Note Kkk. p. . The Housecarls

There is no distinct mention in the Chronicles of the institution of the Thingmen or Housecarls, nor does their name occur in any of the English Laws, but the incidental mention of them by the name of Housecarls, or by the equivalent name of Hiredmen (familiares, members of the hired, court or family), is common in the Chronicles, while grants to housecarls and signatures of housecarls are common in the Charters, and they are mentioned several times in Domesday. The subject is discussed by Lappenberg (467, i. 202 Thorpe), and by Kemble (ii. 118, 124), to whom I owe the remark that the institution was only a revival of the comitatus. The “Leges Castrenses” or “Witherlags Ret” are described at length by Saxo (p. ), and they are drawn out in a tabular form in a separate work by Swegen Aggesson (ap. Langebek, iii. 141). A Danish text follows at p. . This however dates only from the reign of Cnut the Sixth, who reigned from 1185 to 1202. In the Chronicle of King Eric (Langebek, i. 159) they are, by a somewhat grotesque mistake, attributed, with several other actions of the great Cnut, to his son Harthacnut. It is not easy to make out from the confused narrative of Saxo when he conceived the force to have been established. According to Swegen (146), the laws were enacted in England after the settlement of the country (“quum in Anglia, omni exercitu suo collecto, Kanutus rex defessa bellicis operibus membra quietis tranquillitate recrearet”) by the advice of Opo, a Dane from Zealand, who is also mentioned by Saxo (197), and his son Eskill. I think that there is little doubt that the date which I have suggested in the text must be the right one. Lappenberg also places the enactment of the “Witherlags Ret” early in Cnut’s reign.

The force was made up of men of all nations. So says Swegen (145); “Tanti regis exercitus, utpote ex variis collectus nationibus, universis videlicet regnis ditioni suæ subjugatis.” It is clear then that, among Cnut’s other subjects, Englishmen might find their way into the force. So Saxo, 197; “Quos quum rex natione, linguis, ingeniis, quam maxime dissidentes animadverteret.” Saxo (196) fixes the number at six thousand; he calls them “clientelam suam sex millium numerum explentem.” (“Clientela,” as used by Saxo, is a technical word, and quite recalls the old comitatus.) But Swegen (144) reckons them only at three thousand; “Cujus summa, tria millia militum selectorum explevit. Quam catervam suo idiomate thinglith nuncupari placuit.” I know of no statement as to their numbers in later times, but the force was one which was likely to grow. The “stippendiarii et mercenarii” formed the core of the English army at Senlac, and we find Earls keeping housecarls as well as Kings.

That Cnut did lay down strict laws for the government of the force there is no reason to doubt; but I confess that in the Leges Castrenses, as we have them, there is much that has a mythical sound. Traitors for instance (Saxo, 199; Swegen, iii. 162) were expelled and declared to be “Nithing.” They had the choice of departing by land or by sea. He who chose the sea was put alone into a boat, with oars, food, &c.; but if any chance brought him to shore, he was put to death. This sounds to me very much of a piece with various mythical and romantic tales about people being exposed in boats, of which that of the Ætheling Eadwine in the reign of Æthelstan is the most famous (see above, p. ). Then again, though no doubt, in Cnut’s army as in other armies, purely military offences would be judged by purely military tribunals, I confess to stumbling at one passage in the Witherlags Ret (Swegen, iii. 149), which sets before us the military assembly as judging among its own members even in causes of real property; “Constitutione etiam generali cautum est, ut omnis inter commilitones orta controversia de fundis prædiis, et agris, vel etiam de mansionis deprædatione ... in jam dicto colloquio agitaretur. Tum vero is, cui commilitonum judicium jus venditionis adjudicabit, cum sex sortitis in suo cœtu, ... territorii sui continuatam possessionem sibi vendicare debet, præscriptionemque lege assignata tuebitur.” If Cnut’s courts martial really exercised this kind of jurisdiction, it was a clear violation of the constitutional rights of Ealdormen, Bishops, earls, churls, everybody; still it need not have interfered with the personal rights of any but members of the guild. I confess however that I should like some better evidence of the fact. It is also rather too great a demand on our faith when we are told that these laws never were broken (save in one famous case) till the reign of Nicolas of Denmark (1101–1130), and when the authority cited for the statement is Bo or Boethius the Wend, an old soldier of Cnut who shared the longevity of the legendary Harold and Gyrth, and was alive in the time of Nicolas (Swegen, iii. 154, 163). The one offender in earlier times was Cnut himself, who in a fit of passion killed one of his comrades. The assembly was perplexed as to the way of dealing with such a culprit, and the King settled the matter by adjudging himself to a ninefold wérgild. Saxo, pp. , 200. So Swegen, somewhat differently, iii. 151.

There are strict regulations (see Swegen, iii. 147) about the horses of the Thingmen; but these were of course only horses on which they rode to battle (see p. ), not horses to be used in actual fight.

