Guard, or housecarl

Latin, huscarle.

Huscarle, translated as Guard in the Phillimore edition, is more often translated as housecarl.

In origin, Guards were probably the Scandinavian bodyguards of King Canute. They formed the military household of the late Anglo-kings - a small standing army - and were paid for by taxes originally levied to buy off the Vikings. In Domesday Book, several Guards were high-ranking royal thanes while others appear to have formed - or stiffened - the garrisons of certain towns. At Wallingford 15 acres were set aside for the quarters of the Guards (BRK B1); and the Dorset boroughs of Bridport, Dorchester, Shaftesbury, and Wareham (DOR B1-B4) paid regular contributions towards their upkeep. It seems unlikely that these were the only boroughs required to maintain such forces.

For more detail, see Nicholas A. Hooper, 'The housecarls in England in the eleventh century', Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 7 (1985), pages 161-76; and James Campbell, 'Some agents and agencies of the late Anglo-Saxon state', in Domesday studies, edited by J.C. Holt (Woodbridge, 1987), pages 201-18.