These are my notes for the article Hearthweru. I'll start adding to them again now for Anglo-Saxon Warfare.

Charles Warren Hollister explains Anglo-Saxon mercenaries and retainers, basically "paid warriors," in the first chapter of his Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions on the Eve of the Norman Conquest (pp. 2–23).

There's a surprisingly high amount of different names for this. First, everything I wrote in the original article:

There term for a lord or great man's household in Old English, was Híréd,[2] cognate with Hird, and heorþ referred to the house's Hearth.[3] In addition, they had a litany of terms for the member of a lord's household. This included cniht, hiredmann (hirdman), and after the Danish Conquest of England, huscarl.[4] Cniht would develop into the modern term, knight. Not all of these words are exact synonyms, and hiredmann also refers to paid warriors.

I'm not a source but I will keep some of this text. It's actually sourced from Harrison and Williams.

Then there's D'Amato and Pollington (p. 20):

The loyal band of followers was known in Old English as the werod (‘protective force’) or the gedriht (‘band of men sworn to share hardship together’), under the command of a warlord (OE dryhten or drihten).

Then there's Harrison, with a name and description (pp. 7–8):

A separate warrior elite had already emerged by the time of the Germanic migrations to Britain. The king or leader of a tribe surrounded himself with loyal followers and companions who would protect him, and be the means by which he imposed his will over the local population. Selected out from the general masses, these high-status individuals became full-time warriors, able to devote a great part of their time to the skill of arms. They formed the personal bodyguard of the king [or, as later explained, any major nobleman] and basically were his household troops. They were known in Old English as the hearthweru (literally "hearth-guard")

Terms used include heorthwerod, hearth-troop, heorthgeneatas, hearth-companions, as well as hiredmen (Abel p. 148n11)

It doesn't really seem that any of these names are majorly preferred by historians. Although, most of these terms centre around the hearth (household) and the werod (warband). It seems best to just go by that, using hearth and werod, even though hired is also a common term. I would like to find a source for that, since stated as my own observation it'd violate original research.

It seems like alot of sources reference Ine when referring to early Anglo-Saxon military obligations. A translation of his laws can be found in Attenborough 1922, The Laws of the Earliest English Kings pp. 36–61. An introduction to the laws of both Ine and Alfred the Great can be found on pp. 34–35.

Richard Abels admits that there's a "near consensus" that the ceorl defined in Ine's laws and elsewhere were obliged as freemen to "defend the homeland" but seems to doubt the evidence (pp. 13–14). Also, Ine's code, to Abels, was largely intended as an affirmation of his government, and thus exaggerated his power (p. 16).

One of these laws that pertains most to fyrd service and has received much debate, is chapter 50 (c. 50):

If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.

There are also two completely opposite stances on the nature of ceorl (common freeman) service in Anglo-Saxon England–that military service was both an obligation and a privilege, and that they, at best, helped provision the aristocratic troops (p. 15). Hollister and Abels both note that the only Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC) account of a possible mass national levy was in 1016 (p. 26 and pp. 176–177 respectively), however Abels' book dismantles this as evidence of a general military obligation. To Hollister, "all the English people" is a "loose phraesology" and instead the select fyrd was called to these campaigns (p. 30). Abels actually cites this, but shortly afterwards, Hollister admits that "on the other hand, perhaps it was merely a relatively small mounted contingent of the great fyrd."

Earlier, Hollister defines the terms "great" and "select" fyrd: "For purposes of convenience, I shall refer to the army of freemen–the nation in arms–as the great fyrd and to the army of five-hide representatives [Not mentioned in Hollister, I believe this was defined as early as Cnut] as the select fyrd." He also calls the great fyrd the "simpler, cruder, and less significant body" (p. 26). As Hollister remarks, "it is by no means easy to distinguish between the great fyrd and the select fyrd in the numerous military campaigns mentioned in the narrative sources" (p. 29).

The wealth of the Staffordshire hoard was significant, and there appear to be 86 sword pommel caps in the hoard. These would have been used by men of elite status, and based on how rare they could be and how large those men's followings could be, Anglo-Saxon armies could have numbered in the thousands in the 7th century (d'Amato and Pollington (pp. 33–35). However, there is academic disagreement on the matter. Some historians, using the passage by Ine of Wessex that describes any group larger than 35 men, suggest that early Anglo-Saxon armies could be very small and fully comprised of the hearth, before the inclusion of common troops (Harrison p. 8).

This section may not be that important.

In Kent, there were gavelkinders, and in Wessex, there were gafolgeldan and geburas both of whihch Ine and early Anglo-Saxon kings may have regarded as his men, (such as lord's gesiths would be "his men," but that isn't Abels' wording) by virtue of being in under his protection and owing obligation to him directly. These, the "king's men" who were still above a regular peasant, would serve in the fyrd (Abels, pp. 19–21).

