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Thegn
In Anglo-Saxon England, thegns were aristocratic landowners of the second rank, below the ealdormen who governed large areas of England. The term was also used in early medieval Scandinavia for a class of retainers. In medieval Scotland, there were local officials known as thanes. Etymology The Old English (, "man, attendant, retainer") is cognate with Old High German and Old Norse ("thane, franklin, freeman, man"). The thegn had a military significance, and its usual Latin translation was , meaning soldier, although was often used. ''An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary'' describes a thegn as "one engaged in a king's or a queen's service, whether in the household or in the country". It adds: "the word ... seems gradually to acquire a technical meaning, ... denoting a class, containing several degrees", but what remained consistent throughout was its association with military service. Origins The precursor of thegn was the ''gesith'', the companion of the king or great lor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geþyncðo
''Geþyncðo'' (also ''Geþyncðu''), meaning “Dignities”, is the title given to an Old English legal tract on status and social mobility, probably written by Wulfstan (II), Archbishop of York between 1002 and 1023. It is sometimes known as one of the so-called 'promotion laws', along with ''Norðlleoda laga'', and both these texts belong to a legal compilation on status, dubbed ‘the ''Geþyncðu'' group’ by the historian Patrick Wormald. Though the extent to which these reflect reality is a topic of some debate, they constitute one of the most valuable primary documents for an understanding of social status in late Anglo-Saxon England. The ''Geþyncðu'' group: manuscripts and texts Taking the ‘''Geþyncðu'' group’ as a whole, Patrick Wormald distinguishes between two classes of manuscripts. The first originates in Worcester and consists of copies of texts in two of Wulfstan's autograph manuscripts: (1) Cambridge, CCC, MS 201 ('D'), which contains all five document ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heriot
Heriot, from Old English ''heregeat'' ("war-gear"), was originally a death-duty in late Anglo-Saxon England, which required that at death, a nobleman provided to his king a given set of military equipment, often including horses, swords, shields, spears and helmets. It later developed into a kind of tenurial feudal relief due from villeins. The equivalent term in French was ''droit du meilleur catel''. Etymology The word derives from Old English ''here-geatwa'', meaning the arms and equipment (''geatwa'') of a soldier or army (''here''). History Heriot was the right of a lord in feudal Europe to seize a serf's best horse, clothing, or both, upon his death. It arose from the tradition of the lord lending a serf a horse or armour or weapons to fight so that when the serf died the lord would rightfully reclaim his property. Payments of heriot are sometimes mentioned in the wills of West-Saxon nobles from the mid-tenth century onward (a case in question is that of Æthelmær). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 be paid as a fine or as compensatory damages to the person's family if that person was killed or injured by another. Overview A weregild was a defined value placed on every man graded according to rank, used as a basis of a fine or compensation for murder, disablement, injury (or certain other serious crimes) against that person. It was assessed from the guilty party, payable as restitution to the victim's family. The weregild was codified, for example, under Frankish Salic Code. Weregild payment was an important legal mechanism in early Germanic society; the other common form of legal reparation at this time was blood revenge. The payment was typically made to the family or to the clan. Similar to the way a payment was made to fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beowulf - Ge Sithum
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beowulf, most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf (hero), Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes (Germanic tribe), Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a The Dragon (Beowulf), dragon, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thane (Scotland)
Thane (; ) was the title given to a local royal official in medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent in rank to the son of an earl, who was at the head of an administrative and socio-economic unit known as a ''thanedom''. History The earliest documentary record of a thane is in the written judgement of a land dispute settled at a provincial assembly of Fife between 1128 and 1136, at which one attendee is described as the thane of Falkland. A further eleven thanes are recorded over the course of the rest of the 12th century, attached to estates from East Lothian to Moray, all of which were at the time under the control of the King of Alba. From around the beginning of the 13th century a few thanes also start to be documented attached to estates under the control of earls, including Dunning and Strowan, which both lay within the Earldom of Strathearn. A statute of 1221 explicitly allowed that some thanes could be responsible to an earl rather than the king, though the overwhelm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form '' jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. After the Norman Conquest, it became the equivalent of the continental count (in England in the earlier period, it was more akin to a duke; in Scotland, it assimilated the concept of mormaer). Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the '' hakushaku'' (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. Etymology The term ''earl'' has been compared to the name of the Heruli, and to runic '' erilaz''. Proto-Nors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Churl
