The word gesiths, used in the Beowulf saga While inferior to the ætheling, or of a kingly family, the thegn was superior to the ceorl. Chadwick states; "from the time of Æthelstan, the distinction between thegn and ceorl was the broad line of demarcation between the classes of society". His relative status was reflected in the level of weregild, generally fixed at 1,200 shillings, or six times that of the ceorl. He was the twelfhynde man of the laws, as distinct from the twyhynde man, or ceorl.
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Stenton, F. M. "The Thriving of the Anglo-Saxon Ceorl." Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England (1970): 383–93.
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The name is likely derived from the Old English words ceorl (meaning a free peasant) and tūn (a farmstead or settlement).
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Cearl (or Ceorl) was an early king of Mercia who ruled during the early part of the 7th century, until about 626. He is the first Mercian king mentioned by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Bede was a Northumbrian who was hostile to Mercia, and historian Robin Fleming speculates that as "ceorl" means "rustic" in Old English, his name may have been a joke. Cearl's ancestry is unknown.
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Any ceorl who fails to fence his share, however, and allows his cattle to stray into someone else's field is to be held liable for any damage caused. This does not mean that the land was held in common: each ceorl had his own strip of land that supported him. It is notable that a king's law is required to settle a relatively minor issue; the laws do not mention the role of local lords in obtaining compliance from the ceorls.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 279–280.
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The traditional distinction in society, amongst free men, was expressed as eorl and ceorl ('earl and churl') though the term 'Earl' took on a more restricted meaning after the Viking period. The noble rank is designated in early centuries as gesiþas ('companions') or þegnas ('thegns'), the latter coming to predominate. After the Norman Conquest the title 'thegn' was equated to the Norman 'baron'.Leges Henrici Primi A certain amount of social mobility is implied by regulations detailing the conditions under which a ceorl could become a thegn.
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Evidence in these documents shows no preference to daughters or sons as heirs.Carol Hough (1999) Ceorl women and others of high rank were responsible for their homes.Hough, Carol. "Women." The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England.
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Old English ceorl), eorl "nobleman of high rank, (Danish) jarl" (cf. Old Norse jarl; cp. Old English ealdorman), fysan "to make someone ready, to put someone to flight" (cf. Old Norse fysa), genydmaga "close kinsfolk" (cf.
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One historian has commented that "the beginnings of a manorial economy are clearly visible in Ine's laws." The fine for neglecting fyrd, the obligation to do military service for the king, is set at 120 shillings for a nobleman, and 30 shillings for a ceorl, incidentally revealing that ceorls were required to serve in the army. Scholars have disagreed on the military value of the ceorl, but it is not surprising that all free men would fight, since defeat might have meant slavery.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 290.
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Mezentio's palace falls, Algarve surrenders. Talsu released from prison (again) and expelled with his wife to Kuusamo. Lurcanio, who had been turned over to the Valmierans, is executed by firing squad. Ceorl is killed when he and Garivald escape from a mining camp.
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However it is suggested that this might be related to the death of a patron of the family or the desire to move to better farmlands. These farms are often falsely supposed to be "peasant farms". However, a ceorl, who was the lowest ranking freeman in early Anglo-Saxon society, was not a peasant but an arms-owning male with access to law, support of a kindred and the wergild, situated at the apex of an extended household working at least one hide of land. It is the ceorl that we should associate with the standard x post-hole building of the early Anglo- Saxon period, grouped with others of the same kin group.
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Charlton is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as Cerletone. It is formed from Old English 'ceorl' and 'tūn' and means 'farmstead of the freemen or peasants'. It is a common English placename and the parish was also known as Charlton next Woolwich to distinguish it from Charlton by Dover. During the 19th century the riverside portion of the area became known as New Charlton.
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As a way out of this deadly and futile custom the system of weregilds was instituted. The weregild set a monetary value on each person's life according to their wealth and social status. This value could also be used to set the fine payable if a person was injured or offended against. Robbing a thane called for a higher penalty than robbing a ceorl.
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194 Its name is possibly derived from the Old English personal name Ceorl, or it may have originally been "Ceorranton" from the name Ceorra ("the settlement of Ceorra's people").Bowcock, E. W. Shropshire place names, Wilding & Son, 1923, p.68 Cherrington is near to the larger village of Tibberton, to the east; Waters Upton is to the west and Great Bolas to the north-west. Newport is the nearest town.
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A thrall (Old Norse/Icelandic: þræll, Faroese: trælur, Norwegian: trell, Danish: træl, Swedish: träl) was a slaveThrall Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2009 or serf in Scandinavian lands during the Viking Age. The corresponding term in Old English was þēow. The status of slave (þræll, þēow) contrasts with that of the freeman (karl, ceorl) and the nobleman (jarl, eorl). The Middle Latin rendition of the term in early Germanic law is servus.
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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. 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 and lithsmen. It is not clear whether these were types of housecarl or different altogether.
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The name Churwell is first attested in 1226 in the forms Churlewell and Churlewall. The names comes from the Old English words ceorla (the genitive plural of ceorl, 'free man of the lower class, peasant') and wella ('well, spring, stream'). Thus the name once meant 'spring of the peasants'.Harry Parkin, Your City's Place-Names: Leeds, English Place-Name Society City-Names Series, 3 (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2017), p. 36.
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The first record of Coven (as Cove) is in the Domesday Book (1086); when it was listed as being held by William de Stafford. Prior to the Norman Conquest it was held by the Saxon ceorl Alric. Iron-making was carried on at a furnace and two forges near to the village from the seventeenth century or earlier. 'The Homage' (circa 1679) is said to be the oldest brick- built house in Staffordshire.
