Housecarl
A housecarl was a non-servile manservant or household bodyguard in medieval Northern Europe.
The institution originated amongst the Norsemen of Scandinavia, and was brought to Anglo-Saxon England by the Danish conquest in the 11th century. They were well-trained, and paid as full-time soldiers. In England, the royal housecarls had a number of roles, both military and administrative, and they fought under Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.
Etymology
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
As free manservants
Originally, the Old Norse word húskarl 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 in Norway and Iceland, innæsmæn in Denmark. Housecarls were free men, not to be confused with thralls ; to this effect, the Icelandic laws also call them einhleypingar and lausamenn. Both terms emphasise that they were voluntarily in service of another, as opposed to thralls.As combatant retainers
With time, the term "housecarls" came to acquire a specific sense of "retainers", in the service of a lord, in his hirð, lid or drótt. In Denmark, this was also the sense of the word himthige, a variant of húskarl. This meaning can be seen, for instance, on the Turinge stone:According to Omeljan Pritsak, this Þorsteinn may have commanded the retinue of Yaroslav the Wise, the Grand Prince of Kiev. Thus, the housecarls mentioned here would be royal bodyguards; in any case, it can be seen here that the word "housecarl" now applied to a person who fought in the service of a different person.
In Norwegian service: the ''heiðþegar''
In Norway, housecarls were members of the king's or another powerful man's hirð. The institution of the hirð in Norway can be traced back to the ninth century. The texts dealing with royal power in medieval Norway, the Heimskringla and the Konungs skuggsjá, make explicit the link between a king or leader and his retainers. 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, a court poet to two kings of Norway, Olaf II of Norway and Magnus the Good, called the retainers of Olaf II of Norway heiðþegar, meaning "gift- 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 or to the housecarls of Cnut the Great : 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
Six runestones in Denmark, DR 1, DR 3, DR 154, DR 155, DR 296, and DR 297, use the term heimþegi, meaning "home-receiver". The use of the term in the inscriptions suggest a strong similarity between heimþegar and housecarls: like housecarls, heimþegar are in the service of a king or lord, of whom they receive gifts for their service. Johannes Brøndsted interpreted heimþegi as nothing more than a local variant of húskarl.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 hird". Among the Hedeby stones, the Stone of Eric 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, 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. 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 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
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. It is unclear, however, whether Cnut's housecarls were all Scandinavians; some were Slavs according to Domesday Book records and according to Susan Reynolds, it is likely that some of them were English, with many Englishmen becoming housecarls early in Cnut's reign.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. Also, there were bands of foreign warriors under the control of foreign commanders, who sometimes served as the retinues of important Anglo-Saxon lords. For example, one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to Earl Tostig's retainers as hiredmenn whereas another version calls them hus karlas. As Tostig was fighting against the king at the time, then the use of the term housecarl seems to have been a synonym for a mercenary or retainer rather than just royal bodyguards. It also would have been used to differentiate between that of the paid warrior and the unpaid militia known as the fyrd.
Organisation as royal bodyguards and courtiers
According to 12th century Danish historian Svend Aggesen, Cnut's housecarls were governed by a specific law, the Witherlogh or Lex Castrensis. Their organisation in a band or guild was Scandinavian in character, but the legal process the Witherlogh defines is mainly derived from canon law, directly or through Anglo-Saxon laws. Other possible inspirations include the rules of the Jomsvikings and the rules of the Norwegian hirð. 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, 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.Pay, land grants, and social role
A special tax was levied to provide pay in coin to the royal housecarls. According to Saxo Grammaticus, the pay was monthly. Due to these wages, the housecarls are seen by some as a type of mercenary; the Knýtlinga saga calls them málamenn, while Florence of Worcester uses the term solidarii and William of Malmesbury that of stipendarii. Furthermore, the housecarles were not bound to indefinite service; but there was only one day in the year during which they could leave the king's service. That was New Year's Eve, a day on which it was customary for Scandinavian kings to reward their retainers with gifts.On one hand, the number of housecarls receiving land grants and estates from the king seems to have been rather limited, from the beginning of Cnut's reign up to the Norman conquest in 1066. At that last date, the Domesday Book records only thirty-three landholding housecarls in the kingdom; furthermore, these estates were small. Thus, it does not seem that the English landholders were deprived of their properties to provide for land grants to the king's housecarls. 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.