twelfhyndman

Learned borrowing from Old English twelfhynde man(n) / mon(n).

twelfhyndman (plural twelfhyndmen)

1. (criminal law, historical) A man worth twelve hundred shillings in wergeld.
   • 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:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1848, Henry Hallam, Supplemental Notes to the View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, London: John Murray, […], page 210:

     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.

   • 1849, John Allen, Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], page 115:

     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.

   • 1864, Henry Charles Coote, A Neglected Fact in English History, London: Bell and Daldy, […], page 125:

     But what was the social rank of these burgesses? Were they thegns—twelfhyndmen?

   • 1872, E[ben] William Robertson, Historical Essays in Connexion with the Land, the Church &c., Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, page lvi:

     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.

   • 1873, Philip Vernon Smith, History of the English Institutions, London, Oxford, Cambridge: Rivingtons, page 5:

     The twelfhyndmen, the highest grade of eorls, became converted into the king’s thegns, who owned him as their immediate hlaford.

   • 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:

     The English burgess was probably eorl or ceorl, twelfhyndman or twyhyndman, according to his birth and descent;

   • 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:

     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;

   • 1905, P[aul] Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., page 125:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1908, Paul Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Society: Essays in English Mediaeval History, Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, page 344:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1915, E[phraim] Lipson, An Introduction to the Economic History of England, volume I (The Middle Ages), London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., […], page 27:

     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.

• sixhyndman
• twyhyndman