mead hall

Calque of Old English meduheall.

mead hall (plural mead halls)

1. A large communal building used in early Germanic and Norse societies as a place for feasting, drinking, socializing, and governance, serving also as the residence of a chieftain or king and symbolising the heart of the community or tribe.
   • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 18:

     I have [...] stopped on my way home at the mead halls of the Franks across the sea.

   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 5:

     he handed down orders
     for men to work on a great mead-hall
     meant to be a wonder of the world forever.

• “mead-hall, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.