[gothic-l] The Gothic equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon Thegn

Fri Mar 20 20:40:50 UTC 2015

I wouldn't have guessed their was, given my years of Latin and Germanic
languages studying. Even the "source" given in the wiki looked sketchy. But
I'd like to think that somehow a similar meaning was given, or something
akin to a friendship, be it militaristic or not. Some attribute Russian's
друг to have the same root as this *druhtiz. But as far as meaning, it's
fairly obvious it didn't get so far in the Germanic languages. It remained
fairly militaristic.

Also, I do have a slight bone to pick with drauhtiwitoþ, at least the
translation. Given the secondary word is witoþ, would it not be noteworthy
to incorporate its meaning into the greater word? Effectively war-law,
something like set rules for waging war or fighting for a particular army?
Think perhaps Geneva Convention, but without it being as modern nor
international of course. Or an army's or nation's particular way of waging
war. What do you think?
On Mar 20, 2015 3:12 PM, "edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l]" <
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> Dear Johann,
>
> Sorry. My question was rhetorical. There is in fact no evidence. The early
> Germanic cognates do not allow one to reconstruct the specific meaning
> 'comitatus;' at best, one must settle for 'host, retinue (of some kind)',
> although 'comitatus' certainly could be subsumed in this broad semantic
> field:
>
> Gothic: drauhti-witoth 'military service'
> ON: drott 'household, people; host of the king's men, bodyguard of a king'
> OE: dryht 'people, multitude, army'
> OFris: drecht 'wedding entourage'
> OS: druht-folk 'army'
> MHG: truht 'troop, squad, platoon'
>
> Edmund
>
>
> ---In Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com, <anheropl0x at ...> wrote :
>
> There isn't. As far as I know. That's why I said what I said. Although
> gmail decided to make the text super tiny for some unknown reason.
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 2:36 PM, edmundfairfax at ... [gothic-l] <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dear Johann,
>
> Where is the evidence that *druhtiz means specifically a 'comitatus' and
> not merely 'host, band, multitude' broadly?
>
>
> ---In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, <anheropl0x at ...> wrote :
>
> This probably won't add too much, but I did find this on the wiki.
>
> "The Germanic term for the *comitatus* is reconstructed as **druhtiz*,
> with Old English <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English> forms *dryht*
> and *druht*, and Scandinavian
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_languages> *drótt*.[3]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comitatus_%28classical_meaning%29#cite_note-3>"
> Obviously *druhtiz became *drauhts in Gothic. But whether or not it did retain
> the older meaning, or if comitatus and *druhtiz actually do mean the same
> thing, I'm not yet sure. I'll try to look into it though.
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Marja Erwin marja-e at ... [gothic-l] <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mar 20, 2015, at 1:50 PM, edmundfairfax at ... [gothic-l] <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
> > As European history during the last 1500 years clearly shows, Christians
> have been no less warriorlike or militaristic than the infidel or heathen.
> Need I mention the Crusades, amongst many other examples?
> >
> > Edmund
>
> But Christianity covers a lot of ground. We’d need to figure out what the
> evidence says about Gothic Christianity, in particular, and which pattern
> that would fit in other branches of Christianity.
>
> So what evidence do we have?
>
> 1. The Passion of St. Saba and the other martyrologies.
>
> 2. Reading-choice and word-choice in the Gothic bible.
>
> 3. The claim that Wulfila was the son, or perhaps the grandson, of slaves.
>
> 4. The claim that Wulfila did not translate the four books of Kings.
>
> 5. The personal names of known Gothic Christians. Alareiks, of course, was
> named (or named himself) -reiks, but few known Christians of the previous
> generation had been so named, and some had been named (or named themselves)
> -thius.
>
> I think that’s enough to show a conversion from below, and a degree of
> conflict with existing power structures, and possibly with existing
> military institutions.
>
> I don’t think that’s enough to show whether or not they were leaning
> towards a peace church pattern before 376, and that had definitely changed
> by 395.
>
>
>
>
> --
> *Glaðliga ríða Noregs męnn til Hildar þings.*
>
>
>
>
> --
> *Glaðliga ríða Noregs męnn til Hildar þings.*
>
>  
>
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