Glossary

Occupations

• Anchorite
  Someone who had spent a period of probation in a monastery and had received the permission of his abbot to become a solitary. In the early Anglo-Saxon period an anchorite was held to be of high status within the church.
• Army
  This translates the Latin word exercitus. It was sometimes used in Asser’s Life of Alfred to represent the Old English here, usually with a qualifying word such as paganorum ‘of pagans’ to indicate that Asser was referring to the vikings. In Æthelweard’s Chronicle the word is used for both Old English here and fierd.
• Æscmann
  Old English æsc ‘an ash tree’ became by extension something made of ash wood and hence ‘a ship’. The compound denotes ‘a sailor’ and is used of the vikings. (There may here also be some element of another meaning of æsc ‘a spear [made of ash wood]’.)
• Band
  An English approximation of Old English werod, used of a military troop.
• Brother
  This word is used in certain contexts to indicate a member of a monastic community.
• Canon
  A member of the secular clergy attached to a cathedral (as opposed to a monk). Apart from its use in the report of the synod of 786 made by the papal legates, the term only starts being employed in Anglo-Saxon sources in the latter half of the tenth century.
• Cellarer
  A monastic official responsible for the maintenance of liquor and provisions.
• Chanter
  A person who intones the liturgical offices.
• Dæge
  Originally this word denoted a female baker but in later Anglo-Saxon usage it appears to refer to a dairymaid.
• Duguth
  The tried warriors who were retainers of a chief or lord (contrasted with the geoguð, the untried warriors).
• Eques
  In a general sense, ‘a rider’, it is also used more specifically to denote a mounted soldier.
• Fierd
  In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this word denotes a native levy summoned to defend its territory against external invaders, notably the Scandinavian vikings. It should not be interpreted as a ‘standing’ or ‘national’ army or anyone’s personal military entourage. See also Landfierd and Scipfierd.
• Fierdstemn
  The second element of this word is Old English stemn/stefn ‘a voice’. The compound is used of a body of people summoned to serve in rotation in the military levy.
• Fleet
  Like the word ‘ship’, the word was used collectively by synedoche for those that manned a fleet of ships in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and its derivatives.
• Flocc
  Used in a military context of a band or company of men.
• Flocrad
  A term employed to denote a raiding band in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is used of attacking Scandinavian warrior groups.
• Here
  The term used consistently in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to denote the viking forces that invaded England from the 860s to the 890s. It implies a raiding band rather than a native levy assembled for defensive purposes, the latter being termed a fierd [e922]. Ine’s Law defines a here [e942] as a band of more than thirty-five men but the size of viking bands has been a source of controversy among historians. See also Landhere and Sciphere.
• Hloth
  A military troop or band used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the vikings.
• Innhere
  This word appears in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 1006, where it refers to the collective native forces of the Mercians and West Saxons. Like the Danish foreign force (the uthere ) that it was summoned to oppose, the innhere caused considerable destruction, which is presumably why the author of the passage referred to the native forces as a here (‘a raiding band’) rather than as a fierd.
• Landfierd
  A native military force operating on land (as opposed to a scipfierd or sciphere, a naval force).
• Landhere
  A raiding force operating overland.
• Lector
  An ecclesiastic in the second of the minor orders.
• Lithsman
  Derived from the Scandinavian lith ‘a fleet’ and meaning ‘a sailor’, the word appears in a few annals of the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dating from 1036 to 1047, presumably influenced by the language employed in the court of Cnut (King of England, 1017-1035) and his sons.
• Miles
  While this word retained its Classical Latin sense of ‘a soldier’, it was used occasionally in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica in the collective sense of ‘soldiery, army’. More specifically, it was used in the Historia ecclesiastica and elsewhere to represent the Old English word thegn.
• Minister
  A Latin word equivalent to the Old English thegn [e1280/e1790] in many charters and other sources, the term can refer to persons in a serving capacity from a wide range of social statuses.
• Missus
  Literally ‘one who has been sent’, this word had a wide range of meanings in Medieval Latin, from the general sense of ‘a messenger’, through ‘an envoy, ambassador’ to a commissioner sent by a king for a specific purpose. Royal commissioners (missi dominici) were important officials in Charlemagne’s government charged with specific commissions.
• Mounted here
  Viking raiding bands (cf. here) quite frequently used horses once they had come ashore in England as this increased their geographic mobility.
• Pirate
  The Latin piratus or piraticus, having a basic meaning of ‘sailor’, could also be used of a brigand (not necessarily at sea).
• Reeve
  An administrature agent of a king or lord with diverse roles. Called a praepositus in Latin sources and in Old English a gerefa, reeves were eventually found from the level of the shire (the later ‘sheriff’, a senior and potentially powerful figure responsible for the royal lands) to the village (where he appears, at least at some areas, to have collected the royal gold). See also King’s high-reevePort reeve.
• Royal counsellor
  A Modern English approximation of the Old English wita.
• Scipfierd
  A native Anglo-Saxon naval force
• Scipflota
  Used in the plural to denote ‘sailors’, it appears in the Old English poem ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ preserved in five of the seven versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 937.
• Sciphere
  Unlike the distinction made between the native here and the Scandinavian fierd, this term was often used to denote both an Anglo-Saxon and a Scandinavian naval force, possibly because the native force was perceived to have had a punitive or destructive rather than defensive function.
• Sciphlæst
  ‘A ship’s complement’. The term is used a few times in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle but is more usually referred to simply by the word scip ‘a ship’.