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The name 'Carleton' originates from Old English 'ceorl' or 'carle', 'charle', meaning 'farmer' or 'free peasant' and 'tūn' a 'vill' or 'settlement'; its meaning therefore is "settlement of the farmers". The name Carleton, Carlton or Charlton is quite common in England, the nearest other example being the village of Carleton on the outskirts of Carlisle. Two more in Cumbria are one close to Egremont and another possible one near Cockermouth. All are located near to what were feudal estate centres.
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The thrall represents the lowest of the three- tiered social order of the Germanic peoples, noblemen, freemen and slaves, in Old Norse jarl, karl and þræll (c.f. Rígsþula), in Old English corresponding to eorl, ceorl and þēow, in Old Frisian etheling, friling, lēt, 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.In Alemannic law, slaves could not be sold outside of one's own province (37.1).
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While some inherited the rank of thegn, others acquired it through property ownership, or wealth. A hide of land was considered sufficient to support a family; the Geþyncðo states; "And if a ceorl throve, so that he had fully five hides of his own land, church and kitchen, bellhouse and burh-gate-seat, and special duty in the king's hail, then was he thenceforth of thegn-right worthy." This also applied to merchants, who "fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means." In the same way, a successful thegn might hope to become an earl.
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The fact that rape of a slave was more expensive than seduction of a free woman shows how rape was viewed so negatively in society, although the law protected women against both actions. Laws of Ælfred go into great detail regarding laws about sexual assaults. An example of the law committed by a man was King Æthebald of Mercia who was punished for numerous reasons, including violating holy nuns who were virgins consecrated to God. When compensation was paid a free woman, ceorl or ranked above, she collected the money directly, and the money for slaves went to their owner.
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Another feature of vital importance in the history of Anglo-Saxon law is its tendency towards the preservation of peace. Already in Æthelberht's legislation we find characteristic fines inflicted for breach of the peace of householders of different ranks—the ceorl, the eorl, and the king himself appearing as the most exalted among them. Peace is considered not so much a state of equilibrium and friendly relations between parties, but rather as the rule of a third within a certain region—a house, an estate, a kingdom. This leads on one side to the recognition of private authorities—the father's in his family, the master's as to servants, the lord's as to his personal or territorial dependents.
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Slavery was not as common as in other societies, but appears to have been present throughout the period. Both the freemen and slaves were hierarchically structured, with several classes of freemen and many types of slaves. These varied at different times and in different areas, but the most prominent ranks within free society were the king, the nobleman or thegn, and the ordinary freeman or ceorl. They were differentiated primarily by the value of their weregild or 'man price', which was not only the amount payable in compensation for homicide, but was also used as the basis for other legal formulations such as the value of the oath that they could swear in a court of law.
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The size of the weregild was largely conditional upon the social rank of the victim. There used to be something of a "basis" fee for a standard "free man" that could then be multiplied according to the social rank of the victim and the circumstances of the crime. The weregild for women relative to that of men of equal rank varied: among the Alamanni it was double the weregild of men, among the Saxons half that of men. In the Migration period the standard weregild for a freeman appears to have been 200 solidi (shillings), an amount reflected as the basic fee due for the death of a churl (or ceorl) both in later Anglo-Saxon and continental law codes.
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Slaves had no weregild, as offences against them were taken to be offences against their owners, but the earliest laws set out a detailed scale of penalties depending both on the type of slave and the rank of owner.Anglo-Saxon Dictionary edited by Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller and Alistair Campbell (1972), Oxford University Press, . Some slaves may have been members of the native British population conquered by the Anglo-Saxons when they arrived from the continent; others may have been captured in wars between the early kingdoms, or have sold themselves for food in times of famine. However, slavery was not always permanent, and slaves who had gained their freedom would become part of an underclass of freedmen below the rank of ceorl.
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Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 62 and it has also been described as presupposing "a frightening degree of royal power".Wormald, Patrick, "The Age of Bede and Aethelbald", in Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, p. 99 However, the presence of clauses that provide penalties for any of Wihtred's subjects who "sacrifice to devils" makes it clear that although Christianity was dominant, the older pagan beliefs of the population had by no means died out completely.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 128 Clause 21 of the code specifies that a ceorl must find three men of his own class to be his "oath- helpers". An oath-helper would swear an oath on behalf of an accused man, to clear him from the suspicion of the crime. The laws of Ine were more stringent than this, requiring that a high-ranking person must be found to be an oath- helper for everyone, no matter what class they were from.
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The name is atypical for Germanic names as it is not composed of two elements, but simply a noun meaning "(free) man". This meaning of ceorl contrasts with eorl (Old Norse jarl) "nobleman" on one hand and with þeow (Old Norse þræll) "bondsman, slave" on the other. As such it would not seem a likely candidate for the name of a Germanic king, but it is attested as such with Cearl of Mercia (fl. 620), the first Mercian king mentioned by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. It is a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon royal names that many of the rulers of the earliest period (6th to 7th centuries) have monothematic (simplex) names, while the standard dithematic (compounded) names become almost universal from the 8th century. Compare the name of king Mul of Kent (7th century) which simply translates to "mule". Charles Martel (686–741) was an illegitimate son of Pepin of Herstal, and therefore indeed a "free man", but not of noble rank. After his victory at the Battle of Soissons (718), Charles Martel styled himself Duke of the Franks.
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