slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
or
serf
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...
in Scandinavian lands during the Viking Age. The status of slave (, ) contrasts with that of the freeman (, ) and the nobleman (, ).
Etymology
Thrall is from the Old Norse , 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 ("runner", from a root "to run"). Old High German 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 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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
was (plural ). The corresponding native term in
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
society was (from Germanic , perhaps from a
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
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
Earning can refer to:
* Labour (economics)
*Earnings of a company
*Merit
Merit may refer to:
Religion
* Merit (Christianity)
* Merit (Buddhism)
* Punya (Hinduism)
* Imputed righteousness in Reformed Christianity
Companies and brands
* Merit ...
'').
The term was borrowed into Irish as , where it is used interchangeably with which is a cognate of the English
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
(likewise for Slav is disputed).
Thrall was known by similar words in other old languages ( non, þræll, is, þræll, fo, trælur, no, trell, træl, da, træl, sv, träl).
The
Middle Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying deg ...
The ''thrall'' represents the lowest of the three-tiered social order of the Germanic peoples, noblemen, freemen and slaves, in Old Norse , and (c.f. '' Rígsþula''), 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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
corresponding to , and , in Old Frisian , , , 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, usually calculated at 200 solidi (
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...
s) 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, 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 and canonized him as Saint Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo.
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 man was freed, he became a "freedman", or
leysingi
In Norse law, a was a freed slave (a freed thrall).Løysing (Norwegian) in the
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