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Reddatur Parentibus: The Vengeance of the Family in Cnut's Homicide Legislation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Stefan Jurasinski
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Extract

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that during his 1018 meeting in Oxford with the leading English ecclesiastical and lay authorities, roughly one year after his accession to the throne in England, Cnut agreed to uphold “the laws of Edgar” during his reign. The ultimate outcome of this and subsequent meetings is the code issued at Winchester in 1020, referred to by editorial convention as I and II Cnut. This code contains, respectively, the religious and secular laws of England promulgated under Cnut. The code is contained in four manuscripts in Old English. The earliest are British Library, Cotton Nero A.i and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 201, both dated to the mid-eleventh century; the latest, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 383 and British Library, Harley 55, belong to the early twelfth century. Cnut's code reappears in three twelfth-century Norman Latin tracts intended to acquaint French authorities with English law, the Instituta Cnuti, Consiliatio Cnuti, and Quadripartitus. The Leges Henrici Primi, prepared by the same author as the Quadripartitus, also draws heavily on Cnut's legislation.

Type
Notes and Commentary
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 157 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2002

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References

1. The passage occurs only in the D version of the Chronicle, contained in BL Cotton Tiberius B.iv: “7 Dene 7 Engle wurdon sammæle æt Oxanaforda to Eadgares lage” (And the Danes and English were agreed at Oxford [to uphold] the laws of Edgar). See the diplomatic edition of Cubbin, G. P., ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle vol 6: MS D (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), 63.Google Scholar For a discussion of this passage and the circumstances surrounding Cnut's legislation in England, see H. G. Richardson and Sayles, G. O., Law and Legislation from Æthelberht to Magna Carta (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), 23–29Google Scholar; Lawson, M. K., Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (New York: Longman, 1993), 56–63Google Scholar; Wormald, Patrick, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 1: 346–49.Google Scholar

2. Between the 1018 meeting at Oxford and the promulgation of Cnut's code in 1020 stands the code composed by Wulfstan shortly after the Oxford meeting, contained in CCCC 201. See the discussion and edition of Kennedy, A. G., “Cnut's Code of 1018,” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983): 57–73.Google Scholar

3. For the most current dates and descriptions of the manuscripts, see Ker, N. R., A Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Wormald, Making of English Law, 224–55. The portion of BL Cotton Nero A.i containing Cnut's laws is number 163 in Ker, dated ‘s xi (med)’; CCCC 383 is number 65 in Ker, ‘;s xi/ xii’; BL Harley 55, the latest of the manuscripts, is number 226 in Ker, ‘s xii (med).’ All passages from the Anglo-Saxon codes cited in this article are from Liebermann, Felix, ed. and trans., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903–1916).Google Scholar Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

4. On these “digests” of pre-conquest law prepared under Henry I, see Liebermann's, Felix short monographs: Quadripartitus. Ein englisches Rechtsbuch von 1114 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1892)Google Scholar; Consiliatio Cnuti: eine Übertragung angelsächsischer Gesetze aus dem zwölften Jahrhundert (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1893); Über das englische Rechtsbuch Leges Henrici (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1901); also Richardson and Sayles, Law and Legislation, 41–53; Wormald, Making of English Law, 236–44 (on the Quadripartitus), 404–5 (on the Insituta and Consiliatio Cnuti); idem, “Quadripartitus,” in Garnett, George and Hudson, John, eds., Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 111–7.Google Scholar

5. All citations from this text are from Downer, L. J., Leges Henrici Primi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).Google Scholar On the common authorship of the Leges Henrici Primi and Quadripartitus see Liebermann, Über das englische Rechtsbuch Leges Henrici Primi, 53–59; Downer, Leges Henrici Primi, 23–28; Wormald, “Quadripartitus,” 133–39; O'Brien, Bruce, God's Peace and King's Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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8. See the chart of the derivation of clauses in I and II Cnut in Wormald, Making of English Law, 355–60.

