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Housecarl is a calque of the original Old Norse term, húskarl, which literally means "house man". Karl is cognate to the Old English churl, or ceorl, meaning a man, or a non-servile peasant. [2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses hiredmenn as a term for all paid warriors and thus is applied to housecarl, but it also refers to butsecarls [a] and ...
The hird (also named "Håndgangne Menn" in Norwegian), in Scandinavian history, was originally an informal retinue of personal armed companions, [1] hirdmen or housecarls.Over time, it came to mean not only the nucleus ('Guards') of the royal army but also a more formal royal court household.
A fyrd was a type of early Anglo-Saxon army that was mobilised from freemen or paid men to defend their Shire's lords estate, or from selected representatives to join a royal expedition.
A churl (Old High German karal), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", [1] but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled ċeorl(e), and denoting the lowest rank of freemen.
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It gradually expanded in meaning and use, to denote a member of a territorial nobility, while thegnhood was attainable by fulfilling certain conditions. [4] An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary describes a thane 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 ...
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