• Summer-fleet
  Old English lida denoted ‘a sailor’. The compound is used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for a viking expeditionary force that arrived in England in 871 for the summer (as opposed to one that could have overwintered and then continued campaigning the following year).
• Synod participant
  The Latin synodus ‘a synod, ecclesiastical council’ implied attendance by people, even if they are not directly referred to in the text. PASE has created ‘anonymi’ to record the implied attendance of such persons.
• Uthere
  Used of the Scandinavian vikings in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 1006, the word refers to a Scandinavian raiding force that like the native force referred to in the same annal as an innhere caused considerable destruction.
• Vestiarius
  A keeper of the wardrobe at, for instance, the papal or a royal court, or in a monasterium.

Offices

• Aduocatus
  A ‘next friend’ at law (equivalent to the Old English term mundbora); a patron or protector (with respect to a saint).
• Ancilla Dei
  Literally ‘a handmaiden of God’, this was a common term for a nun.
• Antistes
  One of the terms for a bishop or an archbishop.
• Apocrisiarius
  Derived from the Greek word apochrisis ‘answer’, it was used of envoys, such as the future Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), who while still a deacon served at the Byzantine imperial court as a papal envoy from Rome.
• Archbishop
  A rare term in the sixth-century Western church, it was never used by Pope Gregory the Great of Augustine, even though the latter has become known to history as archbishop of Canterbury. In Justinian’s Novels it was used of bishops who had jurisdiction over a Roman imperial diocese, a secular unit of government such as Britain originally was. In Anglo-Saxon practice it became a title accorded to the bishops of Canterbury and (from the eighth century) York. Holders of these offices in England received a pallium from the pope as a mark of their office.
• Archicantor
  ‘Principal chanter’ or ‘chief precentor’, the term is used especially of John, who had been chief precentor of St Peter’s in Rome and who went to Monkwearmouth to teach the monks the chants used in the course of the liturgical year at St Peter’s.
• Archipresul
  An alternative term for archiepiscopus, an archbishop.
• Archon
  Used in some tenth-century royal styles as a synonym for a ruler.
• Archons
  A variant of archon used as a synonym for a ruler.
• Armiger
  Someone who bore arms. In the post-Conquest period it designated an esquire.
• Artifex
  A craftsman.
• Auxiliator
  A helper.
• Basileus
  The latinized form of the Greek word for ‘king’, it was employed in some tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon sources instead of rex.
• Bishop’s thegn
  A person who performed services of an administrative or military nature for a bishop.
• Burthegn
  The bur was a domestic apartment or building, especially in a palatium regis . The burthegn was an official who served this area.
• Camerarius
  An attendant who was in charge of a private room, known in Old English as a bedþen or burþen (= Burthegn ). See also Cubicularius .
• Cancellarius
  A royal chancellor, a post that only becomes known in England in the late Anglo-Saxon period.
• Castaldus
  Also spelt ‘castaldius’, ‘gastaldus’ and ‘gastoldus’. In eighth-century Lombard usage it referred to an administrator of royal estates. In later English usage it denoted a shire-reeve.
• Cellarius
  A variant spelling of cellerarius, its modern cognate is ‘cellarer’, a monk who was in charge of food supplies.
• Circweard
  An Old English word meaning literally ‘a guardian of a church’, it denoted a sexton.
• Clauiger
  Derived from clauis ‘a key’, in a monastic or ecclesiastical context the word denoted someone who kept the keys (such as a treasurer). It could also be used of St Peter or the pope, who symbolically bore the keys that gave entry to heaven. The word should not be confused with its homonym derived from clauus ‘a club’, which in Medieval Latin referred to an official who carried a mace.
• Coadjutor bishop
  A bishop appointed to assist a diocesan bishop in his duties. See also coepiscopus.
• Coepiscopus
  This was used in two senses. It could be used to refer to a fellow bishop or it could denote a coadjutor bishop .
• Colonus
  A rather imprecise term referring to a peasant or agricultural worker. It is used to gloss the Old English word gebur.
• Congregatio
  Frequently used of a monastic or cathedral community, it also retained its Classical Latin sense of ‘a gathering’.
• Consiliarius
  In general a counsellor or adviser, this term also had the more specific sense of a royal counsellor, a man known in vernacular sources as a wita.
• Cubicularius
  Denoting a bedroom attendant or chamberlain (especially of a king), it was a synonym for a camerarius and was likewise glossed by the Old English words burþen and bedþen (= Burthegn ).
• Curagulus
  Derived from the Late Latin ‘curam agere’ meaning a ‘care-taker’, it was used in tenth-century Anglo-Saxon sources to denote a ‘guardian’, especially a king or archbishop .
• Custos
  Having the basic sense of ‘a guardian’, the word could be used in a variety of contexts.
• Deacon
  The holder of an ecclesiastical office below that of a priest, a deacon assisted the priest in the office of the mass. In the early Middle Ages holders of the office held it for life and often did not proceed to a higher ecclesiastical office such as priest or bishop.
• Dean
  In origin a monastic official in charge of ten men (a decanus), a dean held the position of a prior, a position subordinate to an abbot.
• Decurio
  In origin an office held by a military commander of ten men, the term gained a more general sense of ‘a royal official’.
• Didasculus
  A Late Latin word borrowed from the Greek meaning ‘a teacher’.