9. Cnut's code is best seen in the context of other early medieval codifications such as the Lex Romana Visigothorum promulgated by Alaric II, which contained not Germanic law but excerpts from Roman juristic literature and thus the traditional law of the territory he had conquered. Such is the argument of Wormald, “Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis,” 35 and passim.

10. On Æthelberht's code, its genesis and its affiliation with “Roman” (more likely Frankish) political and legal culture, see Richardson and Sayles, Law and Legislation, 1–12, 157–69; A. W. B. Simpson, “The Laws of Ethelberht,” in Arnold, Morris et al., eds., On the Laws and Customs of England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 3–17Google Scholar; Wormald, Patrick, “Inter Cetera Bona … Genti Suae; Law-Making and Peace-Keeping in the Earliest English Kingdoms,” in La giustizia nell'alto medioevo (Spoleto: Centro italiani di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1995), 963–93Google Scholar; idem, Making of English Law, 93–101; Oliver, Lisi, “The Language of the Early English Laws” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1995)Google Scholar; Stefan Jurasinski, “The Continental Origins of Æthelberht's Code,” (forthcoming, Philological Quarterly). The account of Æthelberht's code and the conversion of Kent in the early seventh century occurs in Bede's eulogy of Æthelberht (Historia Ecclesiastica 2.5): see Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B., eds., Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 150–51.Google Scholar

11. See Wormald, Making of English Law, 361–62.

12. On the 30 out of 84 chapters of II Cnut with no known source, see Wormald, Making of English Law, 363.

13. Sir Frederick Pollock and Maitland, Frederic William, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (1898; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 52–53.Google Scholar For the earlier translations of cap. 56, see Lambarde, William, ed. and trans., Archaionomia (1568; reprint, London: Roger Daniel, 1644), 120Google Scholar; Thorpe, Benjamin, ed. and trans., Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1840), 175Google Scholar; Schmid, Rheinhold, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1832), 303.Google Scholar

14. Lawson, M. K., “Archbishop Wulfstan and the Homiletic Element in the Laws of Æthelred II and Cnut,” in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. Rumble, Alexander (London: Leicester University Press, 1994), 152.Google Scholar (First published in English Historical Review 107 (1992): 565–87.)

15. O'Brien, Bruce R., “From Morodor to Murdrum: The Preconquest Origin and Norman Revival of the Murder Fine,” Speculum 71 (1996): 336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. The first mention of compensation for homicide among the Germanic peoples occurs in Tacitus, Germania cap. 21: “luitur enim etiam homicidium certo armentorum ac pecorum numero recipitque satisfactionem universa domus” (For even homicide is remedied by a certain amount of arms or cattle, and the entire household receives satisfaction). See Winterbottom, M. and Ogilvie, R. M., eds., Cornelii Taciti opera minora (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 21.Google Scholar On the history of restraints on the feud, see Rubin, Stanley, “The Bot or Composition in Anglo-Saxon Law: A Reassessment,” Journal of Legal History 17 (1996): 144–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wormald, Patrick, “Giving God and King Their Due: Conflict and Its Resolution in the Early English State,” Settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull' alto medioevo 44 (1997), 549–90Google Scholar, repr. in Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West, 333–57; Richardson, Peter, “Making Thanes: Literature, Rhetoric and State-Formation in Anglo-Saxon England,” Philological Quarterly 78 (1999): 220–24.Google Scholar

17. Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 222–24.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. See Wormald, “Giving God and King Their Due,” 336.

21. For possible examples, see I Cnut 5: 2b-d; VIII Æthelred 23–25.

22. Wormald, Making of English Law, 364.

23. See Miller, William Ian, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. The massive accumulation of literature on the dating of sagas is reviewed in Clover, Carol, The Medieval Saga (Ithaca: Cornell University Press)Google Scholar; see also Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 44.

