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UNCONSECRATED BURIAL AND EXCOMMUNICATION IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND: A REASSESSMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2019

NICOLE MARAFIOTI Open the ORCID record for NICOLE MARAFIOTI [Opens in a new window]
NICOLE MARAFIOTI*
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Trinity University, San Antonio
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nicole.marafioti@trinity.edu
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Abstract

This article investigates the ideologies which underpinned unconsecrated burial in late Anglo-Saxon legal and religious texts. The exclusion of sinners and criminals from Christian cemeteries has typically been interpreted by scholars as a form of excommunication or an attempt to facilitate damnation. However, a reassessment of legislative, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical sources reveals that this was not so. In tenth-century laws and charters, unconsecrated burial was imposed exclusively by secular authorities; it was only prescribed by ecclesiastical authorities from ca. 1000. This suggests that it originated as a temporal punishment but later came to be used as an ecclesiastical sentence. The following analysis of the textual evidence yields two interrelated arguments. First, this article demonstrates that through the mid-eleventh century, unconsecrated burial was a penalty distinct from ecclesiastical excommunication. Where excommunication was imposed upon living sinners, to coerce them to penance, unconsecrated burial was prescribed for the unrepentant or criminal dead, whose actions placed them beyond earthly help. Second, this article contends that written prescriptions for unconsecrated burial differentiated secular from ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Although laymen and clergy collaborated in the dispensation of law and justice throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, the written evidence for unconsecrated burial shows that this penalty fell either under the authority of secular or of ecclesiastical agents, demonstrating a clearer separation between these spheres than is usually recognized in pre-Conquest England.

Keywords

Anglo-Saxon Englandburialscrimeexcommunicationlawpenancepunishment
Type
Research Article
Information
Traditio , Volume 74 , 2019 , pp. 55 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 2019 

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Footnotes

My research for this article was generously supported by an ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship, a National Humanities Center Fellowship, and research funding from Trinity University. I presented early versions of this material to the Charles Homer Haskins Society and the North Carolina Colloquium in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and participants in both conferences offered valuable suggestions and advice. I am also grateful to Kristen Carella and my colleagues at the National Humanities Center (2016–2017), who provided thoughtful feedback on these arguments.

References

1 The following abbreviations will be employed: Bosworth-Toller = Toller, T. Northcote, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth (Oxford, 1898, repr. 1998)Google Scholar; DOE = Cameron, A., Amos, A. C., Healey, A. diPaolo et al. , eds., Dictionary of Old English: A to I Online (Toronto, 2018)Google Scholar, http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/; Handbook = Fowler, Roger, “A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor,” Anglia 83 (1965): 1–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S = catalogue number in Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968)Google Scholar. Anglo-Saxon laws from the ninth century onward are cited from Liebermann, F., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–16)Google Scholar, following Liebermann's editorial titles and enumeration. The seventh-century laws of Æthelberht and Wihtred are cited from the edition of Oliver, Lisi, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with Liebermann's enumeration in brackets. Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

2 The link with excommunication was established in a seminal article by Treharne, E. M., “A Unique Old English Formula for Excommunication from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303,” Anglo-Saxon England 24 (1995): 185–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Marafioti, Nicole, “Punishing Bodies and Saving Souls: Capital and Corporal Punishment in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Haskins Society Journal 20 (2008): 39–57Google Scholar; Effros, Bonnie, “Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation,” Early Medieval Europe 6 (1997): 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thompson, Victoria, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004), 170–80Google Scholar.

3 By contrast, the requirement that certain offenders be excommunicated appeared in royal lawcodes from the seventh century onward: Wihtred 3 and 3.2 [= Liebermann Wihtred 3 and 4.1]; Alfred 1.7; I Edmund 2 and 6; VII Æthelred 5; VIII Æthelred 41; Cnut 1020 16–17; II Cnut 39 and 41.1–2.

4 Forbes, Helen Foxhall, Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (Farnham, 2013), 296–98, 308–9, 313Google Scholar.