• Disc thegn
  A dish-bearer or sewer. The word is the Old English equivalent of discifer . To judge from the land and wealth granted to various discthegns in the charters, it was not a humble position.
• Discifer
  A dish-bearer or sewer. When held in a royal household the office was of rather higher standing than the Modern English words might imply.
• Discipulus
  ‘A pupil’.
• Dux exercitus
  Commander of an army.
• Ealdorman
  Having the basic sense of ‘someone in authority over others’ and hence ‘a ruler’, this Old English word was used specifically to refer to a holder of high office in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, in standing above that of a thegn and approximating in status to a bishop. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is also used of Frankish mayors of the palace. In ninth-century Wessex the ealdorman had responsibilities for justice, the collection of dues within his geographic area of responsibility (usually a shire) and for the military leadership of the local levy. The term could represent several Latin words: dux, praefectus, princeps and patricius . See Publications.
• Economus
  A manager of an ecclesiastical or monastic estate or household, a steward.
• Electus
  Employed without an accompanying noun to denote an archbishop or bishop elect.
• Exactor regis
  ‘a king’s reeve’. The word exactor developed through the sense of ‘one who demands or exacts’ to ‘a collector (of taxes)’ and hence ‘a reeve’, the collection of estate dues being one of the latter official’s functions.
• Exorcista
  An exorcist, the holder of third degree in holy orders.
• Fasellus
  Cognate with the word ‘vassal’, the word appears in Asser’s Life of Alfred and some early tenth-century sources.
• Gemot participant
  The Old English gemot ‘a meeting’ implied that it was attended by people, even if they are not directly referred to in the text. PASE has created ‘anonymi’ to record the implied attendance of such persons.
• Geneat
  A peasant freeman of superior standing who was not subject to week-work and who performed a variety of duties described in the legal tract called Rectitudines singularum personarum.
• Gubernator
  Having the general sense of ‘a governor or ruler’, either secular (i.e., a king) or ecclesiastical (i.e., a bishop), it was also used in maritime contexts to denote ‘a helmsman of a ship’. It is frequently used in the royal styles of some Anglo-Saxon kings from the reign of Alfred, king of the West Saxons (871-899), onwards.
• Heretoga
  In general, ‘a (military) commander’ (the word did not necessarily have the negative connotations that the word here held in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). More specifically it denoted an ealdorman, a sense that probably developed from the latter’s military functions.
• High Reeve
  A reeve of high rank, possibly having a special commission like a Carolingian missus . The term may have originated in Northumbria. It cannot be shown to be older than the tenth century. See also king’s high-reeve.
• Hired
  A household; a retinue; a (military) company.
• Housecarl
  This term appears in Anglo-Saxon England in the reign of Cnut (1017-1035) and refers to a body of household troops, who, however, appear to have had more than just military functions (such as tax collection) and who were given grants of land. The term is Danish in origin and seems to have approximated to the native word thegn, both terms sometimes being applied to the same persons in the sources.
• Imperator
  From its root sense of ‘one who commands’, the word had the general sense of ‘a military commander’ but was frequently used to denote an emperor and after 800, specifically, the Holy Roman Emperor.
• Induperator
  A word created for metrical reasons in Classical Latin as a synonym for imperator [e1161] ‘an emperor’, it was used in Anglo-Saxon sources of particular rulers, usually kings.
• Iudex
  Used in association with comitatus, it denotes the judge of a shire court (Old English scirman).
• King’s geneat
  A peasant freeman who doubtless had much the same rights and obligations as an ordinary geneat but who would have held higher status because his overlord was a king.
• King’s high-reeve
  This was a high official who had a wergeld (the compensation payable if he were killed) below that of an ealdorman but equivalent to a Danish hold.
• King’s Thegn
  An official whose status was enhanced by holding office of a king. Cf. thegn.
• Lector
  From its root sense of ‘someone who reads’ the word gained the sense of ‘teacher’ (i.e., one who reads aloud to students). In ecclesiastical contexts it had several senses: a member of the second of the minor orders; an official in the papal curia; or the person who read aloud during lessons or during meals in a monastic setting.
• Legates
  An envoy or legate, private, royal, imperial, episcopal or papal, according to the context.
• Legatio
  A delegation.
• Leodbisceop
  Plummer in his edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle interprets this word as meaning ‘suffragan bishop’, Whitelock in her translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as ‘diocesan bishop’. Leod means ‘a people’, which would suggest the meaning for the compound word of ‘the bishop of a people’. This is not inappropriate as Anglo-Saxon bishops are often associated with particular ethnic groups rather than with an episcopal see located in a specific place.
• Marchio
  ‘A lord or master’. In Anglo-Saxon England the word did not have either the specific sense of ‘margrave’ that it had on the Continent or ‘marquis’, a sense that it gained in Anglo-Norman England.
• Marchisus
  In Continental sources contemporaneous with the Anglo-Saxon period the word denoted someone who held the title of marquis.
• Mass priest
  A priest who celebrated mass but who lived as a layman, i.e., not in a religious community or subject to a rule such as that of Chrodegang.
• Mercator
  This could refer to a person exercising any trade, craft or occupation and not simply a merchant.
• Metropolitan bishop
  A bishop who in theory exercised jurisdiction over what had originally been a Roman province with the right to consecrate bishops within his province, to summon periodic synods of the bishops in his province and to exercise disciplinary jurisdiction over the province. In practice the establishment of non-Roman kingdoms sometimes superseded the old Roman provincial boundaries.
