Definition
An archaic Saxon legal term denoting a domestic servant or member of a household. The term appears in early English legal records as a designation for persons belonging to or residing within a household, particularly in the context of frank-pledge and tithing obligations under Anglo-Saxon and early Norman legal organization.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear only in sources dealing with Anglo-Saxon or early post-Conquest English law — primarily in treatments of frank-pledge, tithing systems, and the legal responsibilities attaching to household membership. Researchers encountering HOMEHYNE in historical texts should treat it as a pointer to the broader apparatus of Anglo-Saxon communal suretyship rather than as a term with independent legal significance. The entry itself in Burrill is essentially a redirect, and any substantive legal content will be found under HOGENEHYNE. Do not expect the term to appear in case law or statutory sources; its habitat is glossaries, legal antiquarianism, and treatises on early English legal institutions.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary offers only a skeletal entry: "Sax. A domestic. Spelman." The cross-reference to Spelman situates the term within the antiquarian tradition of Anglo-Saxon legal scholarship, particularly Sir Henry Spelman's glossarial work on early English law. Burrill adds nothing substantive beyond the gloss and the redirect to HOGENEHYNE, which is the operative entry for this concept. Historical dictionaries as a class treat this term superficially, reflecting the fact that HOMEHYNE is a variant or abbreviated form rather than a term carrying its own doctrinal freight.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See HOGENEHYNE; FRANK-PLEDGE; TITHING