5 The participation of ecclesiastical advisors in the compilation of royal lawcodes is acknowledged in the epilogue of II Æthelstan and the prologues of Wihtred; Ine; I, III, and VI Æthelstan; I, II, and III Edmund; V and VI Æthelred. In the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, royal law required bishops and ealdormen to preside together over shire courts, enabling secular and ecclesiastical judgments to be issued at a single gathering: III Edgar 5.2; II Cnut 18.1. For a helpful overview of overlaps between secular and ecclesiastical law and justice in Anglo-Saxon England, see chapter 1 of Helmholz, Richard, Oxford History of the Laws of England, vol. 1: Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s (Oxford, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 17–19, 35–40, 55–58, 60–64. Scholars have traditionally approached the question of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions by comparing the Anglo-Saxon evidence with that of post-Conquest and later-medieval England, periods in which spheres of justice were more sharply delineated. However, closer examination of pre-Conquest evidence reveals a consistent distinction between secular and ecclesiastical jurisprudence: see especially Barlow, Frank, The English Church 1000–1066, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), 137–53 and 232–76Google Scholar; Marafioti, Nicole, “Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Speculum 94 (2019): 774–805CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recently, the very idea that legal jurisdictions would have been recognized in Anglo-Saxon England has been questioned: Lambert, Tom, Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2017), 301–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The royal lawcodes which mention unconsecrated burial are all discussed in detail below: II Æthelstan, I Edmund, I Æthelred, III Æthelred, IV Æthelred, and I–II Cnut.

7 For example, Reynolds, Andrew, Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burial Customs (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cherryson, Annia Kristina, “Normal, Deviant and Atypical: Burial Variation in Late Saxon Wessex, c. AD 700–1100,” in Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record, ed. Murphy, Eileen M. (Oxford, 2008), 115–30Google Scholar; Hadley, D. M., “Burying the Socially and Physically Distinctive in Later Anglo-Saxon England,” in Burial in Later Anglo-Saxon England, c. 650–1100, ed. Buckberry, Jo and Cherryson, Annia (Oxford, 2010), 103–15Google Scholar; Buckberry, Jo, “Osteological Evidence of Corporal and Capital Punishment in Later Anglo-Saxon England,” in Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gates, Jay Paul and Marafioti, Nicole (Woodbridge, 2014), 131–48Google Scholar.

8 Reynolds, Deviant Burial, 155–57, 203–34; Reynolds, Andrew, “The Definition and Ideology of Anglo-Saxon Execution Sites and Cemeteries,” in Death and Burial in Medieval Europe: Papers of the “Medieval Europe Brugge 1997” Conference, vol. 2, ed. De Boe, Guy and Verhaeghe, Frans (Zellik, 1997), 33–41Google Scholar. Such policies were likely implemented by local authorities as well as by royal agents: Rabin, Andrew, “Capital Punishment and the Anglo-Saxon Judicial Apparatus: A Maximum View?” in Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gates, Jay Paul and Marafioti, Nicole (Woodbridge, 2014), 181–99Google Scholar.

9 Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries are surveyed in Reynolds, Deviant Burial, 96–151, with commentary at 151–79 and 219–27. Exclusionary burial was not limited to executions: see Hadley, “Socially and Physically Distinctive.”

10 “Ne binnon nanum gehalgodum lictune ne licge”: II Æthelstan 26, discussed in detail below. See also Gittos, Helen, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2013), 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Gittos, Helen, “Creating the Sacred: Anglo-Saxon Rites for Consecrating Cemeteries,” in Burial in Early Medieval England and Wales, ed. Lucy, Sam and Reynolds, Andrew, Society For Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 17 (London, 2002), 195–208Google Scholar; Gittos, Liturgy, 42–49; and below, n. 26. For church-adjacent burial sites before the tenth century, see Hadley, Dawn M. and Buckberry, Jo, “Caring for the Dead in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Tinti, Francesca (Woodbridge, 2005), 121–47 at 126–27Google Scholar — although the authors emphasize that burial near churches was not universal, neither in this earlier period nor in the tenth century.

