...
(, ) and the nobleman (, ). The
Middle Latin rendition of the term in
early Germanic law
Germanic law is a scholarly term used to described a series of commonalities between the various law codes (the ''Leges Barbarorum'', 'laws of the barbarians', also called Leges) of the early Germanic peoples. These were compared with statements ...
is .
Etymology
Thrall is from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
, meaning a person who is in bondage or serfdom. The Old Norse term was lent into late Old English, as .
The term is from a
Common Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic br ...
("runner", from a root "to run").
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
had a cognate, , meaning "servant, runner".
The English derivation ''thraldom'' is of High Medieval date. The verb "to enthrall" is of Early Modern origin (metaphorical use from the 1570s, literal use from 1610).
The corresponding native term in
Anglo-Saxon society was (from Germanic , perhaps from a
PIE root , "to run")
A related Old English term is "labourer, hireling" (from Germanic , cognate with
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
"hireling", a derivation from "reward", from the same root as English ''
earn'').
The term was borrowed into
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
as , where is it used interchangeably with which is a cognate of the English
slave (likewise for
Slav
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
is disputed).
Early Germanic law
The ''thrall'' represents the lowest of the three-tiered social order of the
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...
, noblemen, freemen and slaves, in Old Norse , and (c.f. ''
Rígsþula
''Rígsþula'' or ''Rígsmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Ríg') is an Eddic poem, preserved in the manuscript (AM 242 fol, the Codex Wormianus), in which a Norse god named Ríg or Rígr, described as "old and wise, mighty and strong,", fathers ...
''), in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
corresponding to , and , in
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Fri ...
, , , etc.
The division is of importance in the
Germanic law codes, which make special provisions for slaves, who were property and could be bought and sold, but they also enjoyed some degree of protection under the law.
The death of a freeman was compensated by a
weregild
Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price (blood money), was a precept in some archaic legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to b ...
, usually calculated at 200
solidi
The ''solidus'' (Latin 'solid'; ''solidi'') or nomisma ( grc-gre, νόμισμα, ''nómisma'', 'coin') was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine introduced the coin, and its weig ...
(
shillings) for a freeman, whereas the death of a slave was treated as loss of property to his owner and compensated depending on the value of the worker.
Society
Thralls were the lowest class of workers in Scandinavian society. They were Europeans who were enslaved by being prisoners of war, incurring debt or being born into the class via their parents. The living conditions of thralls in Scandinavia varied depending on the master. The thrall trade as the prize of plunder was a key part of the Viking economy. While there are some estimates of as many as thirty slaves per household, most families owned only one or two slaves.
In 1043,
Hallvard Vebjørnsson
Hallvard Vebjørnsson (''Hallvard Den Hellige'') ( 1020–1043), commonly referred to as Saint Hallvard (''Sankt Hallvard''), is the patron saint of Oslo. He is considered a martyr because of his defence of an innocent thrall woman. His religious ...
, the son of a local nobleman in the district of greater
Lier, was killed while he was trying to defend a thrall woman from men who accused her of theft. The Church strongly approved of his action, recognised him as a
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
and
canonized
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...
him as Saint Hallvard, the
patron saint
A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...
of
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
.
Despite the existence of a caste system, thralls could experience a level of social fluidity. They could be freed by their masters at any time, be freed in a will or even buy their own freedom. Once a thrall was freed, he became a "freedman", or
leysingi, a member of an intermediary group between slaves and freemen. He still owed allegiance to his former master and had to vote according to his former master's wishes. It took at least two generations for freedmen to lose the allegiance to their former masters and become full freemen. If a freedman had no descendants, his former master inherited his land and property.
While thralls and freedmen did not have much economic or political power in Scandinavia, they were still given a ''wergeld'', or a man's price: there was a monetary penalty for unlawfully killing a slave.
The era of Viking raids resulting in the capture of slaves slowly ended in the 11th century. In the following centuries, more thralls obtained their freedom, either by purchasing it or on the initiative of their masters, the Church or the secular authority.
The thrall system was finally abolished in Scandinavia in the mid-14th century.
[Niels Skyum-Nielsen, "Nordic Slavery in an International Context," ''Medieval Scandinavia'' 11 (1978–79) 126-48]
See also
*
Turkish Abductions
The Turkish Abductions ( is, Tyrkjaránið) were a series of slave raids by pirates from Northwest Africa that took place in Iceland in the summer of 1627.
The pirates came from the cities of Algiers and Salé.
They raided Grindavík, the Ea ...
- the Turkish Abductions were a series of slave raids by pirates from Northwest Africa that took place in Iceland.
*
Estates of the realm
The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed an ...
*
Further reading
* Ben Raffield (2019) "The slave markets of the Viking world: comparative perspectives on an ‘invisible archaeology’." ''Slavery & Abolition'', 40:4, 682-705
* Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm (2020)
Piratical slave-raiding – the demise of a Viking practice in high medieval Denmark Scandinavian Journal of History
References
{{Viking
Early Germanic economy
Early Germanic law
Medieval law
Slavery in Europe
Slavery in Denmark
Slavery in Norway
Slavery in Sweden
Norse culture