User:Ltwin/Sandbox 7

Thegn

Ranks and functions
Thegns were divided into three ranks: ealdormen (later earl), king's thegns, and median thegns. Below ealdormen were king's thegns, so called because they only served the king. The lowest thegnly rank were the median thegns who owed service to other thegns. The higher a thegn's rank, the greater the heriot he paid to the king.

Thegns were the backbone of local government and the military. Sheriffs were drawn from this class, and thegns were required to attend the shire court and give judgment. For these reasons, historian David Carpenter described thegns as "the country gentry of Anglo-Saxon England". Although their exact role is unclear, the twelve senior thegns of the hundred played a part in the development of the English system of justice. Under a law of Aethelred they "seem to have acted as the judicial committee of the court for the purposes of accusation". This suggests some connection with the modern jury trial.

Social mobility
Children inherited thegnly status from their father, and a thegnly woman who married a ceorl retained her noble status. A successful thegn might hope to be promoted to earl.

A prosperous ceorl could become a landlord in his own right and aspire to thegnly rank. In the legal tract Geþyncðo, Archbishop Wulfstan of York (1002–1023) detailed the criteria for attaining thegnhood: "And if a ceorl prospered, that he possessed fully five hides of his own, a belhus and a burhgeat [a defensible manor house], a seat and special office in the king’s hall, then was he henceforth entitled to the rights of a thegn." The legal text Norðleoda laga (law of the Northern People) also included the five-hide qualification but added that the land had to be kept for three generations.

Thegnhood was also attainable to the merchant who "fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means."