Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The thane had a military significance, and its usual Latin translation was miles, meaning soldier, although minister was often used. 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 technical meaning ...
Thane (/ ˈ θ eɪ n /; Scottish Gaelic: taidhn) 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 or thanage.
In ancient times, comitatus was an armed escort or retinue, especially in the context of Germanic warrior culture for a warband tied to a leader by an oath of fealty. [1] The concept describes the relations between a lord and his retainers, or thanes (OE þegn); scholars generally consider it more of a literary trope rather than one of ...
Mormaer. In early medieval Scotland, a mormaer was the Gaelic name for a regional or provincial ruler, theoretically second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a Toísech (chieftain). Mormaers were equivalent to English earls or Continental counts, and the term is often translated into English as 'earl'.
Etymology and terminology. The compound noun weregild means "remuneration for a man", from Proto-Germanic *wira-"man, human" and *geld-a-"retaliation, remuneration". In the south Germanic area, this is the most common term used to mean "payment for killing a man" (Old High German werigelt, Langobardic wergelt, Old English wer(e)gild), whereas in the North Germanic area, the more common term is ...
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. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it later came to mean the opposite ...
Synonym. A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. [2] For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one ...
Ceorl (churl, free tenant) Villein (serf) Cottar (cottager) Þēow (thrall, slave) v. t. e. Ealdorman ( / ˈɔːldərmən /, Old English pronunciation: [ˈæ͜ɑɫ.dorˌmɑn]) [1] was an office in the government of Anglo-Saxon England. During the 11th century, it evolved into the title of earl.