A churl (Old High German ), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled , and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', it later came to mean the opposite of nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick: This meaning held through the 15th century, but by then the word had taken on negative overtones, meaning "a country person" and then "a low fellow". By the 19th century, a new and pejorative meaning arose, "one inclined to uncivil or loutish behaviour"—hence "churlish" (cf. the pejorative sense of the term ''boor'', whose original meaning of "country person" or "farmer" is preserved in Dutch and Afrikaans and German , although the latter has its own pejorative connotations such as those prompting its use as the name for the chess piece known in English as a pawn; also the word villain—deri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Godwin The Thane Seal First Half 11th Century
Godwin is an English-language surname with Anglo-Saxon origins. It means ''God's friend'' and is thus equivalent to Theophilus, Jedediah, Amadeus and Reuel. .However, the word "Godwin" can also mean "helper of mankind" People Politics and governance * Abraham Godwin (1763–1835), New Jersey General Assembly 1802–1806, Elector for Andrew Jackson 1828 * Abraham Godwin Jr. (1791–1849), New Jersey General Assembly 1821–1832, took vote to D.C. for Presidential Election 1840 * Godwin, Earl of Wessex (died 1053), earl in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great * Hannibal Lafayette Godwin (1873–1929), North Carolina Congressman * Mary Wollstonecraft, later Mary Godwin (1759–1797), English author of ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' * Mills E. Godwin Jr. (1914–1999), Governor of Virginia * Richard Godwin (1922–2005), First Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics * William Godwin (1756–1836), English political philosopher Religio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, but lower than a viscount or count. Often, barons hold their fief – their lands and income – directly from the monarch. Barons are less often the vassals of other nobles. In many kingdoms, they were entitled to wear a smaller form of a crown called a '' coronet''. The term originates from the Latin term , via Old French. The use of the title ''baron'' came to England via the Norman Conquest of 1066, then the Normans brought the title to Scotland and Italy. It later spread to Scandinavia and Slavic lands. Etymology The word '' baron'' comes from the Old French , from a Late Latin "man; servant, soldier, mercenary" (so used in Salic law; Alemannic law has in the same sense). The scholar Isidore of Seville in the 7th cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Gomme
Sir George Laurence Gomme, FSA (18 December 1853 – 23 February 1916) was a public servant and leading British folklorist. He helped found both the Victoria County History and the Folklore Society. He also had an interest in old buildings and persuaded the London County Council to take up the blue plaque commemorative scheme. Life Gomme was born in the London district of Stepney, the second of ten children of William Laurence Gomme (1828–1887), an engineer, and his wife Mary (1831–1921). He attended the City of London School to the age of sixteen, when he started work, first with a railway company, then with the Fulham board of works, finally, in 1873, with the Metropolitan Board of Works: he remained with it and its successor, the London County Council, until his retirement in 1914. His position as statistical officer, from 1893, and then as clerk to the council, from 1900, gave him a major role in policy and administration. His interests included folklore and history. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992. p. 73. . The etymologically related English term " county" denoted the territories associated with the countship. Definition The word ''count'' came into English from the French ''comte'', itself from Latin ''comes''—in its accusative ''comitem''—meaning “companion”, and later “companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor”. The adjective form of the word is "comital". The British and Irish equivalent is an earl (whose wife is a "countess", for lack of an English term). In the late Roman Empire, the Latin title ''comes'' denoted the high rank of various courtiers and provincial officials, either military or administrative: before Anthemius became emperor in the West in 467, he was a military ''c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canute
Cnut (; ang, Cnut cyning; non, Knútr inn ríki ; or , no, Knut den mektige, sv, Knut den Store. died 12 November 1035), also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire. As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His later accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut sought to keep this power-base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut (he had coins struck there that called him king, but there is no narrative record of his occupation). In 1031, Malcolm II of S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