• Monarchus
  A ruler, most usually referring to a king, but in ecclesiastical contexts the word can denote an anchorite, abbot or bishop. The word, which is a Late Latin borrowing from the Greek, can appear in the form monarcha, monarches or monarchus.
• Nonnus
  This refers to a senior or respected monk and should not be confused with nonna ‘a nun’.
• Notarius
  A notary. In the Anglo-Saxon period the term is employed in an ecclesiastical or monastic context.
• Offestre
  A woman who received a child into her own house to nurse.
• Patricius
  Originally a title of honour in the Roman imperial court, this term was used in various polities for holders of a high office such as a governor of a province among the Burgundians and a mayor of the palace among the Franks. Among the Anglo-Saxons it was originally used of subreguli and even reges. From the later eighth century it seems to be used occasionally of a single important figure within a realm but disappears in the ninth century. Thacker has suggested that it was resurrected to recognize the pre-eminence of Æthelred, lord of the Mercians in the later ninth century. It is used twice by Æthelweard adjectivally in his Chronicle as a Latinate equivalent of the first element of his name Æthel- ‘noble’. See also Quaestor.
• Pedisequus
  In contrast to its meaning during Antiquity, when the word referred to an attendant, usually a slave (literally ‘one who followed the feet [of a master]’), in early Anglo-Saxon charters it refers to a high royal official whose duties, however, are uncertain. The word is spelt in a variety of ways including pedes sessor, pedesecus and pedisecus. Cf. also Sesquipedus.
• Pincerna
  A word that signified a person who served wine or acted as a butler, it appears to have designated a person who held a position of high status within a royal court at least up to the time of Asser.
• Pontifex
  A word frequently used to denote a bishop, it is also used in the phrase ‘summus pontifex’ (‘highest priest’) to refer to an archbishop or the pope.
• Port reeve
  An officer known to have existed in Bath, Bodmin, Canterbury and London, he witnessed legal transactions such as the sale of slaves and collected the toll or royal tax on such transactions. ‘Port’ here does not refer to a harbour but to an enclosed town where the buying and selling of goods was permitted.
• Portarius
  A monk in charge of guest service at a monastery.
• Potestas
  Senior dignitaries in a realm.
• Praeco
  This word normally means ‘a herald’. It use in the record of the synodal settlement of a land dispute of 824 to designate a representative of Pope Eugenius II. Dorothy Whitelock interpreted the word in this context to mean ‘a messenger’, though since the person concerned had an Anglo-Saxon name, his role might have been slightly different.
• Praefectus
  In early Northumbrian sources the term appears to be used of a high-level office-holder. The word is used especially in late-eighth and early-ninth-century West Saxon charters for an ealdorman; thereafter it seems to be superseded by dux . Praepositus is also used as the equivalent of the Old English gerefa ‘a reeve’.
• Praepositus
  Because this had the basic sense of ‘someone who had oversight or charge of an organization’, the word had a very wide range of meanings dependent on the context in which it is found. In an ecclesiastical setting the word could denote a bishop, a priest, an abbot, the person second in rank to an abbot (a praepositus coenobii ) or a prior; in early tribal government a significant official under a king and, in later sources, a shire-reeve; finally, in the case of a landed estate, the word could also denote a reeve (a person with responsibility for the fiscal management of landed property).
• Praepositus coenobii
  This was a monk who ranked second after an abbot, having particular responsibilities for manorial and household management.
• Praeses
  A senior dignitary in a kingdom.
• Praesul
  A bishop.
• Precentor
  A person who chants the liturgical offices. See also Chanter.
• Predux
  A guide. It is used in a charter with suspicious features of Edgar, king of England (957-975), as part of his royal style.
• Presbyter
  The usual Latin word (derived from the Greek) for a priest.
• Primates
  The senior officials in a kingdom.
• Primicerius
  A senior dignitary in church or state. It appears in many royal styles from the time of Alfred, king of the West Saxons (871-899), onwards as a synonym for a ruler.
• Primicerius notariorum
  A dignitary holding an office in the papal court.
• Princeps
  A word indicating someone holding a high office, including, in Anglo-Saxon documents, an ealdorman, and more generally, a leading man of a tribe or people. In eighth-century Mercian charters the term sometimes appears to be the equivalent of dux; in others it implies seniority to the latter. The term seems in both Mercia and Wessex to have had associations with persons of royal blood or those of families of formerly royal status. It is rarely used in early Northumbrian sources as a title.
• Princeps domus
  This is used by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica iii.4 to denote the head of a queen’s household.
• Principatus
  Part of the style in one charter of Æthelred, lord of the Mercians (died 911).
• Prior
  The most senior monastic official under an abbot.
• Procer
  A dignitary of unspecific rank and function.
• Procurator
  A term used in Medieval Latin for a number of offices, including a manorial officer or steward.
• Propincernarius
  The term is used in one charter of Eadwig, king of England (955-959), it is of uncertain meaning. It is possibly a variant of propinquarius ‘kinsman’ or a nonce-word based on propinquus with some such meaning as ‘member of an entourage’.
• Propugnator
  Used in several charters as part of the royal style of Eadred, king of England (946-955), and once by his successor, Eadwig (955-959), in the phrase Brettonum propugnator, which appears to mean ‘mighty fighter against the Britains’. It is also used once in a charter of Æthelred, king of England (975-1016), where ‘Britains’ is replaced by ‘pagans’.