25. Danish law prescribed payments of compensation for killing and presumably had done so in its prehistory; for a description of the adjudication of homicide in medieval Denmark, see Skautrup, Peter, ed., Jyske Lov Text I, Danmarks gamie landskabslove, 2 (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1933)Google Scholar, caps. 3.23 (400–403), 1.8 (153). For the early history of Danish law (including the period before laws existed in written form), see See, Klaus von, ed. and trans., Das Jütsche Recht (Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1960), 1–19.Google Scholar

26. II Cnut 64 asserts that flagrant homicide (œbere mord) is unamendable (botleas). This passage does not seem to discuss the same variety of homicide dealt with in II Cnut 56, which is, as discussed below, one in which there has been some attempt on the part of the killer to conceal the crime.

27. Outside of legal texts, “morð” and the compounds of which it is the first element seem to designate something other than secret homicide: see entries for “morð” and “morðor” in Venezky, Richard L. and Healey, Antonette diPaolo, eds., A Microfiche Concordance to Old English (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985).Google Scholar The use of “morð” in homiletic and literary texts is reviewed exhaustively in O'Brien, “From Morðor to Murdrum,” 342–53. O'Brien is more circumspect (if not skeptical) than most scholars who have examined the evidence about the possibility that “moroð” in Old English meant anything like “secret homicide” or “assasination.”

28. See Schmid, Gesetze, 633.

29. See Munske, Horst Haider, Der germanische Rechtswortschatz im Bereich der Missetaten (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973), 46–47.Google Scholar

30. See Wormald, Making of English Law, 363.

31. For Maitland's treatment of the semantic history of “morth” in pre- and post-conquest English legislation, see History of English Law, 2: 468–69, 485–88; see also Kaye, J. M., “The Early History of Murder and Manslaughter,” Law Quarterly Review 88 (1967): 366–67.Google Scholar

32. O'Brien, Bruce, God's Peace and King's Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The cited passage is condensed from his lengthier discussion of the literary usage of morð and morðor in “From Morðor to Murdrum,” 345–8.

33. See, Klaus von, Altnordische Rechtswörter, Hermaea, 16 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1964), 21–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Ibid.

35. Liebermann, Gesetze, 3: 210.

36. Liebermann assigns the following dates to the four manuscript versions of Cnut's code: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 383 (“B”), 1125–30; BL, Cotton Nero A.i (“G”), 1070; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201 (“D”), 1050–80; BL, Harley 55 (“A”), 1120. See Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: xviii–xliii.

37. Liebermann, Gesetze, 3: 210.

38. O'Brien, God's Peace and King's Peace, 27.

39. Ibid.

40. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, 142–45. I have preserved the translation of R. A. B. Mynors.

41. Mooers, Stephanie L., “A Reevaluation of Royal Justice under Henry I of England,” The American Historical Review 93 (1988): 348–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. See Leges Henrici Primi 70.12, 88.6b (enjoins relatives to be merciful in cases of unintentional homicide), 88.11c, 92.19.

43. See van Caenegem, R. C., ed., English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I, Publications of the Seiden Society, 106 (London: Seiden Society, 1990).Google Scholar Such requirements are also absent from the records of pre-conquest adjudications of homicide in Wormald, Patrick, “A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Lawsuits,” Anglo-Saxon England 17 (1988): 247–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, repr. in Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West, 253–89.

44. All texts are from Liebermann, Gesetze, l: 348–49. The standard translation is by Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. and trans., English Historical Documents c. 500–1042 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955), 427Google Scholar: “If manifest murder occur, so that a man is murdered, the murderer is to be given up to the kinsmen. And if an accusation is brought, and the accused fails at the exculpation, the bishop is to give judgment.” See also Robertson, A. J., ed. and trans., The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), 203Google Scholar: “If anyone dies by violence and it becomes evident that it is a case of murder, the murderer shall be given up to the kinsmen [of the slain man]. And if the accusation is brought and the attempt [of the accused] to clear himself fails, the bishop shall pronounce judgment.”

