Warrior Class

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hi,

I must remark that knight is not the word used in Northgermanic.
Except of Iceland also all the other Scandinavian  countries use the
word 'riddare'(Sw.) and closely related words. Hence Gothic would
rather be supposed to have used reidareis or similar to mark a feudal
knight since Gothic lies very close to Swedish in its construction.

Concerning Northgermanic the  word *þegnaz is quite okey. On Swedish
and Danish runestones we have þegn/thegn and a simpler state dræng.
Thegn is OE thane, knight, and dræng is rather a warrior in royal
service and could be related to drauthin in a way even if the top
title, head of the royal guard and second in command as well was
'drott'. Later 'drott' becomes cognate with prince/furste and king.

Knekt(Sw.) as well is a military title in the Middle Ages for a
professional warrior in subordinate position.


Best
Ingemar



--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Justïn <justinelf@> wrote:
> >
> > I definitely see the need for the semantic difference, but is 
> there a
> > reason I should prefer kaballareis over knaíhts?
> 
> Well, that's a matter of personal taste. Speaking for myself, I 
> wouldn't use *knaihts because:
> 
> 1. Its "real world" cognates are not attested outside West Germanic. 
> That is, not only in Gothic is it unknown, which fact could be 
> explained by scarcity of the delivered vocabulary, but also in North 
> Germanic. This makes me think that the formation (kneht) was 
> dialectal and perhaps relatively late as well and thus impossible to 
> exist in Gothic even theoretically.
> 
> 2. The basic meaning preserved in the continental languages 
> is "servant" rather than "knight". Yes, the semantic development 
> from "servant" to "(noble) warrior" was not unique with this word, 
> cf. OGrm. *þegnaz. But then, why not take attested magus, for 
> instance, and specialize it? Or to use a composite *drauhti-magus 
> (ON dróttmögr) – cf. attested þiu-magus "slave"?
> 
> 3. Subjectively, I wouldn't like reconstructed Gothic to be too much 
> close to Modern English or any other modern language, without 
> sufficient reasons as it seems to be here :)
> 
> > My first preference
> > would be knaíhts because of the Germanic connotation verses a
> > Romantic interference, though I am aware of the Gothic exposure to
> > Romance languages via Spain, etc.
> 
> Yes, amongst Gothic warfare terms we already have militon "to do a 
> military service" < Lat. militare, and annons "soldier's salary"
> < Lat. annonae. These both are absent in other branches of Germanic. 
> And they illustrate the contacts with the Roman military 
> organization, long before the Goths arrived in Spain etc. The words 
> were there already in the 4th ct., with Visigoths residing north of 
> the Danube. I don't know since when caballarius started to refer 
> to "heavy-armored horseman" in Vulgar Latin, and where this happened 
> first. The Visigoths could have taken it from lingua militaris of 
> their Roman allies, themselves being formally a part of the Roman 
> army. And, curiously as it may seem, Isidor of Sevilla (570-638) 
> used caballarius in the meaning "stableman", if I don't mistake, and 
> he was a Visigoth.
> 
> Kaballarja in the deed is a toponym. *Kaballareis could be 
> a "knight" quite well.
> 
> > Would not knight [horseman] have possibly found its way to a noble
> > connotation in Gothic culture theoretically?  Did it finds its way
> > there in any culture other than Anglo-Saxon?
> 
> Kneht – not outside English, for all I know. "Horseman" > "knight" – 
> practically everywhere in West Europe.
> 
> P.S. How about translating the wiki article "Knight" into Gothic? :)
> 
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans@> 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Some thoughts on Gothic knights.
> > >
> > > In most European languages (all except English afaik) "knight"
> > > is "horseman", literally. Although the Goths didn't have knights 
> in
> > > the proper sense of the word, they did have cavalry. The 
> Ostrogoths
> > > are said to borrow the practice of the mounted warriorship from
> > > their Hunnish and Alanic neighbors. They must have had a word 
> for a
> > > horseman, right? Of course, they could have borrowed the item
> > > together with the word for it. Not that they had never seen a man
> > > riding on horseback before they contacted East European nomads. 
> The
> > > hypothetical loan could refer to some particular kind of cavalry,
> > > e.g. auxiliary Alans. The problem is we don't know the Alanic or
> > > Hunnish word either. Modern Ossetic has baræg for "horseman", 
> but I
> > > don't know if it's not a later loan from some North Caucasian
> idiom.
> > > Somehow it doesn't look like inherited Iranian. I'd expect
> something
> > > with Ir. aspa- (Oss. jæfs-) as the first element. Maybe the Goths
> > > would substitute it with their IE cognate aihva-, who knows...
> > >
> > > To construct the word from the Germanic vocabulary, I can think 
> of
> > > substantivized *reidands (declined like frijonds). *Reidareis
> > > suggested by Llama seems OK, too, only I haven't seen -areis 
> added
> > > to a strong verb. Which doesn't mean this was absolutely 
> impossible.
> > >
> > > Finally, there's an option of "going Romance" and constructing
> > > *kaballareis M.-ja, after French chevalier, Castilian caballero,
> > > Italian cavaliere etc. We have Kaballarja attested (in Arezzo
> deed).
> > > Personally I like it best. Neo-Gothic lexicographs can load it 
> with
> > > all that feudal semantics we associate with knights. And there 
> will
> > > be a diffenece between "knight" (kaballareis) and "horseman"
> > > (reidands) to be made.
> > >
> > > Ualarauans
>


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