• Quaestor
  Originally a Roman officer in Antiquity with responsibility for the pecuniary matters in the state, by the ninth century it was used of a trustee who looked after the material side of a church’s affairs. Presumably because it involved guardianship it was title used by the chronicler, Æthelweard, of himself as a play on the latter part of his name (weard ‘a guardian’). See also Patricius .
• Referendarius
  An official in a royal court who received petitions.
• Regimen
  The word is used of a ruler of the Hwicce in an eighth-century charter.
• Regionarius
  A deacon or sub-deacon who was head of one of the seven ‘regions’ or wards of Rome.
• Regulus
  A ruler below the rank of a king.
• Sacerdos
  A word that can signify either a priest or a bishop.
• Sacerdotus
  A rare word apparently referring to a priest.
• Sacrist
  A monk have responsibility for the care of sacred vessels, relics and other items such as a liber vitae within a conventual church.
• Sacristan
  A sexton, an official charged with the duty of caring for the fabric of a church and its contents.
• Satraps
  An ealdorman or other dignitary subordinate to a king.
• Sequipedus
  Probably a variant of the Latin word pedisequus.
• Signifer
  Someone who bore a pennon or banner, usually in a martial context. The word appears in a single tenth-century charter that might be corrupt or interpolated.
• Speculator
  A bishop. Presumably this Latin term represents an attempt to replicate roots of the Greek term episcopos, ‘one who oversees’.
• Sub-deacon
  A person in the lowest of the three major ecclesiastical orders, he had especial responsibilities in the mass, viz., to prepare the bread, wine and sacramental vessels, present the chalice and paten at the offertory and remove the vessels after the mass.
• Sub-king
  This could denote someone who was king over a polity that was in some way subject to another kingdom or to a person, such as the son of a king, who had been designated to rule a defined portion of a kingdom.
• Subregulus
  In Anglo-Saxon charters this word can designate an ealdorman or a subordinate ruler. It is used as part of the style of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, in a charter jointly issued by him and Alfred, king of Wessex (871-899). See also Sub-king.
• Swine-reeve
  A bailiff or steward (presumably) on an estate who was responsible for the fiscal aspects of the holding of pigs (such as annual payments in kind).
• Thelonarius
  A collector of tolls.
• Thesaurarius
  A treasurer, a royal or ecclesiastical functionary with a very important custodial role in an era when there were no banks.
• Tribune
  This word is used in a poetic context by Alcuin to designate a high official.
• Tyrant
  A term used a few times in Æthelweard’s Chronicle to when referring to the leader of a viking warband.
• Vassalus
  A term used occasionally in tenth-century charters of an official owing loyalty to a king. Cf. Fasellus.
• Vicecomes
  A shire-reeve (later sheriff). The word appears in three charters of uncertain authenticity and so may be a borrowing from the post-Conquest period.
• Vicedominus
  Shire-reeve (later sheriff).
• Wealhgefera
  In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 897, this word refers to someone who had superintendence over people of British origin on behalf of a king. A gefera was in essence a companion or colleague. Some manuscripts read wealhgerefa, ‘a reeve with responsibilities over the British’, which might be the more accurate reading.
• Wicgerefa
  A reeve with responsibilities over a settlement (more specifically, a trading settlement). One holder of the office held his position in Winchester. He probably had to witness legal transactions involving the sale of goods and may well have had to collect toll, a royal tax. Cf. Port reeve.
• Wita
  An Old English word, literally meaning ‘a wise person’ (plural: witan), it usually referred to counsellors of a king, who frequently met together in a so-called witenagemot (‘a meeting of counsellors’) to give the king advice.
• Witan
  The body of counsellors that advised an Anglo-Saxon king. See also wita.

Placetypes

• Agellus
  A small field and, more generally, a farm.
• Arcisterium
  (= archisterium)
  A monastery, a chief place such as a cathedral and, in a spiritual sense, a dwelling (Willibrord, for instance, is referred to as a ‘hermit, a dwelling of the Holy Spirit’).
• Arx
  A fortress or fortified settlement, approximately equivalent to a number of vernacular words such as fæsten and geweorc.
• Aula
  In general, ‘a hall’, it was used specifically of a church and, especially, of a royal court.
• Burh
  This word denoted a wide range of settlements over the Anglo-Saxon period. In early records it could signify an Iron Age hillfort or a monastic site (which was often demarcated by some kind of curvilinear bank). From the eighth century in Mercia a burh was a fortified settlement. These were developed especially in the reigns of Alfred, king of the West Saxons (871-899) and his son, Edward ‘the Elder’ (899-924), into a network of defensive sites against the viking incursions. In the late Anglo-Saxon period it could be used of a manorial site with defences, the memory of which is preserved in many places called ‘Kingsbury’.
• Capella
  A chapel and, when used by Alcuin, the staff of a royal household concerned with divine service.
• Castellum
  In Anglo-Saxon sources, this is used in two distinct senses: a walled town and, more generally, a hamlet or homestead.
• Castrum
  In the singular it denoted a walled town. When used in the plural, it retained its Classical Latin sense of a camp but also acquired the sense of a monastery, especially when followed by the word Dei (‘of God’).
• Cathedra
  An episcopal or archiepiscopal see.
• Ceaster
  Equated in sources to the Latin castellum, castrum and ciuitas, the term denoted ‘a fortified settlement’ and, more generally, a town surrounded by walls (made of brick, stone or earthen banks, possibly stockaded).