45. This interpolation is not in the hand of the original scribe of CCCC 383 and should not be assumed to be contemporaneous with the preparation of the manuscript, although it is probable that at least some of the Latin translations of Cnut's laws predate this manuscript. See Wroblewski, Leonhard, Über die altenglischen Gesetze des Königs Knut (Berlin: Mayer and Muller, 1901), 11–12.Google Scholar

46. See the description of the relevant manuscripts in Wormald, Making of English Law, 224–55.

47. Bosworth glosses amyrran as “to dissipate, spend, distract, defile, mar, corrupt, spoil, destroy.” See Bosworth, Joseph and Northcote Toller, T., Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1882), 37.Google Scholar

48. Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 348–49.

49. Evidence that Anglo-Norman translators of I and II Cnut understood the manuscript abbreviation would be, according to Liebermann, the fact that the author of the Quadripartitus preserves in II Cnut 45.3, “aut neget N,” where the abbreviation represents hine. Though it is an extremely unusual abbreviation it does occur elsewhere in II Cnut, occurring in all three manuscript versions in chapter 45.

50. Liebermann, Gesetze, 3: 210.

51. I am indebted to Charles D. Wright for suggesting to me the possible importance of amyrrea Vamyrðred alternations for the Latin tracts.

52. Text and translation are from Downer, Leges Henrici Primi, 292–93.

53. The following examples from Bosworth and Toller's Dictionary are probably relevant: “He wolde hine his fæder agifan” (He wished to return his father to him: Gen 37.22); “Uton agifan ðæm esne his wif” (let us restore to the man his wife: Aelfred's Boethius 35.6.). Quoted in Bosworth and Toller, A Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, 29.

54. Liebermann, Gesetze, l: 352.

55. See Liebermann, Gesetze, 3: 310; idem, Über das englische Rechtsbuch Leges Henrich 34–35.

56. See Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 94: “Gif hwa binnan þam gemærum ures rices reaflac 7 niednæme do, agife he oone reaflac 7 geselle LX scili, to wite” (If one should commit robbery and violent seizure [of goods] within the limits of our country, let him give back what was stolen and pay sixty shillings as compensation).

57. This has been the consensus for some time in studies of the code. See O'Brien, “From Morðor to Murdrum,” 330 n. 42.

58. Liebermann, Gesetze, l: 346.

59. Ibid., 348.

60. Ibid., 459.

61. See Leges Henrid Primi, cap. 92.15, in which the author alludes to II Cnut's provision that the slayer be handed over to the relatives of the slain (reddatur parentibus interfecti) so that “he may experience the mercy of those to whom he had displayed none” (misericordium eorum subiturus quibus nullam exhibait): this can be taken only as the author's ironic endorsement of feud violence. Text and translation are from Downer, Leges Henrici Primi, 290–91.

62. See Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 349.

63. See Miller, William Ian, “Choosing the Avenger: Some Aspects of the Bloodfeud in Medieval Iceland and England,” Law and History Review 2 (1983): 189 and passim.Google Scholar

64. Downer, Leges Henrici Primi, 232–33.

65. The Leges Henrici Primi allude to provisions of the Lex Salica in cap. 87.10 and elsewhere. Liebermann maintained that the author of the Leges Henrici Primi was well acquainted with Frankish law. See his Über das englische Rechtsbuch Leges Henrici, 22–23. Downer does not address the matter of Frankish material in the code. For his account of the sources, see Leges Henrici Primi, 28–34.

66. Eckhardt, Karl August, ed., Lex Salica, MGH Leges Sectio I (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1969), 116.Google Scholar

67. Schwind, Ernst von, ed., Lex Baiwariorum, MGH Leges Sectio I (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1935), 455.Google Scholar Here the verb reddere can only be translated as passive. Peculiar constructions and orthographic forms are ubiquitous in Merovingian Latin. The most comprehensive study of these irregularities and their relevance for attempts to date Merovingian legal texts remains that of Buchner, Rudolph, Textkritische Untersuchungen zur Lex Ribuaria, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften 5 (Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1940), 8–18.Google Scholar See also Günter Gastroph, H. L., Herrschaft und Gesellschaft in der Lex Baiuvariorum (Munich: Stadtarchiv München, 1974), 52.Google Scholar

68. von Schwind, Lex Baiwariorum, 455.

