User:Alþykkr/housecarl



In medieval Scandinavia, Housecarls were either non-servile menservants, or household troops, personal warriors and equivalent to a bodyguard to Scandinavian lords and kings. The anglicized term comes from the Old Norse term húskarl (literally, 'house man') ; see also the Anglo-Saxon term churl or ceorl, whose root is the same as the Old Norse karl, and which also means "a man, a non-servile peasant".

As free menservants
Originally, the Old Norse word húskarl (plural : húskarlar) 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 (húskarlar) were free men, not to be confused with thralls (slaves or serfs) ; to this effect, the Icelandic laws also calls them einhleypingar ("lone-runners") and lausamenn ("men not tied"). Both terms emphasise that they were voluntarily in service of another, as opposed to thralls.

As combatant retainers
With time, the term húskarlar came to acquire a specific sense of "retainers", in the service of a lord, in his hirð or drótt (bodyguard). This meaning can be seen, for instance, on the Turinge stone :

Ketill and Bjôrn, they raised this stone in memory of Þorsteinn, their father; Ônundr in memory of his brother and the housecarls in memory of the just(?) (and) Ketiley in memory of her husbandman. These brothers were the best of men in the land and abroad in the retinue, held their housecarls well. He fell in battle in the east in Garðar (Russia), commander of the retinue, the best of landholders.

According to Omeljan Pritsak, this Þorsteinn may have commanded the retinue of king Yaroslav I the Wise. Thus, the housecarls mentioned here would be royal bodyguards ; in any case, we can see here that the word húskarl now applied to someone who fought in the service of someone.

England
The term entered the English language when Canute the Great conquered and occupied Anglo-Saxon England. "Housecarl," later came to cover armed soldiers of the household, and was frequently used in contrast to the non-professional fyrd. They were often the only professional soldiers in the kingdom, typically numbering less than 2,000. The rest of the army was made up of militia called the fyrd, peasant levy, and occasionally mercenaries. In England, however, there may have been as many as 3,000 royal housecarls (the Þingalið), and a special tax was levied to provide pay in coin. They were housed and fed at the king's expense. They formed a standing army of professional soldiers and also had some administrative duties in peacetime as the King's representatives.

Housecarls served King Harold to the death in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.