• Cellula
  Amongst other senses, the word was used specifically of a monastic cell and could more generally be used of a small house of religion.
• Cenobium
  A religious house for communal living, generally translated as ‘monastery’, though it could describe establishments that did not observe the strict details of a specific monastic rule.
• Civitas
  A major town, particularly one that was an episcopal see.
• Clymiterium
  (= clymeterium)
  An oratory. This word, which appears in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, is glossed in the later Old English version by the words gebædhus and cirican (‘house of prayer and church’).
• Collis
  Latin for ‘a hill’, it probably represented quite a wide range of vernacular words such as dun.
• Diuersorium
  An inn or guesthouse.
• Fæsten
  A fortress. Cf. Geweorc.
• Fen
  A wetlands area navigable in the Middle Ages almost solely by boat or punt extending from Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire to East Anglia.
• Geweorc
  One of a number of words used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to denote a fortified place (cf. Fæsten), equivalent to the Latin arx . The contexts seem to imply that it was not occupied by a permanently settled community as a burh was.
• Haga
  In a rural context it refers to a fenced enclosure. In an urban context it can denote a dwelling or a messuage.
• Hospitium
  An inn. In a monastic setting it referred to the guesthouse.
• Locus
  Simply meaning ‘a place’, the word was frequently used in association with a place-name such as in cognominato loco Ottanforda ‘in the place called Otford’, especially in Æthelweard’s Chronicle.
• Monasterium
  Denoting a religious community that lived communally, the word did not necessarily indicate one that lived by a specific monastic rule, that consisted of monks (it was also used of a community of canons) or that comprised members of only one sex. Since the Modern English ‘monastery’ tends to have the latter associations, the Latin word has in general been retained. Cenobium and the Old English word mynster (also spelt minster) had much the same range of meanings.
• Mynster
  Denoting a religious community that lived communally, this Old English word derived from the Latin monasterium did not necessarily indicate one that lived by a specific monastic rule, that consisted of monks (it was also used of a community of canons) or that comprised members of only one sex. Since the Modern English ‘monastery’ tends to have the latter associations, the Old English word has in general been retained. Cenobium and monasterium had much the same range of meanings. The word also had the associated meaning of a church (collegiate or cathedral): when used in this sense, it is usually spelt ‘minster’ in the PASE database (as in ‘Old Minster, Winchester’).
• Oppidum
  In Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica the word is used of York. A number of glosses seem to associate the word with a fortified settlement, though its precise nature seems to vary from ‘a city’ through ‘a town’ to simply ‘a fortified place’ (cf. Burh).
• Ora
  Depending on the context this can refer to the bank of a river, the seashore (especially in the plural), or a region or land.
• Oratorium
  An oratory, either as a separate structure or as part of a church. From the latter sense the word sometimes denotes a church itself.
• Pagus
  In general, ‘a village’ but also ‘a geographic district’. In the letter of Wealdhere, bishop of London, to Beorhtwald, archbishop of Canterbury, written in 704x705, the word signifies ‘the territory occupied by a people’.
• Palatium regis
  Literally ‘a palace of the king’, it was a place that a king and his retinue would visit on an occasional basis to receive the food-rent (feorm), hold assemblies for ceremonial, legal and consultative purposes, and use as a base for hunting and entertainment. Some 193 palatia are known from written sources; these include both urban and rural sites.
• Parochia
  A word spelt in Hiberno-Latin paruchia, it denoted in Late Latin in Gaul a rural community with a regularly staffed church often headed by an archipresbyter (and thus not unlike the Anglo-Saxon mynster ), as opposed to a ciuitas headed by a bishop. In British usage it signified a territory that was subject to an episcopal church (though separate from it). In Irish usage it applied to a collection of daughter houses controlled by the abbot of the mother house. In Anglo-Saxon usage it often signified the territory subject to a bishop.
• Porticus
  Chambers constructed at the sides of apses and naves in Anglo-Saxon churches used especially as sacristies and places of burial.
• Praedium
  Landed property held by the superiority of a lord as opposed to being held by tenancy.
• Prouincia
  Used rather imprecisely especially in eighth-century sources, like regio, to designate a division of a kingdom based probably more on kinship and ethnic ties than on any specific administrative function.
• Regio
  A term used rather imprecisely especially in eighth-century sources, like prouincia, to designate a division of a kingdom based probably more on kinship and ethnic ties than on any specific administrative function.
• Rivulus
  A rivulet or stream.
• Rivus
  A river bank.
• Ruricola
  A small estate.
• Schola Saxonum
  Specifically a hospice for Anglo-Saxons organized as a corporation and, more generally, the quarter of Rome occupied by it (near the present-day church of S. Spirito in Sassia), mentioned, for instance, in Asser’s Life of Alfred. It was supported by money sent from England known as Peter’s Pence or Romscot.
• Secretarium
  The sacristy, vestry or parlour of a church.
• Stow
  In general ‘a place’, and more specifically, ‘a place where people assemble’ and hence ‘a holy place’.
• Tellus
  Having the general sense of ‘a land’, the word could also denote a kingdom.
• Terra
  A piece of land, cultivated or able to be cultivated; more generally, a territory or kingdom.
• Urbs
  Denoting ‘a city’, a settlement that in the Anglo-Saxon period would neither have had the density of settlement or extent of its modern counterpart.
