Talk:Housecarl

Untitled
Would the term be related to "Churl" which comes from Ceorl or Karl? Carrionluggage 05:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I never hear the term 'churl'. But as you announce that 'churl' is related to 'ceorl' and 'Karl', the question if 'churl' is related to 'House-Carl' sounds funny. If this would be answered with 'yes', you could conclude that 'Housecarl' is over 'churl' related to 'ceorl' and 'Karl'. To me it sounds like counting '1, 3, 2' instead of '1, 2, 3'.

I have read another article (or more) about this etymology some time ago, and I don't remember where. From the similarity of the words and the meaning, it's rather obvious, that old-frankish 'ceorl', german 'Kerl', german name 'Karl', english name 'carl', english and french name 'Charles' have the same origin. I am sure this is already etymologically proven, though I don't know sources, but I am sure they can be found. From what I remember of previously read articles and from what I understand from this article, a 'Karl', 'Kerl', 'Carl', 'Ceorl' has been understood to be a free warrior. This is now an interpretation by me; I haven't explicitely read this anywhere. Accordingly english 'House-Carl', frankish 'Hus-karl', german 'Haus-kerl' addressed a 'carl' 'Kerl' 'ceorl' who swore loyalty to a specific aristocratic person or dynasty. Overall it seems rather clear to me that these words are related and have the same meaning.

So the conclusion should be: As 'housecarl' is a derivate from 'carl', then, if 'carl' is related to 'churl', 'housecarl' should be related to 'churl'. But before drawing this conclusion, it should be explained where 'churl' comes from, and if it's in fact related to 'carl'/'Karl'/'Kerl'/'Ceorl'.

Well, it is common that words indicating a mediocre or low position turn into insults. For example, "blackguard" at one time meant a scullery worker in charge of the (black) cast-iron pots and cauldrons, but as these people tended to be - well - kind of low class - it became an insult. Similarly I just found which does say that "churl" (a despicable person) comes from your good old housecarls. The article mentions "boor" (from boer - farmer) and "villian" as other examples. Carrionluggage 07:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The meaning of 'churl' in the Online Eymology Dictionary under the link you provided matches the german word 'Kerl'. But I have never heard 'churl' in English. This Dictionary mentions the word is from 1300, so I guess today it's probably outdated. The german word 'Kerl' is often used. It is not explicitely understood as insult. Often it is used to refer to an undefined/unknown man or men in plural. The equivalent word in English would probably be 'guy', dict.leo.org offers also 'chap' and 'dude'. In combination with other words it can be an insult or praise.

Churl has negative or pejorative connotations on          (2 appearances) etc Carrionluggage 01:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Churl is pretty much never used in English outside the study of mediaeval society, but the adjective churlish&mdash;meaning petulant or ungracious&mdash;is alive an well. Not that I can particularly see why it seems so important to establish a connection between churl and housecarl&mdash;it doesn't have any relevance to the article.  Binabik80 00:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Huscarls in the Varangian Guard
I know the guard contained all types of saxons and scandanavians, but I find it hard to believe that this many saxon huscarls and thegns were in the guard in the 12th century. First of all the battle of Hastings was in 1054, so probably the few huscarls that survived the battle would be dead by 1100, secondly the entire army of Harold probably only had 8000 men, and probably only a couple thousand huscarls at most, even if every single one of the few that survived Hasting (and Stamford bridge for that matter) made it to Constantinople (which is a ridiculous proposition) there still definetly wouldn't have been enough to form the majority of the Varangian unit. Anyways Since there is no source for the claim and I don't have a source to dicprove it (even though it is not necessary to prove a negative) I have changed it to -
 * "Some of these reached Byzantium and along with other Saxon Englishmen joined the Varangian Guard. In fact by the the 12th century, the Varangian Guard contained so many Saxons that the entire units was sometimes called 'the English Guard'."

I figure it is more plausible that other Saxons had joined them in order to warrant calling it the English Guard.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The battle of Hastings was in 1066.Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 12:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No mention of Age of Empires 3 Unit?!
How come there is no mention in this article of the elite unit for the Goths, "Huskarl," as seen in the Age of Empires video games. This seems to me like an interesting and worthy contemporary reference. 192.52.218.34Robberex

Would the norse word "hirth" be the same as the Norwegian (bokmaal) word "hird" ? During -- and in the years just prior to -- the Nazi-occupation of Norway in 1940, the Norwegian "nazi-party" -- Nasjonal Samiling (NS) -- used the term "Hird" or "Hirden" ("the Hird") for their private uniformed "security" guards (think mini-SA) [|Hirden]... -Koppe 01:40, 18 January 2007 (CET)

Number of Housecarls
At one point in the article it states that a kingdom would have no more than 2000 Housecarls. 2 lines later it mentions England having 3000. Need I say more? Christiangoth 13:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

"By the mid-nth century the royal housecarls probably numbered about 3,000." http://www1.freewebs.com/axanor/svn.htm--Me-oh (talk) 05:24, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Housecarls only for the king?
Didn't the various Earls of Mercia, Wessex and Northumberland retain their own body of housecarls? The article seems to indicate they only formed a bodyguard for the elected King of the time...Narson 15:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

In reference to the Trivia.
I think it should be more appropriately rephrased, given it seems to make "Housecarl" out to be the name of the type of NPCs as a whole. The term used in the game is "Huscarl" and it's only ever been used once for one particular group in one specific area in the whole game. The actual NPCs are the Vrykul, which are considered "Half-giant norse-like men." The rest of the Vrykul in the game do not have "Huscarl" or any deviation of the word in their names/titles.
 * MykaelCreo (talk) 14:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Waincarl/Waincarle
Methinks it could be good if some reference from Housecarl to Waincarl/Waincarle be made somewhere in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.151.233.129 (talk) 21:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Museum
Why are these Runestones always just laying in random places and not in a museum and safe?119.92.93.84 (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Why does "lithsman" redirect here?
Word not mentioned in article. Equinox ◑ 23:20, 18 September 2022 (UTC)