Dictionary

ring-giver en · NOUN

Etymology

Literary calque of Old English bēagġiefa, from bēag (“ring”) + ġiefa (“giver”).

Meanings

1. (Old-English, historical) A ruler or chieftain who distributed rings or other valuable gifts to loyal warriors, thanes, or retainers as a means of rewarding service and reinforcing bonds of allegiance and mutual obligation.
   • The opening prologue and the closing epilogue praise Gloucester lavishly by name, and he appears elsewhere in its long nine books as both lawgiver and ring-giver. 1914 May 14, Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, volume 38, Halle an der Saale, page 121:
   • Another instance is the Anglo-Saxon scop, who sat close to the ring-givers and was much appreciated for an ability to transform action into narrative. 2000, John Holmes McDowell, chapter 5, in Poetry and Violence: The Ballad Tradition of Mexico's Costa Chica, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, page 123:
   • Then they confirm'd on the two sides a fast peaceful compact; [...] that there not any man. by words or works, should break the compact, nor through guileful craft should they ever lament, though they their ring-giver’s slayer follow'd, now lordless, as it was thus needful to them. 1855, Benjamin Thorpe, “Beowulf”, in The Anglo-Saxon poems of Beowulf, the Scôp or Gleeman's tale, and The fight at Finnesburg; with a literal translation, notes, glossary, etc., Oxford: James Wright, page 74:
   • They stretched their beloved lord in his boat, laid out by the mast, amidships, the great ring-giver. 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 4:
   • This kind of money was probably used by the Anglo-Saxons long after their settlement in England; and the name of "ring-giver," as an epithet of princes, was preserved perhaps to the time of the Norman conquest. 1837 May 14, The Gentleman's Magazine, London, page 500:
   • The kings needed their support, and like the old Germanic ‘ring-givers’ were forced to secure loyalty by generous giving: in their case by lands and immunities. 1956, Margaret Deanesly, chapter 5, in A History Of Early Medieval Europe 476-911, New York: Barnes and Noble, page 300:

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