As described by Raffaele d'Amato and Stephen Pollington in Anglo-Saxon Kings and Warlords AD 400–1070, "A leader’s authority was based ultimately on two factors: the possibility of reward and the prospect of punishment. Loyal followers could expect to earn generous gifts and public recognition for their service – as long as the man they followed was lucky, rich, and inclined to distribute his disposable wealth" (p. 19). After their arrival in Britain, Anglo-Saxon social and political life centred around the meadhall, some of the warriors who slept and ate here were transient, serving for a period of time before moving elsewhere. Those that remained could be part of the lord's troop of reliable and experienced warriors (pp. 18–19). The meadhall declined in religious and economic importance by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, but remained the social centre of its community. (pp. 27–28).

As described by d'Amato and Pollington (and elsewhere but they are the source for this paragraph), the loyal band of followers was known in Old English as the werod (translated as "protective force") or gedriht (translated as "band of men sworn to share hardship together") (p. 20). The werod is also described on page 30.

These structures sustained strain under Viking attack in the 9th century, and Alfred the Great reformed the status of the thegn, enforcing the ability to read (d'Amato and Pollington p. 20).

Anglo-Saxon warfare was done as part of a team, and headlong or overreaching aggression could be just as frowned upon as laziness or cowardice (Ibid pp. 25–26).

The level of loyalty that followers were supposed to display to their lord was great, and they were expected to follow him into exile if he fell out with his king. Otherwise, as Abels writes, they could only expect "ridicule and scorn" (pp.16–17). For this observation, he cites a letter from St Aldhelm of Sherborne demanding such loyalty from clerics, and from the 757 entry of the ASC. (pp. 16–17). I found this last one interesting. From Whitelock's translation (p. 31):

And when he held the kingdom [for] 31 years, he wished to drive out an ætheling who was called Cyneheard, who was the brother of the aforesaid Sigeberht [Cynewulf had just driven Sigeberht of Essex from his kingdom]. And Cyneheard discovered that the king was at Meretun visiting his mistress with a small following, and he overtook them there before the men who were with the king became aware of him.

Then the king perceived this and went to the doorway, and nobly defended himself until he caught sight of the ætheling, and thereupon he rushed out against him and wounded him severely. Then they all fought against the king until they had slain him. Then by the woman's outcry, the king's thegns became aware of the disturbance and ran to the spot, each as he got ready and as quickly as possible. And the ætheling made an offer to each of money and life; and not one of them would accept it. But they continued to fight until they all laid dead except for one British hostage, and he was severely wounded.

To Abels, "the chronicler's language is unambiguous: he approved of the behavior of Cyneheard's men [to fight and die], even though he found their lord's actions reprehensible" (p. 17). In Ine's time, the king exercised power through his nobles, who themselves were to control their gesiths (later known as thegns). Pointing out that Cyneheard would have become king if Cynewulf's men submitted to him, Abels also uses the 757 annal to display that "the phrase chosen to be king... ...did not imply a constitutional election by the representatives of the folk, but rather the submission of the dead ruler's household and nobility to the lordship of the prince (ætheling), who through their submission became king."

In battle, one who abandoned their lord suffered a social and in some cases legal death as well. I've already touched on this in the original article; in Cnut's Secular Code, as cited by Williams on p. 70 of Before Domesday, the man who falls before his lord on campaign receives his heriot back, but the man who deserts his lord forfeits his "life and possessions."

Ine's laws and this incident were surrounded by "endemic [and internecine] dynastic struggles" that formed the backdrop to Ine's laws (As seen by Abels p. 23). Ine c. 51 could not have applied to every aristocrat, but rather those who had chosen the king as their lord (p. 24).

Around the turn of the 9th century, the household of Eanbald II, Archbishop of York became bloated, harboring the king's enemies in exchange for their land. His household was split into two tiers, his direct followers, and the followers of his followers. The latter group lacked the aristocratic pedigree of their lords, and Abels suggests that they were young, unmarried peasants who hoped to advance themselves through military service (p. 28). It's pretty clear that this was a common system, Ann Williams comments on it in Before Domesday on p. 68.

• Abels, Richard (1988). Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05794-4.
• Harrison, Mark (1993). Anglo-Saxon Thegn AD 449–1066. Illustrated by Garry Embleton. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781855323490.
• Whitelock, Dorothy (1930). Anglo-Saxon Wills. Cambridge University Press.
• Whitelock, Dorothy; Douglas, David; Tucker, Susie, eds. (1961). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London, UK: Eyre and Spottiswoode. OCLC 317315404.
• Williams, Ann (2008). The World Before Domesday: The English Aristocracy 871-1066. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84725-239-5.