A churl (etymologically the same name as Charles / Carl and Old High German „karal“), in its earliest Anglo-Saxon meaning, was simply "a man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelt ceorle, and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it later came to mean the opposite of the nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick: This meaning held through the 15th century, but by then the word had taken on negative… (More on Churl)