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thegn
The term thegn (thane or thayn in Shakespearean English), from Old English ''þegn'', ''ðegn'', "servant, attendant, retainer", "one who serves", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or, as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves. It is also the term for an early medieval Scandinavian class of retainers.
== Etymology ==
Old English ''þeg(e)n'', "servant, attendant, retainer", is cognate with Old High German ''degan'' and Old Norse ''þegn'' ("thane, franklin, freeman, man").〔(Northvegr - Zoëga's A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic )〕
The thegn had a military significance, and its usual Latin translation was ''miles'', meaning soldier, although ''minister'' was often used. Joseph Bosworth〔''Anglo-Saxon Dictionary'' edited by Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller and Alistair Campbell (1972), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-863101-4.〕 describes a thegn as "one engaged in a king's or a queen's service, whether in the household or in the country", and adds: "the word in this case seems gradually to acquire a technical meaning, and to become a term denoting a class, containing, however, several degrees".
But, like all other words of the kind, the word ''thegn'' was slowly changing its meaning, and, "the very name, like that of the ''gesith'', has different senses in different ages and kingdoms, but the original idea of military service runs through all the meanings of ''thegn'', as that of personal association is traceable in all the applications of ''gesith''". After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, William the Conqueror replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with Normans and the new Norman ruling class replaced the Anglo-Saxon terminology with Norman. In this process, king's thegns became barons, and thegns appear to have been merged in the class of knights.〔William Stubbs, ''Constitutional History'', vol i.〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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