12 For the variety of burial practices in England before the tenth century, see Bullough, Donald, “Burial, Community, and Belief in the Early Medieval West,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Wormald, Patrick (Oxford, 1983), 177–201Google Scholar; Buckberry, Jo, “Cemetery Diversity in the Mid to Late Anglo-Saxon Period in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire,” in Burial in Later Anglo-Saxon England, c. 650–1100, ed. Buckberry, Jo and Cherryson, Annia (Oxford, 2010), 1–25Google Scholar; Hadley, D. M., “Burial Practices in Northern England in the Later Anglo-Saxon Period,” in Burial in Early Medieval England and Wales, ed. Lucy, Sam and Reynolds, Andrew, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 17 (London, 2002), 209–28Google Scholar, especially 211–14; Hadley, D. M., “Burial Practices in the Northern Danelaw, c. 650–1100,” Northern History 36 (2000): 199–216, especially 202–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blair, John, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 59–63Google Scholar; Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth, 273–78; Thompson, Dying and Death, 27–35; Gittos, Liturgy, 51–52.

13 Blair, Church, 463–66; Gittos, Liturgy, 52–53. Even with the rise of churchyard burial, the practice was not universal and earlier cemeteries remained in use: Hadley, “Burial in Northern England,” 214–19 and 221–23; Cherryson, “Normal, Deviant”; Buckberry, “Cemetery Diversity.”

14 Carella, Bryan, “The Earliest Expression for Outlawry in Anglo-Saxon Law,” Traditio 70 (2015): 111–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Outlawry and excommunication might be issued together or in sequence, as Carella shows; and compare also Cnut 30 and 41.1–2, discussed by Treharne, “Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 193–95.

15 Reynolds, Deviant Burial, 159–79; Reynolds, “Definition and Ideology”; Hadley and Buckberry, “Caring for the Dead,” 128–30; Buckberry, “Osteological Evidence”; Marafioti, Nicole and Gates, Jay Paul, “Introduction,” in Capital and Corporal Punishment, ed. Gates, Jay Paul and Marafioti, Nicole (Woodbridge, 2014), 1–16 at 7–9Google Scholar.

16 High-profile examples include the secretive burial of the body of King Edward “the Martyr” after his 978 assassination and the disposal of King Harold Harefoot's remains in a swamp in 1040: Marafioti, Nicole, The King's Body: Burial and Succession in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and see further below. Compare also S935 and S1377.

17 Ecclesiastical regulations sometimes denied a dead offender posthumous prayer but allowed him respectful burial. For example, the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis prohibits prayers for a clergyman killed while committing violence, but “still, he should not be deprived of burial” [sepultura tamen non privetur]: the text is edited by Wasserschleben, Hermann, Die irische Kanonensammlung (1885; repr. Leipzig, 1966), 157Google Scholar, at xl.15.c. This canon was adapted in England by Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham and Archbishop Wulfstan of York in the eleventh century: Fehr, Bernhard, Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics (1914; repr. Darmstadt, 1966), 55, at 2.178Google Scholar; Cross, J. E. and Hamer, Andrew, Wulfstan's Canon Law Collection (Cambridge, 1999), 20, 98, 167Google Scholar, at A.75 and B.159.

18 For execution cemeteries as commemorative sites, see Williams, Howard, Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain (Cambridge, 2006), 89–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 III Æthelred 7–7.1 (discussed below); and compare Downer, L. J., Leges Henrici Primi (Oxford, 1972), 230–31, at 74.1–74.1cGoogle Scholar.

20 For the possibility that such separation was a response to spiritual pollution, see Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 222–23; and see also below, n. 28.

21 Davies, Wendy, “‘Protected Space’ in Britain and Ireland in the Middle Ages,” in Scotland in Dark Age Britain, ed. Crawford, Barbara E. (St. Andrews, 1996), 1–19Google Scholar. For protected ecclesiastical space more generally, see Rosenwein, Barbara H., Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1999)Google Scholar.

