In some counties, especially in the south-east, where the whole thegnhood had fallen at Hastings, hardly a single English proprietor survived.
When, however, the English thegnhood had fallen on Senlac Hill, or had lost their manors for joining in the rebellion of 1069, the condition of their former dependents was much changed for the worse.
With Harold there fell his two brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, his uncle Aelfwig, most of the thegnhood of Wessex, and the whole of his heroic band of house-carles.
The greater part of the higher nobility fell in battle or fled into exile, while the lower thegnhood either forfeited the whole of their lands or redeemed a portion by the surrender of the rest.
In a word, thegnhood contained within itself the germ of that later feudalism which was to battle so fiercely with the Teutonic freedom out of which it grew.
William could only provide it by a wholesale confiscation of the estates of all the thegnhood who had followed the house of Godwine.
The ranks of his thegnhood and house-carles had been thinned by the slaughter of Stamford Bridge, and their place was but indifferently supplied by the hasty levies of London, Wessex and the Home Counties.
But it would seem that the king paid even more attention to another military reform--the increase of the number of the professional fighting class, the thegnhood as it was now called.
It was from this ancient thegnhood that the Puritan settlers of New England were mainly descended.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "thegnhood" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
