“Twelve Angry Thegns”: Some Possible Old Norse Legalisms in Old English Texts
Channel: Denis Sukhino-Khomenko
Date: 2020-12-23

This is a recording of my introduction at the seminar at the Department of Historical Studies (University of Gothenburg) on December 17th, 2020. The seminar was a presentation and discussion of my paper, published in Scandia: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies (https://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs/index.php/scandia/article/view/53709).
I would like to thank Henrik Janson for chairing this meeting, as well as Benjamin Andersson for his splendid job as an opponent.
Below follows the abstract to the paper:

The interpretation of the lexeme þegn has led to a long-standing controversy in the study of the late-Viking Age rune stones. It is recorded in 46 commemorative inscriptions in Denmark and Western Sweden, 34 of which adhere to a pronounced pattern. The debate goes back to seminal articles by Svend Aakjær (1927) and Karl Martin Nielsen (1945). The former author argued that the lexeme should be read as “king’s retainer, vassal”; the latter dispelled this notion as ungrounded and stuck with the later recorded meaning, “free man in general”, not infrequently attested in, for example, the skaldic verse. Since rune stones are our only contemporary native literary source on social structures in the Viking Age, resolving the question of the lexical meaning of the runic thegns is highly desirable. Regretfully, in the absence of newer source material, the debate has until now been recycling the same considerations first put forth decades ago. While hesitating to pass the final verdict, I argue for acknowledging the lexeme’s polysemic nature. A possible way out of the argumentative loop could be found in, first, refraining from the monarchocentric Old English texts and, second, contextual analysis of the þegn’s occurrences in other less frequently cited Old English texts pertaining to the Scandinavian part of England. If confirmed, these insights may also be utilised in further source criticism of the Old Norse literary legacy.