As for the behaviour of the housecarls to the mass of the people and the feeling with which they were looked at by the mass of the people, we can say very little in the absence of any direct evidence. They were a standing army in days when a standing army was a new thing, and a standing army, as long as it is a new thing, is never a popular institution. And the housecarls at first were not only a standing army, but a standing army largely made up of foreigners and conquerors. Still everything both in the reign of Cnut and in the reign of Eadward would tend to make the force grow more and more national and popular. The time when it was likely to be abused, as we know that it was abused, was in the days of Cnut’s sons. Still, even under Harold the son of Godwine, we can perhaps discern a certain tinge of ill-will in the words “stippendiarii” and “mercenarii,” which seem to breathe the same spirit as the manifest dislike to Danegelds and heregelds, perhaps one might say to taxes of every kind. But I see no sign of any strong ill-will between the housecarls and the people at any time. I can find no evidence for the highly-coloured picture given by Mr. St. John (ii. 99) of their insolence in Cnut’s days, though it is likely enough that such things sometimes happened. But the reference which he gives to the Ramsey History (c. lxxxv. p. ) is only a legend about Bishop Æthelric making a Danish thegn—married, by the way, to an Englishwoman—drunk, and so getting a grant of lands out of him. As for Bromton’s tales about Englishmen having to stand on bridges while the Danes passed, having to bow to the Danes, and the like (X Scriptt. 934), they prove very little indeed. They are parts of an historical confusion which I shall presently have to mention, and they seem to be placed in the time of Cnut’s sons rather than in that of Cnut himself.

One point more remains with regard to the relations of the housecarls to the people at large. Though there is no mention of the force in the genuine English laws, yet in the so-called Laws of Eadward the Confessor (Thorpe, i. 449) and in Bracton (iii. 15. 2, 3) the legal process of “Murdrum,” and in Bracton the Presentment of Englishry also, is traced up to the institutions of Cnut. When Cnut, we are told, sent away the mass of his Danish troops, at the request of the Witan (“rogatu baronum Anglorum,” “precatu baronum de terra”), the Witan pledged themselves that the rest should be safe in life and limb (“firmam pacem haberent”), and that any Englishman who killed any of them should suffer punishment. If the murderer could not be discovered, the township or hundred was fined. Out of this, we are told by Bracton, grew the doctrine, continued under the Norman Kings, that an unknown corpse was presumed to be that of a Frenchman—in Cnut’s time, doubtless, that of a Dane—and that the “Englishry” of a slain person had to be proved. The “Laws of Eadward” of course contain no notice of “Englishry” as opposed to Frenchry—if I may coin such a word; but neither do they mention it as opposed to Danishry. They simply record the promise of the Witan—not an unreasonable one—that Cnut’s soldiers should be under the protection of the law. This is likely enough; anything more is the mere carrying back of Norman institutions into earlier times. In the Dialogus de Scaccario (i. 10) there is no hint of the “Murdrum” and “Englishry” being older than the Norman Conquest. See vol. v. pp. , 444.

We shall as we go on come across many passages in which the housecarls both of the King and of the great Earls are spoken of. Among the charters of Eadward are several (Cod. Dipl. iv. 201, 204, 221, cf. 200) containing grants to the King’s housecarls. The three grantees spoken of are called Thurstan, Urk, and Wulfnoth—the last at all events being an Englishman, perhaps a kinsman of Godwine. The two latter writs are addressed to Earl Harold. In the oldest (201), a Middlesex writ, addressed to Bishop Robert, Osgod Clapa, and Ulf the Sheriff, Thurstan is described in the English copy as “Ðurstan min huskarll,” in the Latin as “præfectus meus palatinus Ðurstanus.” As Mr. Kemble says (ii. 123), such a description could not apply to every man in so large a body; so we may infer that Thurstan stood high in the service. There is also the will of Wulfwig, Bishop of Dorchester (Cod. Dipl. iv. 290), which is witnessed by a crowd of people, great and small, from the King and the Lady downwards, including some signatures of large bodies of men; “On eallra ðæs kynges húscarlan and on his mæsse-préostan ... and on eallra ðára burhwara gewitnesse on Lincolne and on eallra ðæra manna ðe seceað gearmorkett tó Stowe.” This immediately follows on the signatures of the Stallers Ansgar, Ralph, and Lyfing, from which Mr. Kemble (ii. 122) infers that the Stallers were the special commanders of the force. Housecarls are also mentioned several times in Domesday (see Ellis, i. 91; ii. 151; Kelham, 238), and in Simeon of Durham (Gest. Regg. 1071; see vol. iv. pp. , 513) we find a housecarl not only reckoned among the “principales viri” of Northumberland, but high in personal favour with William; “Eilaf huscarl apud regem præpollens honore.”