thingmen

Noun

thingman (plural thingmen)

1. (historical, plural-normally) One of several men gathered at a thing, for example to settle a dispute over a debt.
   • Now if the debtor pleads that "I do not know the law but I will comply with whatever the thingmen think lawful," he [the creditor] must summon him before the thing after five nights, at the shortest, and five times five at the longest, if he knows when the thing is to meet; […] it is then the duty...2008, The Earliest Norwegian Laws: Being the Gulathing Law and the Frostathing Law, translated from Old Norwegian by Laurence Marcellus Larson, page 63
2. (historical, plural-normally) (One of several) men serving as the army, particularly the mercenary army, (of a specific ruler).
   • A thingman and chieftain owed each other duties of support. […] The ideal is well stated by Eyjolf to his own thingmen as he requests their support in his struggles against the Ljosvetning kin group […]1989, Law and literature in medieval Iceland: Ljósvetninga saga and Valla-Ljóts saga, Theodore Murdock Andersson, William Ian Miller, page 8