Housecarl

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. ==In Scandinavia==

at Orkesta commemorates the housecarl of a local lord. As free manservants Originally, the Old Norse word húskarl (plural: húskarlar) (spelled huskarl, pl. huskarlar in Swedish) had a general sense of "manservant", as opposed to the húsbóndi, the "master of the house". In that sense, the word had several synonyms: griðmenn ("home-men") in Norway and Iceland, innæsmæn ("inside-men") in Denmark. Housecarls were free men, not to be confused with thralls (slaves or serfs); to this effect, the Icelandic laws also call them einhleypingar ("lone-runners") and lausamenn ("men not tied"). Both terms emphasise that they were voluntarily in service of another, as opposed to thralls. The texts dealing with royal power in medieval Norway, the Heimskringla and the Konungs skuggsjá ("King's Mirror"), make explicit the link between a king or leader and his retainers (housecarls and hirðmenn). There was a special fine for the killing of a king's man, which in Konungs skuggsjá is underlined as an advantage of entering the king's service. Conversely, retainers were expected to avenge their leader if he was killed. Sigvatr Þórðarson (also known as Sigvat the Skald), a court poet to two kings of Norway, Olaf II of Norway (saint Olaf) and Magnus the Good (and also to two kings of Denmark), called the retainers of Olaf II of Norway heiðþegar, meaning "gift- (or pay-)receivers". More precisely, Snorri Sturluson explained that "heið-money is the name of the wages or gift which chieftains give". Thus, Sigvat probably referred to an institution similar to the Danish heimþegar (see below) or to the housecarls of Cnut the Great (see below): free men in the service of a king or lord, who gave them gifts as payment of said service. It is known from Icelandic sources that in the 1060s, the royal housecarls were paid with Norwegian coins. The housecarls of the Danish kings: the (DR 3), placed by king Sveinn "in memory of his housecarl [], Skardi" Six runestones in Denmark, DR 1, DR 3, DR 154, DR 155, DR 296, and DR 297, use the term (pl. ), meaning "home-receiver" (i.e. one who is given a house by another). Johannes Brøndsted suggested that the garrison of the Danish fort of Trelleborg may have consisted of royal housecarls, and that kings Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great may have "safeguarded the country by a network of forts manned by the royal housecarls, the mercenaries, the ". Among the Hedeby stones, the Stone of Eric (DR 1) is dedicated by a royal retainer to one of his companions: "Sven" is probably king Svein Forkbeard, as elsewhere on the Hedeby stones. Another runestone there, the Skarthi Stone (DR 3), was apparently personally raised by king Svein: Under Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great, when the Danish kings came to rule England, a body of royal housecarls was developed there, with institutions that were partly of Norse inspiration, and partly inspired by canon law (see below). But even after the Danish kings had lost England, housecarls continued to exist in Denmark. Such a group of royal retainers was still in place at the beginning of the 12th century, under Niels of Denmark, when, according to Danish historian Svend Aggesen, Aggesen's grandfather, a member of the retinue, was tried for the murder of a fellow housecarl. Svend Aggesen's account of the law governing Cnut the Great's housecarls in 11th century England (the Witherlogh or ) may reflect, in fact, those governing Danish housecarls in the 12th century. But, by the end of the 12th century, housecarls had probably disappeared in Denmark; they had transformed into a new kind of nobility, whose members no longer resided at the king's court. ==In England==

depicts an English housecarl (left), wielding a Dane axe with two hands. The term entered the English language when Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great conquered and occupied Anglo-Saxon England; the housecarls of Cnut were highly disciplined bodyguards. Housecarls were only one group of paid soldiers or hiredmenn who fought for England before the Norman Conquest. From the annals, it is not clear whether other paid men were types of housecarl or a different subdivision of retainers. There were groups known as lithsmen and butsecarls, who were soldiers that were equally adept in land and maritime warfare. The Whitherlogh defined an etiquette: housecarles were to be seated at the kings' tables according to a number of factors, among which skill in war and nobility. They could be disgraced by being moved to a lower place; this was punishment for minor offences, such as not giving proper care to the horse of a fellow housecarl. After three such offences, the offender could be seated at the lowest place, and no-one was to talk to him, but everyone could throw bones at him at will. The murder of another housecarl was punished by outlawry and exile, whereas treason was punished by death and confiscation of all property. Quarrels between housecarles were decided by a specific tribunal (gemot), the Huskarlesteffne, in the presence of the king; depending on the nature of the quarrel, a varying number of testimonies would be required. However, the Witherlogh as we know it through Svend Aggesen was redacted more than one century after the time of Cnut; thus, we cannot be sure that it presents an accurate picture of Cnut's housecarls. According to Saxo Grammaticus, the pay was monthly. On the other hand, some of Cnut's housecarls seem to have been quite prosperous; the Abbotsbury Abbey was founded either by one of them under the reign of Cnut himself, or by his wife under the reign of Edward the Confessor. Administrative role The royal housecarls had some administrative duties in peacetime as the King's representatives. Florence of Worcester recounts how, in 1041, there was a revolt against a very heavy levy in Worcester, and two of king Harthacnut's housecarls, who were acting as tax collectors, were killed. Military role Because the main sources on Cnut's housecarls were written at least one century after Cnut's reign, there are several theories about the exact nature and role of these housecarls. Cnut is said to have retained 3,000 to 4,000 men with him in England, to serve as his bodyguard. One theory is that these men were Cnut's housecarls, and that they served as a well-equipped, disciplined, professional, and quite numerous (for the time) standing army at the service of the king. This debate has direct consequences on the assessment of the housecarls' specificities, and whether or not they were an elite troop. For instance, Charles Oman, in his book The Art of War in the Middle Ages (1885), states that the main advantage of the housecarls at Hastings were their esprit de corps. This view, still widely held today, mainly stems from Svend Aggesen's 12th-century description of Cnut's housecarls as a group characterized by a strict code (see above); Aggesen having been used as a main source by L.M. Larson's ''The King's Household in England Before the Norman Conquest (1902). However, more recently, historian Nicholas Hooper criticised Larson and stated that "it is time to debunk the housecarl"; according to Hooper, housecarls were not in effect distinguishable from Saxon thegns, and were mainly retainers who received lands or pay (or both), but without being really a standing army. Hooper asserts that while the Housecarles might well have had superior esprit de corps'' and more uniform training and equipment than the average Thegn, they would not necessarily have been a clearly defined military elite. Yet another theory is that the role of a standing army was not assumed, or was not mostly assumed, by the royal housecarls; but that the housecarls were a smaller body of household troops, partly stationed at the king's court. During the reign of Edward the Confessor, a number of sailors and soldiers, the lithsmen, were paid wages and possibly based in London; those lithsmen were, according to some, the main standing armed force, while the housecarls were only acting as a secondary one. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the housecarls as footmen clad in mail, with conical nasal helmets, and fighting with great, two-handed long axes. ==See also==