Churl - Wikipedia A churl (Old High German karal), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", [1] but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant ", still spelled ċeorl (e), and denoting the lowest rank of freemen
churl - Wiktionary, the free dictionary churl (plural churls) (feudalism, obsolete except historical) A free peasant (as opposed to a serf) of the lowest rank, below an earl and a thane; a freeman; also (more generally), a person without royal or noble status; a commoner quotations
CHURL definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary There was a surge of muttering among the guardsmen, but most of it seemed to be agreement that the young man was more churl than Charl Freemen, called "churls", formed the next level of society, often holding land in their own right or controlling businesses in the towns