twelfhyndman
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: twelfhyndmen
form: twelfhyndeman
form: twelvehyndemen
Etymology: Learned borrowing from Old English twelfhynde man(n) / mon(n).
Senses: examples: text: The oath of a twelfhind man was equal to the oaths of ſix ceorles; and if revenge was taken for the murder of a twelfhynd man it might be wrecked on ſix ceorles.
ref: 1805, Sharon Turner, The History of the Manners, Landed Property, Government, Laws, Poetry, Literature, Religion, and Language, of the Anglo-Saxons, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], page 317:
text: The nobility are frequently, and in later records generally, styled Thanes; which honour seems to be a territorial designation. They are also indicated by the fines imposed on them for crimes, and by the composition payable for their lives. And thus we find them divided into Twelfhyndmen and Sixhyndmen; according as 1200 or 600 shillings was the amount of their were or composition.
ref: 1832 July, “The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth. […] By Francis Palgrave, […]. The History of England; Anglo-Saxon Period. (Family Library.) By Francis Palgrave, […].”, in The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume LV, number CX, Edinburgh: […] Ballantyne and Company, for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, London; and Adam Black, Edinburgh, page 310:
text: It is remarkable that, though the syxhyndman is named at first, nothing more is said of him; and the twelfhyndman is defined to be a thane.
ref: 1848, Henry Hallam, Supplemental Notes to the View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, London: John Murray, […], page 210:
text: In this computation a twelfhyndman was valued at six ceorls or twyhyndmen, because the weregild of a twelfhyndman was equal to the weregilds of six ceorls.
ref: 1849, John Allen, Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], page 115:
text: But what was the social rank of these burgesses? Were they thegns—twelfhyndmen?
ref: 1864, Henry Charles Coote, A Neglected Fact in English History, London: Bell and Daldy, […], page 125:
text: From about the opening of the tenth century, if not from the close of the ninth, frank-tenure and gentle-tenure became identified with the tenure of the Thegn (or Dienstman) throughout English Mercia and the South-country, all who held by it acquiring the position of Twelfhyndmen, though they were not necessarily Gesithcund, or of gentle birth and descent.
ref: 1872, E[ben] William Robertson, Historical Essays in Connexion with the Land, the Church &c., Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, page lvi:
text: The twelfhyndmen, the highest grade of eorls, became converted into the king’s thegns, who owned him as their immediate hlaford.
ref: 1873, Philip Vernon Smith, History of the English Institutions, London; Oxford; Cambridge: Rivingtons, page 5:
text: The English burgess was probably eorl or ceorl, twelfhyndman or twyhyndman, according to his birth and descent;
ref: 1885, John Beddoe, The Races of Britain: A Contribution to the Anthropology of Western Europe, Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, […]; London: Trübner and Co., […], page 63:
text: And on the analogy of the Frankish laws, the Anglo-Saxon twelfhynde men were those who owed special service to the king as his comites, antrustions, or thegns;
ref: 1889 October, A[ndrew] G[eorge] Little, “Gesiths and Thegns”, in Mandell Creighton, editor, The English Historical Review, volume IV, number 16, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. and New York: […], page 728:
text: Both the twelvehyndman and the sixhyndman are gesithcundmen, followers of chiefs, and enjoy their privileged position in regard to were and wite, and in other respects, by reason of the exalted patronage bestowed on them.
ref: 1905, P[aul] Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., page 125:
text: He remarks on the growth of the pretensions of the invaders since the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum which put the Northern warriors only on the same level as the twelf[-]hyndmen, or ordinary thegns.
ref: 1906, Thomas Hodgkin, The History of England from the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., […]; New York; Bombay, page 436:
text: It was the acquisition of five hides that enabled a warrior to aspire to the rank of king’s thane, and led to the passage into the class of twelvehyndmen for him, or to sixhyndmen in the case of the prosperous wealh.
ref: 1908, Paul Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Society: Essays in English Mediaeval History, Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, page 344:
text: These wealhs, as well as ceorls, appear to have been able to attain to the rank of king’s thane, but it has been suggested that the thane of Welsh extraction (wealh) was only appraised at half the value of the English thane; in fact that the twelvehyndman with his were of 1,200s. was the English thane, and the sixhyndman with the were of 600s. the Welsh thane.
ref: 1909 February 18, Mrs. King Warry, “The Status of Peasantry in Portland”, in Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, volume XXX, Dorchester: […] the “Dorset County Chronicle” Office, page 76:
text: They are grouped with the sokemen and liberi homines as twyhyndmen whose wergild was two hundred shillings, as distinct from the thegn class or twelfhyndmen whom to slay involved a penalty of twelve hundred shillings.
ref: 1915, E[phraim] Lipson, An Introduction to the Economic History of England, volume I (The Middle Ages), London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., […], page 27:
qualifier: criminal law
glosses: A man worth twelve hundred shillings in wergeld.
Related terms: sixhyndman
twyhyndman