Note L. p. . Origin of the Word King

It is enough for my purpose that the word Cyning is closely connected with the word Cyn. (See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 176; Kemble, i. 153.) That the two words are of the same origin, as is shown by a whole crowd of cognates, cynebarn, cynecyn, cynedom, cynehelm, cyne-hlaford (used in the Chronicles, a. 1014, as equivalent to gecynde hlaford), cynelice, cynerice, cynestol. (I copy from Mr. Earle’s Glossarial Index.) In all these words cyn has the meaning of royal. What little I venture to say on the remote Aryan affinities of the word I have said in Comparative Politics, 450, Growth of the English Constitution, 172.

The modern High-Dutch König is an odd corruption; but the elder form is Chuninc. The word has never had an English feminine; Queen is simply cwen, woman, wife, the same as the Greek γυνή, but in Wessex, from the days of Beorhtric to those of William, Cwen most rarely occurs (Chron. 855 and Chron. Petrib. 1043, though in both these passages it may simply mean wife); Hlæfdige (see above, p. ) is the regular title.

Sir Francis Palgrave’s attempt (ii. cccxli.) to derive the word from a Celtic root Cen (head), to say nothing of other objections, could not account for the use of the word among the Teutonic nations on the Continent. Still more ludicrous is the notion of the King being the canning or cunning man, an idea which could have occurred only to a mind on which all Teutonic philology was thrown away. It is however as old as Sir Thomas Smith, who, in the Commonwealth of England (pp. , 10) says, “That which we cal in one sillable king in English, the old Englishmen, and the Saxons, from whom our tongue is derived, to this day call in two sillables, cyning, which whether it commeth of cen or ken, which betokeneth to know and understand, or can, which betokeneth to be able, or to have power, I cannot tel.”

The connexion of Cyning with Cyn is closely analogous to the connexion of the word Þeoden (the Gothic Þiudans) with Þeod (see Kemble, i. 152) and that of Drihten with Driht. In all these cases the ruler takes his name from those whom he rules.

The origin of the word is curiously illustrated in Cardinal Pole’s exposition of the nature of kingship, quoted in Froude’s History of England, iii. 34. “‘What is a king?’ he asks. ‘A king exists for the sake of his people; he is an outcome from Nature in labour [partus naturæ laborantis]; an institution for the defence of material and temporal interests.... In human society are three grades—the people—the priesthood, the head and husband of the people—the king, who is the child [populus enim regem procreat], the creature, and minister of the other two.’”

One can hardly suspect Pole of any Teutonic scholarship, but if he had not the true derivation of the word king before his eyes, the coincidence is remarkable. Not very unlike is the speech of Philip Pot, Great Seneschal of Burgundy in the States General of Tours in 1484. “La royauté est une dignité et non un héritage. Dans l’origine, le peuple souverain créa des rois pour son utilité.” De Cherrier, Histoire de Charles VIII. i. 76.