annika björklund From the testaments it is clear that some slaves had been taken into slavery in a rather recent past. In a testament from 1200/1201 Archbishop Absalon in Lund declares that those slave women that were taken by Nils Stallare shall be liberated, wherever they are, and also their children. Furthermore, the woman whom he, the archbishop, received from Scania and her children should be liberated.43 Thewords seruili andmancipis were outdated around 1300 in Sweden as slavery was abandoned, but the word ancille continued to be in use for free female servants. In an English context, the wordancille has been related to servants of a young age, and also to describe a high-ranking woman’s maid.44 A number of terms in the testaments are used for the different categories of free servants,45 but there is no evidence of the Latin wordmercennarius, which was used in medieval law texts for the Swedish wordlegofolk, i.e. ‘servants in husbandry’.46 Only a few examples – ærwodhis kwinnom (Eng. hired women) and, perhaps, famulis meis cotidianis47 – might be related to ‘servants in husbandry’ or to servants employed for shorter time spans.48 Many of the words used for servants in Swedish testaments reveal work assignments, such as chef, carpenter, wet-nurse, or stable boy, but most are generic terms for servants, such as the Latinfamulus/famula andSw. 343 43 SDHK288. 44 Goldberg 2000, pp. 5f. 45 In Latin: ancilla, puella, nutrix, carpentario, lotrix, famulus, coquus, villica, puer, procurator, colonus, villicus, famula, pedesequa, camerarius, promus, domestica, stabularius. In Swedish: tjänare, pilt, legokona, forscia, tjänarinna, redhaswene, deja, tjänstemö, ærwodhis kwinnom, tjänstekvinna, dräng, piga, småsven, stallsven, småmö, sven, mö, nyckelpiga. 46 Andersson 2023, pp. 57ff. This word is found in three charters (not testaments): SDHK 1753 (in 1297), SDHK5089 (in 1345), andSDHK10337 (in 1373). 47 According to the SDHK-summary the words famulis meis cotidianis are translated into Sw. ‘mina daglönare’ (SDHK2169), which in English would be ‘my day labourers’, or ‘my daily servants’. 48 SDHK2169; SDHK11313. The terminology concerning free servants
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