Thrall

For other uses of the word thrall, see Thrall (disambiguation)

A thrall (Thræl for men, Thír for women) was a slave in Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age. Slavery was one of the primary sources of income for the Vikings. The first person to describe thralls was the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote in AD 98 that the Swedes (Suiones) had no right to carry arms, but that the weapons were locked inside and protected by a slave only to be distributed when they were attacked by enemies.

The system of slavery was supported by Norse mythology, which claimed that the thralls had a separate ancestry through Ríg.

A person could become a thrall by giving himself up because of starvation. This was considered to be the most shameful way of entering slavery and the first method of acquiring slaves to be forbidden. The most common way of acquiring thralls was to capture prisoners in foreign countries or by buying such captured foreigners.

The thralls were kept as livestock and their master had the right of their life and death. One who was born of a female thrall by a free father was considered to be free, whereas those who were born by a free woman having a thrall father were considered to be a thrall.

When Christianity arrived in Northern Europe, there was increasing demand for non-Christian slaves, and the Scandinavians had a de facto monopoly on trading in them since Christians were not allowed to trade in slaves.

As Scandinavia was christianized, slavery became unfashionable and, since the owners were obliged to support aged thralls, the system was transformed into serfdom.

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