The Anglo Saxon Reeve and Chaucer's Pilgrim

     I have been doing a close reading of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with a few friends and we are at the Reeve's description in the General Prologue. This seems like a good time to discuss the term 'reeve' and where it comes from.
    The reeve or 'rife' or 'gerifa' is a royal representative or local official of some sort. As an office, it is a leftover from the Anglo Saxon period. Some chroniclers glossed it as 'praefectus' or prefect. When William the Bastard conquered England in 1066 a.d., he found a very orderly system of administration in place and did not change the system, although he put a few of his own people in the top spots, because it was functioning and he did not want to bother with details. He just wanted the country and its wealth; he was not very concerned about its citizens. So the reeve survived and was not supplanted by an Anglo-Norman term. We know him as a 'sheriff' which is a syncopation of 'shire-reeve'. He had tax-collecting and judicial duties. He also could be a overseer of some estate, the duties were not fixed to the title.
     The 'shire' is a term that is derived from 'schir' which simply means 'share, portion, division'. It is a subsection of a country and is not identical to the term 'hide' or 'hid' (a unit of measure equal to about 120 acres but not necessarily). It probably replaced 'hide'.
     We tend to think of the modern reeve as a type of mayor for smaller communities. Mayor is a term brought over by the Norman Conquest. It is simply an 'anglicization' of a latin term: the comparative of bonus (good) which is maior (better). The superlative is optimus (best). It seems similar to ealdorman, which survives today as alderman or 'old man', 'elder'. Small wonder that term has been changed to councillor in some municipalities. The ealdorman seems to belong to the earlier Anglo-Saxon period in England to have been replaced in some ways by eorls but it seems to me to be similar to the term 'wita' or 'wise man/councillor' since the earls clearly had military duties which the wita may or may not have. The Witangemot was a meeting(gemot) of the wita (wisemen).  Some of the terms seem to be used interchangeably. Unfortunately there is no book written pre-Conquest explaining all these terms and the duties attached to them. We must infer them from what texts exist.
     Chaucer's reeve is the overseer of an estate or manor. As such, part of his duties would be to supervise the Miller and draw part of his salary from the Miller's earnings, so it is not surprising that the Miller and the Reeve get into a big quarrel.

Easter, the Goddess

Eastre or Ostara was an Anglo Saxon or Germanic goddess of the rising sun. She was only mentioned once by any writer and he was the Venerable Bede in De Temporum Ratione. Since the Bede does not have a sense of humor and he hates heretics and heathens, if he mentioned her worship, then she had to have been real.

She gave her name to Easter in the countries where the Germanic languages rule, otherwise people followed the Biblical word for it, 'pascha'. Easter is Pacques in French.

Grimm stated that she seemed to have a male counterpart in the Norse Eddas, Austri, but that Easter was not his feast. They seemed to have lost the goddess, if they ever worshipped her at all. Hence the Norse call Easter 'Paskir'.

The name comes from the direction of the rising sun, Ost. Bonfires were lit at Easter. As when the sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he gives three joyful leaps. Me, too. Water drawn on the Easter morning is holy and healing. It would be nice to know more about this goddess but the Medieval Christians thought these matters were not worth preserving. Pity really, I would like to know how the egg and the bunny fit in.

(image from Wikicommons)

Thingol Was a Wanker

There is a good explanation for the title of this piece. I have been busy learning the Anglo Saxon language, for which knowing Tolkien as well as I do has been really helpful. I have to chuckle, as I memorize word lists, when I come across edoras which means 'building'. Of course it does.

I have come across beam as well, which means 'tree' and is why Quickbeam was such a hasty ent. Speaking of ent, it is the word for 'giant' so of course the ents had to be large. Flet is floor. Mearh is horse. Beorn has 'bee' as a root, as well as meaning 'chief', so he must be a leader and there would be some large bees at his home. Wine means 'friend'. Brandywine. Huru! (Indeed!)

Last week, on my word list to learn was a verb- asmeagian, to investigate, devise, examine, elicit. Sounds like Smeagol. Then, when we were going over the vocabulary list, my prof made some Gollum noises and said that this verb is where Tolkien got the name from. The inside joke is that, when Sam was calling him a sneak, it really was his name. The suffix -ol is added to a verb to create a noun much like in Latin when -ator is added to gladius (sword) to create gladiator.

So this brings me to Thingol. Thing + ol. Hmmm. What was Thingol up to off in his cave? It explains much that is strange about Legolas. Does it not?

Anglo Saxon

I have started new studies - learning Anglo Saxon and am continuing my quest to follow in the footsteps of the master. For those who are unfamiliar with the term "genitive", the Oxford Concise defines it as "case of nouns etc. in inflected languages, corresponding to of, from and other prepositions with noun representing source, possessor, etc." In other words it is "that man's book" "that woman's car" or "leaves from that tree". If you have ever wondered why there is an apostrophe indicating possession (except when it is 'its' because of the confusion with the contraction 'it is'), the genitive of Anglo Saxon (otherwise known as Old English) is manes, wifmanes, treowes. Apostrophes replace a missing letter and, in the case of Modern English, it is an 'e' that is missing from the possessive. So now you know.

Also on my list of words to commit to memory is flet, meaning floor. If that word sounds familiar to you, it is because it is what the elves of Lorien called their homes which were nothing more than a floor up in the trees. Flet can also mean a 'hall, mansion'.