• Urbs regia
  A phrase meaning ‘royal city’ used once in Æthelweard’s Chronicle with reference to the sacking of Winchester by the vikings in 860. Since there are no equivalent vernacular words used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the description presumably reflects Æthelweard’s perception of the status of Winchester in the late tenth century.
• Viculus
  A small village. Cf. Vicus.
• Vicus
  A settlement without defences and not having the rank of a civitas or ‘city’.
• Villa Regalis
  A royal establishment, usually acting as a central place for the receipt of food rent (feorm) and other dues. Also called in the sources uilla regia and uilla regis. See also Palatium regis.
• Villa venatoria
  A landed property devoted to hunting.
• Villula
  A small village; a rural estate.
• Villulus
  A small village; a rural estate. Presumably a variant of uillula.
• Wic
  A word used to signify an early trading settlement, usually located on a shoreline, estuary or river bank where boats could be beached. It is found as an element in a number of Anglo-Saxon place-names (Lundenwic ‘London’ and Eoforwic ‘York’) as well as being preserved in some modern place-name such as Ipswich.

Possession types

• Curtis
  A word that developed a wide range of meanings. Originally it referred to the fence that surrounded a garden or farmstead from which derived the meanings of ‘a fenced off property or homestead’, hence ‘a farmyard’, ‘a manor’, ‘an estate’, ‘a central manor’ and thus ‘a royal palace’. Following from this last sense it came to denote ‘a royal court’ and the household that supported it.
• Haga Originally meaning ‘a hedge’ in Old English, the word developed the sense of ‘an enclosed place’ and the further associated meanings of ‘a dwelling-place’, ‘a messuage’ and, in London, ‘an urban tenement’.
• Pallium
  This was a Late Roman item of liturgical dress, being a woollen band that was draped round the shoulders and hung down in front. For the popes it was a symbol of apostolic succession and it gained distinction by being granted by Pope Gregory the Great to various bishops, including Augustine of Canterbury. It became the norm for the archbishop of Canterbury and then also the archbishop of York to receive the pallium from the pope as a mark of his office. The honour was also extended to Willibrord and Boniface on the Continent. By the tenth century English archbishops were expected to travel to Rome to receive this vestment.

Status

• Adolescens
  According to Isidore of Seville adolescentia was one of six ages of Man falling between pueritia (‘boyhood’) and iuuentus; according to Isidore it designated someone capable of procreation and fell between the ages of 14 and 28.
• Æthelboren
  An Old English term for someone who was nobly born.
• Ætheling
  A prince of an Anglo-Saxon royal family, sharing with a reigning king descent from a common grandfather and eligible for succession to the throne. It appears to have been a status rather than an office. In some early eleventh-century law codes the ætheling is given the status of an archbishop and was second only to a king. See also Clito.
• Bretwalda
  A term used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 827, of Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons (802-839), meaning something like ‘ruler of Britain’. It was probably not a formal office but used by the Chronicler (following Bede, who employed the word imperium ‘power’) to designate those kings who gained hegemony over areas of Britain south of the Humber more extensive than simply their own kingdom. Yorke has suggested kings in the eighth and ninth centuries ‘preferred titles which accurately reflected the extent of their real power to those which defined a vaguer hegemony’.
• Burgess
  Literally ‘those who lived in a burh ‘, they held a status that changed over time as these settlements evolved from sites with publicly maintained defences but perhaps quite thinly settled to more densely populated urban settlements that fostered active trade.
• Ceorl
  A word of wide semantic range, it could be used simply to refer to a male person, but it could also have a disparaging social sense of ‘peasant’ or ‘rustic’ and a more legal sense denoting someone who was a member of the ordinary class of freeman (in contrast to an eorl, who was a person of high legal standing). It also was used as a personal name.
• Cild
  Cognate with Modern English ‘child’ and in many Anglo-Saxon literary sources having that meaning, the word developed the sense of ‘a youth of noble birth, prince’ and then became a title held by a youth of noble birth. It could also be used as a by-name and as a personal name.
• Ciuis
  A citizen or, more generally, an inhabitant of a place such as a town or a country.
• Cliens
  A servant, attendant or a retainer. In an educational context it can denote a pupil.
• Clito
  Possibly derived from a Greek word, it was an elevated term for a prince, representing the Old English word ætheling . It first appears in Anglo-Saxon sources in the tenth century.
• Comes
  In eighth-century Northumbria the term was used of senior members of the comitatus on their own property (see Duguth). In Mercia it seems to refer to royal companions who might be described as an ealdorman, as is the case in Kent. In West Saxon charters comites usually only attest in the late eighth-century, which is possibly evidence of Mercian influence. The term became generally archaic in the ninth century. In Continental sources the word came to prominence under the Carolingians referring to someone who might formerly have been described as a dux and survived thereafter to describe men exercising higher levels of jurisdiction.
• Comitatus
  A company or retinue of a lord (not to be confused with the same word in the sense of the office or territory of an ealdorman or eorl or in the specifically territorial sense of ‘a shire’)
• Comitissa
  In Anglo-Saxon contexts it refers to the wife of an ealdorman or eorl.
• Conciuis
  A fellow citizen (used specifically of membership of the heavenly city).
• Congregatio ciuitatis
  Used once to describe an assembly of the city of Winchester.
• Cyneboren
  This word is used to denote someone of royal birth.
• Domina
  Used of a woman such as a queen as a courtesy title and a mark of respect.