69. Ibid., 458.

70. See Neff, Charlotte, “Scandinavian Elements in the Wantage Code of Æthelred H,” Journal of Legal History 10 (1989): 286 and passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71. See William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, 334 (cap. 188).

72. The laws of the medieval Icelandic commonwealth, known collectively as Grágás, are contained in two thirteenth-century manuscripts, Konungsbók (1260) and Staðarhólsbók (1280). The date of individual provisions is nearly impossible to determine. See Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 43.

73. See Neff, “Scandinavian Elements,” 303; Halidór Hermannsson, Ancient Laws of Norway and Iceland, Islándica, 4 (Ithaca: Kraus Reprint Corporation), 17. For the account of the first Icelandic codification under Ulfljótr and its indebtedness to the Norwegian Gulathing Law, see Golther, Wolfgang, ed., Ares Isländerbuch (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1892), 5–6 (cap. 2.5).Google Scholar

74. Finsen, Vilhjálmur, ed., Grágás: Islœndernes Lovbog i Fristatens Tid (Copenhagen: Brø drene Berlings bogtrykkeri, 1852), 153.Google Scholar

75. Ibid., 154.

76. “pá kemr upp, at Sigi hefir drepit prælinn ök myrðan” (Then it was discovered, that Sigi had killed the thrall and murdered him). See Ebel, Uwe, ed., Völsunga saga (Frankfurt: Haag und Herchen, 1982), 60.Google Scholar

77. Keyser, R. and Munch, A., eds., Norges gamle love indtil 1387 (Christiania: Gröndahl, 1846), 1: 63.Google Scholar

78. Ibid., cap. 156, 61.

79. See Einarsson, Bjarni, ed., Agrip af Nóregskonungasögum, Islenzk fornrit, 29 (Rekjavík: Hið; Islenska fomritafélag, 1984), 28–29.Google Scholar

80. See Neff, “Scandinavian Elements.”

81. See Keynes, Simon, “Crime and Punishment in the Reign of King Æthelred,” in People and Places in Northern Europe 500–1600, ed. Wood, Ian and Lund, Niels (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1991), 75.Google Scholar See also cap. 32.4 in II Æthelred in Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 244–15.

82. Liebermann, Gesetze, 1: 188–89.

83. See Neff, “Scandinavian Elements,” 289.

84. The amount of scholarship accumulated over the last century on the date of Beowulf is immense. The manuscript, Cotton Vitellius A. xv, dates on paleographie grounds to the early eleventh century, but this circumstance in no way precludes a much earlier date for the poem. Linguistic and metrical data suggest that the poem is a very early composition, possibly dating from the eighth century. The arguments and bibliography are reviewed most recently in Bjork, Robert E. and Obermeier, Anita, “Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences,” in A Beowulf Handbook, ed. Bjork, Robert E. and Niles, John D. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 13–34.Google Scholar See also Chase, Colin, ed., The Dating of “Beowulf,” Toronto Old English Series, no. 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981).Google Scholar The same volume is discussed in a review article by Fulk, R. D., “Dating Beowulf to the Viking Age,” Philological Quarterly 61 (1982): 341–59.Google Scholar

85. All textual examples from Beowulf are from Klaeber, Frederick, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (Lexington: D. C Heath, 1922).Google Scholar Texts from Klaeber's edition are reproduced without macrons.

86. See Klaeber, Beowulf, 79–80. The example from the Lex Salica is cited above, n. 66.

87. See lines 136–37 in Klaeber, Beowulf, 6.