The bolded word is "thane."
Answer: D) a land owner.
Explanation: the denotation of a word is its literal meaning, the definition that we can find in a dictionary, a word can have several denotations (or definitions). The denotation or definition of "thane" is a man who held land granted by the king or by a military nobleman, ranking between an ordinary freeman and a hereditary noble. So, from the given options, the one that corresponds to the definition of "thane" is the corresponding to option D: a land owner.
