Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T16:40:34.747Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - English Law before the Conquest

from Part I - Legal Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

By
Stefan Jurasinski
Edited by
Candace Barrington  and
Sebastian Sobecki
Candace Barrington
Affiliation:
Central Connecticut State University
Sebastian Sobecki
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Royal legislation issued in English between the baptism of Æthelberht of Kent (c. 600 ad) and the reign of Cnut (r. 1016–35) comprises one of Europe’s more remarkable records of early political and legal thought. In it we see the transformation of England from a collection of disputing kingdoms to a nation united under the rule of Wessex in resistance to Viking incursions – all before one such Viking, Cnut (or ‘Canute the Great’), overcame Æthelred II (‘Ethelred the Unready’) and then made full use of the laws maintained by Æthelred and his ancestors, thereby easing the shock of alien rule. No polity of early Western Europe (save Ireland) left such a lengthy record of its reflections on matters of law in its own language. As we will see, this corpus encompasses a range of prose genres beyond those issuing from the royal court; most were read and copied long after the Norman Conquest.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Law and Literature , pp. 3 - 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Hough, Carole, An Ald Reht: Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2014.Google Scholar
Jurasinski, Stefan, Oliver, Lisi and Rabin, Andrew (eds.), English Law before Magna Carta: Felix Liebermann and Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, Leiden: Brill, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, Tom, Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liebermann, Felix (ed.), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols., Halle: Niemeyer, 1903–16.Google Scholar
McNeill, John T. and Gamer, Helena M. (trans.), Medieval Handbooks of Penance, New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.Google Scholar
Munske, Horst Haider, Der germanische Rechtswortschatz im Bereich der Missetaten, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973.Google Scholar
Oliver, Lisi, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Agnes Jane (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Charters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×