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Frith is a word derived from Old English meaning "peace; protection; safety, security, freedom, refuge". [1] [2]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2007) |
Frith is a word derived from Old English meaning "peace; protection; safety, security, freedom, refuge". [1] [2]
Derived from Old English friðu, friþ , it is cognate to Old Norse friðr , Old Saxon frithu , Old High German fridu , German Friede , Dutch vrede , West Frisian frede , Luxembourgish Fridden , Icelandic friður , Common Scandinavian fred (all with meanings similar to "peace" or "calm") and also root-cognate to friend .
In Swedish, two different words with different meanings have developed from this word, the words fred (state of no war) and frid (state of no disturbance) and also the expression that something is "fredat/fredad" more or less "peaced" denoting things that are not to be touched such as animals not to be hunted or flowers not to be picked. The English word became obsolete in the Middle English period, but survived into the 17th century in the compound frith-silver "feudal payment".
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In Anglo-Saxon and post-Anglo-Saxon culture, the term has a considerably broader scope and meaning. Frith has a great deal to do not only with the state of peace but also with the nature of social relationships conducive to peace. Moreover, it has strong associations with stability and security. The word friþgeard, meaning "asylum, sanctuary" was used for sacrosanct areas. A friþgeard would then be any enclosed area given over to the worship of the gods. Seating oneself on a frith-stool was sometimes a requirement for claiming sanctuary in certain English churches. Frith is also used in the context of fealty, as an expression of the relationship between a lord and his people. Frith is inextricably related to the state of kinship, which is perhaps the strongest indicator of frith. In this respect, the word can be coterminous with another significant Anglo-Saxon root-word, sib (from which the word 'sibling' is derived) - indeed the two are frequently interchanged. In this context, frith goes further than expressing blood ties, and encompasses all the concomitant benefits and duties which kinship engenders.[ citation needed ]Frith also has a legal significance: peace was effectively maintained in Anglo-Saxon times by the frith-guild, an early manifestation of summary justice. In the post-conquest poem Rime of King William , a deorfrið (literally animal-frith) referred to one of the royal forests set up by William the Conqueror, probably the New Forest. Stefan Jurasinski argued that frið here could have carried the legal notion of protection (Latin: pax). [3] [4]
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature dates from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland.
A churl, in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled ċeorl(e), and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it later came to mean the opposite of nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick:
we find that the distinction between thegn and ceorl is from the time of Aethelstan the broad line of demarcation between the classes of society.
Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, whose meaning has drifted towards an adjectival use with a more general sense of "supernatural" or "uncanny", or simply "unexpected".
A scop was a poet as represented in Old English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of the Old Norse skald, with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designate oral poets within Old English literature. Very little is known about scops, and their historical existence is questioned by some scholars.
A hörgr or hearg is a type of altar or cult site, possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse religion, as opposed to a roofed hall used as a hof (temple).
A wight is a being or thing. This general meaning is shared by cognate terms in Germanic languages, however the usage of the term varies greatly over time and between regions. In Old English, it could refer to anything in existence, with more specific usages arising in Middle English, perhaps due to the term of similar meaning in Anglo-Norman, creature. The term is widely used in modern fantasy, often to mean specifically a being which is undead.
Oisc, or, in a later spelling, Ēsc was, if he existed, an early king of Kent and, according to Bede, the eponymous founder of the tribe known as Oiscingas (early Old English.
In Germanic mythology, Seaxnēat or Saxnôt was the national god of the Saxons. He is sometimes identified with either Tīwaz or Fraujaz.
Atter is an older Germanic term for "poisonous bodily fluid", especially venom of a venomous animal, such as a snake, dragon or other reptile, but also other vile corrupt or morbid substance from the body, such as pus from a sore or wound, as well as bitter substance, such as bile. Figuratively, it can also mean moral corruption or corruptness; noxious or corrupt influence, poison to the soul, evil, anger, envy, hatred; as well as destruction and death.
The English word god comes from the Old English god, which itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *gudą and the Gothic guþ, gudis.
The term man and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age. In traditional usage, man itself refers to the species or to humanity (mankind) as a whole.
Many words that existed in Old English did not survive into Modern English. There are also many words in Modern English that bear little or no resemblance in meaning to their Old English etymons. Some linguists estimate that as much as 80 percent of the lexicon of Old English was lost by the end of the Middle English period, including many compound words, e.g. bōchūs, yet the components 'book' and 'house' were kept. Certain categories of words seem to have been more susceptible. Nearly all words relating to sexual intercourse and sexual organs as well as "impolite" words for bodily functions were ignored in favor of words borrowed from Latin or Ancient Greek. The Old English synonyms are now mostly either extinct or considered crude or vulgar, such as arse/ass.
"The Rime of King William" is an Old English poem that tells the death of William the Conqueror. The Rime was a part of the only entry for the year of 1087 in the "Peterborough Chronicle/Laud Manuscript." In this entry there is a thorough history and account of the life of King William. The entry in its entirety is regarded "as containing the best contemporary estimate of William's achievements and character as seen by a reasonably objective Englishman". As a resource, earlier writers drew from this in a more literal sense, while later historians referred to it more liberally. The text in its original language can be found in The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154, edited by Cecily Clark. A modern translation can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles translated by G.N. Garmonsway. Seth Lerer has published a more recent modern translation of "The Rime of King William" in his article, "Old English and Its Afterlife," in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature.
The suffix -lock in Modern English survives only in wedlock and bridelock. It descends from Old English -lác, which was more productive, carrying a meaning of "action or proceeding, state of being, practice, ritual". As a noun, Old English lác means "play, sport", deriving from an earlier meaning of "sacrificial ritual or hymn". A putative term for a "hymn to the gods" in early Germanic paganism is attested only as a personal name, Oslac.
An atgeir was a type of polearm in use in Viking Age Scandinavia and Norse colonies in the British Isles and Iceland. The word atgeirr is older than the Viking Age, and cognates can be found in Old English and other Germanic dialects, deriving from the Germanic root gar, and is related to the Old Norse geirr, meaning spear.
Herløv also spelled Herloev, is a name primarily used in Denmark that is applied most commonly as a middle or surname, and least commonly as a male given name. It is of Germanic origin dating back to the Viking Age. Herløv is derived from the Old Norse word "Herrlof", meaning "praise gained in war" or "a sign of victory, a trophy".
In Germanic paganism, a vé or wēoh is a type of shrine, sacred enclosure or other place with religious significance. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia, often in connection with an Old Norse deity or a geographic feature.
A bēot is Old English for a ritualized boast, vow, threat, or promise. The principle of a bēot is to proclaim one's acceptance of a seemingly impossible challenge in order to gain tremendous glory for actually accomplishing it.
Waering is a Germanic surname. Although Grant Allen and Isaac Taylor described Wæring as an Anglo-Saxon clan name equivalent to the Norse Væringjar, the eminent British philologist Walter William Skeat suggested that it might be a patronymic.
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