What is "thanes"

Usage examples of "thanes".

Uwen said, and with a sweep of his arm indicated the way inside for all of them in the center of his circle: the lord viceroy, and the earls and thanes and ealdormen who had joined them.

He was rigid and cruel, put earls in bondage who had acted against his wishes, cast bishops from their bishoprics and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison .

Amefel, the earls, the thanes he had been accustomed to see in the hall.

Horstede was more a matter of custom than of law, but an unknown learned person, about the middle of that century, wrote a treatise in Latin on estate management which describes the usual duties of every kind of people from thanes to slaves.

They were led by his thanes, and had killed his armed retainers in his capital of York, plundered his treasury and armoury and declared him an outlaw.

In national wars they could be called on to fight by their feudal obligations, much like the thanes in England.

Beside the thanes, each hundred was expected to produce a few volunteers for the fyrd, and it has been reckoned that around fifty thousand men in the country were liable to this service.

He came to believe that everyone was involved in a plot against him, his own thanes, the humble people of his earldom, Harold, the court, the other earls, and finally Edward himself.

Not many of these men, not even the travelled thanes, had ever in their lives been so long away from their villages.

And soon, behind these urgent messengers, a wave of shock and rumour must have spread by the village tracks, first as warnings from thanes to their neighbours and then reinforced by refugees from the ravaged villages, hoping for food and shelter from the autumn nights.

In the world its people knew, every one of the English thanes had gone, and every village had a foreign master.

Off he trotted with his cartload of money and a heavily armed three-cohort guard to see which Gallic thanes were of a mind to sell at least a part of their harvest.

He turned to the silent thanes and threw off the veil of diffidence and humility which concealed his power.

But you, thanes of Gaul, did not accord Vercingetorix the full extent of his power.

When the thanes went down on their left knees, the Aedui capitulated and knelt too.