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A thrall (Old Norse/Icelandic: þræll, Norwegian: trell, Danish: træl, Swedish: träl) was a slave or serf in Scandinavian lands during the Viking Age. The corresponding term in Old English was þēow. The status of slave (þræll, þēow ) contrasts with that of the freeman (karl, ceorl) and the nobleman (jarl, eorl). The Middle Latin rendition of the term in early Germanic law is servus. The social system of serfdom is continued in medieval feudalism.
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Etymology
Thrall is from the Old Norse þræll, meaning a person who is in bondage or serfdom. The Old Norse term was lent into late Old English, as þræl. The term is from a Common Germanic þragilaz ("runner", from a root *þreh- "to run"). Old High German had a cognate, dregil, meaning "servant, runner". The English derivation thraldom is of High Medieval date. The verb "to enthrall" is of Early Modern origin (metaphorical use from the 1570s, literal use from 1610).
The corresponding native term in Anglo-Saxon society was þeow (from Germanic *þewa-, perhaps from a PIE root *tekw-, "to run") A related Old English term is esne "labourer, hireling" (from Germanic *asniz, cognate with Gothic asneis "hireling", a derivation from *asunz "reward", from the same root as English earn)
Early Germanic law
The thrall represents the lowest of the three-tiered social order of the Germanic peoples, noblemen, freemen and slaves, in Old Norse jarl, karl and þræll (c.f. Rígsþula), in Old English corresponding to eorl, ceorl and þēow , in Old Frisian etheling, friling, lēt, etc. The division is of importance in the Germanic law codes, which make special provisions for slaves: Slaves are property, and may be bought and sold, but they also enjoy some amount of protection under the law. While the death of a freeman was compensated by means of a weregild, usually calculated at 200 solidi (shillings) for a freeman, the death of a slave was treated as loss of property to his owner and compensated depending on the value of the worker.
Society
Thralls were the lowest class of workers in Scandinavian society. They were Northern Europeans brought into slavery due to debt, the losers of wars, and the children of previous thralls. Thralls in Scandinavia had no rights and their living conditions were variable depending on the master. The thrall trade as the prize of plunder was a key part of the Viking economy. While there are some estimates of as many as thirty slaves per household, most families only owned one or two slaves.
In 1043, Hallvard Vebjørnsson, the son of a local nobleman in the district of greater Lier, was killed while trying to defend a thrall woman from men who accused her of theft. The Church strongly approved of his action, recognizing him as a martyr and canonizing him as Saint Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo.
Despite the existence of a caste system, thralls could experience a level of social fluidity. Thralls could be freed by their masters at any time, be freed in a will, or even buy their own freedom. Once a thrall was freed, he became a "freedman"—a member of an intermediary group between slaves and freemen. He still owed allegiance to his former master and would have to vote according to his former master's wishes. It took at least two generations for freedmen to lose the allegiance to their former masters and become full freemen. If a freedman had no descendants, his former master inherited his land and property.
While thralls and freedmen did not have much economic or political power in Scandinavia, they were still given a wergeld, or a man's price, which is to say, there was a monetary penalty for unlawfully killing a slave.
The Viking slave trade slowly ended in the 11th century, as a number of Vikings settled in the European territories they had once raided. They converted serfs to Christianity and merged with the local populace. The thrall system was finally abolished in the mid-14th century in Scandinavia.