Talk:Housecarl

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Would the term be related to "Churl" which comes from Ceorl or Karl? Carrionluggage 05:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I never hear the term 'churl'. But as you announce that 'churl' is related to 'ceorl' and 'Karl', the question if 'churl' is related to 'House-Carl' sounds funny. If this would be answered with 'yes', you could conclude that 'Housecarl' is over 'churl' related to 'ceorl' and 'Karl'. To me it sounds like counting '1, 3, 2' instead of '1, 2, 3'.

I have read another article (or more) about this etymology some time ago, and I don't remember where. From the similarity of the words and the meaning, it's rather obvious, that old-frankish 'ceorl', german 'Kerl', german name 'Karl', english name 'carl', english and french name 'Charles' have the same origin. I am sure this is already etymologically proven, though I don't know sources, but I am sure they can be found. From what I remember of previously read articles and from what I understand from this article, a 'Karl', 'Kerl', 'Carl', 'Ceorl' has been understood to be a free warrior. This is now an interpretation by me; I haven't explicitely read this anywhere. Accordingly english 'House-Carl', frankish 'Hus-karl', german 'Haus-kerl' addressed a 'carl' 'Kerl' 'ceorl' who swore loyalty to a specific aristocratic person or dynasty. Overall it seems rather clear to me that these words are related and have the same meaning.

So the conclusion should be: As 'housecarl' is a derivate from 'carl', then, if 'carl' is related to 'churl', 'housecarl' should be related to 'churl'. But before drawing this conclusion, it should be explained where 'churl' comes from, and if it's in fact related to 'carl'/'Karl'/'Kerl'/'Ceorl'.

Well, it is common that words indicating a mediocre or low position turn into insults. For example, "blackguard" at one time meant a scullery worker in charge of the (black) cast-iron pots and cauldrons, but as these people tended to be - well - kind of low class - it became an insult. Similarly I just found [1] which does say that "churl" (a despicable person) comes from your good old housecarls. The article mentions "boor" (from boer - farmer) and "villian" as other examples. Carrionluggage 07:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The meaning of 'churl' in the Online Eymology Dictionary under the link you provided matches the german word 'Kerl'. But I have never heard 'churl' in English. This Dictionary mentions the word is from 1300, so I guess today it's probably outdated. The german word 'Kerl' is often used. It is not explicitely understood as insult. Often it is used to refer to an undefined/unknown man or men in plural. The equivalent word in English would probably be 'guy', dict.leo.org offers also 'chap' and 'dude'. In combination with other words it can be an insult or praise.

Churl has negative or pejorative connotations on [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] (2 appearances) etc Carrionluggage 01:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Churl is pretty much never used in English outside the study of mediaeval society, but the adjective churlish—meaning petulant or ungracious—is alive an well. Not that I can particularly see why it seems so important to establish a connection between churl and housecarl—it doesn't have any relevance to the article. Binabik80 00:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huscarls in the Varangian Guard

I know the guard contained all types of saxons and scandanavians, but I find it hard to believe that this many saxon huscarls and thegns were in the guard in the 12th century. First of all the battle of Hastings was in 1054, so probably the few huscarls that survived the battle would be dead by 1100, secondly the entire army of Harold probably only had 8000 men, and probably only a couple thousand huscarls at most, even if every single one of the few that survived Hasting (and Stamford bridge for that matter) made it to Constantinople (which is a ridiculous proposition) there still definetly wouldn't have been enough to form the majority of the Varangian unit. Anyways Since there is no source for the claim and I don't have a source to dicprove it (even though it is not necessary to prove a negative) I have changed it to -

"Some of these reached Byzantium and along with other Saxon Englishmen joined the Varangian Guard. In fact by the the 12th century, the Varangian Guard contained so many Saxons that the entire units was sometimes called 'the English Guard'."

I figure it is more plausible that other Saxons had joined them in order to warrant calling it the English Guard.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)