• Dominus
  Used of a man such as a king, senior ecclesiastic or saint as a courtesy title and a mark of respect.
• Dux
  In general a leader (especially a military one) but specifically in Anglo-Saxon sources someone holding the office of ealdorman or eorl . The term seems to come into use to designate senior noblemen in the latter part of the eighth century in Mercia and Northumbria, and from the 820s in Wessex.
• Eorl
  A person of noble rank (as opposed to a ceorl ), in poetic sources the word simply denotes a warrior. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it frequently refers to a Scandinavian jarl (often as a title, used in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon ealdorman ) until the time of Cnut, when the word began to refer to someone with responsibility for one of the major land-divisions in England and became practically synonymous with ealdorman.
• Gebur
  A peasant with free status but holding land from an overlord in return for rent and services.
• Gesith
  Literally ‘someone who journeys [with someone else]’ and hence ‘a companion’, the term appears in the earliest English laws designating a man of high status, probably arising out of his relationship as a member of the personal entourage of a king. With royal service came land. As the term evolved in the eighth and ninth centuries it came to represent a noble and/or landholder without connotations of service, after which time it passed out of use.
• Hold
  A Danish title signifying someone of high status intermediate in rank between an ealdorman and a thegn, with a wergeld (the compensation payable if he were killed) double that of the latter and equivalent to that of a king’s high-reeve.
• Homo
  Although this word could be used specifically of a male person, it could also be used of a human being of either sex, (in the plural, homines ‘people’), a range of meanings shared with the Old English man.
• Ignobilis
  A man of humble status (in contrast to a nobilis).
• Infans
  An infant, more generally a child, and specifically in monastic contexts, an oblate child.
• Iuuenis
  In general, a mature young person (of either sex), and, according to Isidore of Seville, was a person in the prime of life, older than an adolescens; the period extended from after twenty-eight years to the age of fifty.
• King pollens potestate
  Literally a king ‘who is mighty in power’, the phrase is used in Æthelweard’s Chronicle to represent the word Bretwalda used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 827.
• Maior
  Through its comparative sense of ‘greater’, this word gained a wide range of meanings: ‘an older person’, i.e., someone greater by birth and hence in the plural, ‘ancestors’; also, someone greater in importance or authority, ‘a noble’, and in the plural ‘noblemen, magnates or important people’. When used with domus it was used of Merovingian mayors of the palace.
• Matricularius
  In origin this term denoted someone who appeared on a church’s list of the poor that permanently received a dole. Derived from the word for a mother church (‘matrix’), it gained various associated meanings from ‘sexton’ to ‘bishop’. The word was used especially by Alcuin as a mark of humility to signify that he was a servant of a church.
• Paterfamilias
  The Latin term for the head of a household (which extended beyond those related by blood), he had held significant powers under Roman Law.
• Peregrinus
  An ascetic who renounced his kindred to go on a peregrinatio or religious journey (sometimes lasting a lifetime) away from his native land; more generally it referred to a pilgrim.
• Primates
  The plural form of primas used collectively of persons of note, usually the dignitaries of a kingdom.
• Primatus
  ‘First/Chief men’, a term used in Æthelweard’s Chronicle, where in one instance it is the equivalent of the word witan in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
• Principes
  The plural of princeps, this term in general referred to rulers and, more specifically, was used to designate ealdormen or other senior dignitaries.
• Puer
  A word of wide semantic range, it could retain its Classical sense of ‘a boy’ and, in the context of a religious community, ‘an oblate’, but in other contexts could also refer to a servant or a slave. In both Willibald’s Life of Boniface and Alcuin’s letters there are instances where it denotes an armed retainer.
• Rusticus
  A peasant. In Æthelweard’s Chronicle the plural form is used as the equivalent of cirlisce men ‘men who were ceorls‘.
• Sapiens
  Having the basic sense of ‘wise’, the word was used as a noun in the British and Irish Churches to denote a scholar (as in ‘Gildas sapiens’). In the plural, sapientes, it could signify in Anglo-Saxon charters the body of counsellors of the king known as the witan.
• Secundarius
  As used by Asser in his Life of Alfred, the word denoted a ‘joint king’.
• Senator
  Used in two charters to describe senior dignitaries of the Mercian kingdom.
• Senex
  According to Isidore of Seville, a senex was a member of the oldest of six ages of Man, a person who was older than a senior and thus over seventy years of age.
• Senior
  A principal or chief member of a community, the word was often used of the senior monks in a monastic community. It could also denote one of six ages of Man as defined by Isidore of Seville, following iuuentus (which ended at aged fifty) and preceding senectus (‘old age’). It extended from the age of fifty to seventy years of age.
• Sodalis
  A comrade.
• Thegn
  Having the basic meaning of ‘one who serves’, the word could refer to wide spectrum of social statuses. Usually, however, it referred to someone of high social status (though below the rank of ealdorman ), typically referred to as a minister in Latin sources, who served a king in an administrative and a military capacity. Loyn noted that the term was used from the seventh century of ‘a royal servant sent on royal business to a locality not his own’. They become especially prominent in ninth-century West Saxon charters. By the end of Anglo-Saxon period a royal thegn could hold a substantial amount of bookland, could represent the king in shire meetings and might even possess a personal seal. There were various sub-categories of thegn such as disc thegn, bishop’s thegn and hors-thegn.
• Theod
  A people, nation or tribe.
• Vilicus
  As used in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, it refers to a person responsible for a landed estate, i.e., a steward.