22 See especially Æthelberht 1, 6 [= Liebermann, Æthelberht 1].

23 Alfred 5. Not all protected ecclesiastical space provided sanctuary: Davies, “Protected Space,” 7–8, 12–13.

24 II Æthelstan 26: n. 10 above and see further below. Æthelstan was credited with granting special sanctuary rights to numerous churches and their estates: Davies, “Protected Space,” 9; Lambert, T. B., “Spiritual Protection and Secular Power: The Evolution of Sanctuary and Legal Privilege in Ripon and Beverley, 900–1300,” in Peace and Protection in the Middle Ages, ed. Lambert, T. B. and Rollason, David (Durham, 2009), 121–40 at 128–31Google Scholar.

25 The brief legal treatise Walreaf (ca. 1000), which explains how to refute charges of plundering the dead, may have been intended to address grave-robbing: this interpretation is offered by Wormald, Patrick, The Making of English Law (Oxford, 1999), 371–72Google Scholar. Penances for violating or robbing graves are included in Continental penitentials known in England by the tenth or eleventh centuries: see for example the penitential of Haltigar, ed. Schmitz, Hermann Joseph, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, vol. 1 (Mainz, 1883), 478, chap. 29Google Scholar; the penitential of Bede-Egbert, ed. Schmitz, Hermann Joseph, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, vol. 2: Die Bussbücher und das kanonische Bussverfahren (Düsseldorf, 1898), 681, chap. 16Google Scholar; and the penitential of Theodore, ed. Wasserschleben, F. W. H., Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche (Halle, 1851), 592, chap. 23.14Google Scholar. For knowledge of these texts in England, see Frantzen, Allen J., Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, 1983), 107–10 and 130–37Google Scholar; van Rhijn, Carine and Saan, Marjolijn, “Correcting Sinners, Correcting Texts: A Context for the Paenitentiale Pseudo-Theodori,” Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006): 23–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also penances for violating graves in Cross and Hamer, Wulfstan's Canon Law, 84–85 at A.44. Despite these provisions, there is considerable evidence for grave disturbance in churchyards: Cherryson, Annia Kristina, “Disturbing the Dead: Urbanisation, the Church and the Post-Burial in Treatment of Human Remains in Early Medieval Wessex, c. 600–1100 AD,” Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 14 (2007): 130–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The disturbance of graves in early medieval England is discussed more generally by Klevnäs, Alison, “Overkill: Reopening Graves to Maim the Dead in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Limbs, Bones, and Reopened Graves in Past Societies, ed. Gardeła, L. and Kajkowski, K. (Bytów, 2015), 177–213Google Scholar; Thompson, Dying and Death (n. 2 above), 110–11.

26 Gittos, Liturgy (n. 10 above), 45–51; Gittos, “Creating the Sacred” (n. 11 above), 201.

27 “Quicumque baptismi sacramentum perceperint. et in fide catholica usque ad uitę terminum perseuerantes fuerint.” This passage is transcribed from the tenth-century Egbert Pontifical: Banting, H. M. J., Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals (the Egbert and Sidney Sussex Pontificals), HBS 104 (London, 1989), 58Google Scholar, with commentary at xi–xii and xv–xvii. The passage also appears in other early English recensions of the cemetery consecration rite: the tenth-century Dunstan Pontifical, the late tenth-century pontifical known as the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, and the tenth- or early eleventh-century Claudius Pontifical I: Marie A. Conn, “The Dunstan and Brodie (Anderson) Pontificals: An Edition and Study” (Ph.D. thesis, Notre Dame, 1993), 78; Wilson, H. A., The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, HBS 24 (London, 1903), 102Google Scholar; Turner, D. H., The Claudius Pontificals (from Cotton MS. Claudius A. iii in the British Museum), HBS 97 (London, 1971), 61Google Scholar. The rite is included in five recensions of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical edited by Vogel, Cyrille and Elze, Reinhard, Le Pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, 3 vols. (Vatican City, 1963), 1:193, no. 54Google Scholar; it also appears in the tenth-century sacramentary of Ratoldus, edited by Orchard, Nicolas, The Sacramentary of Ratoldus (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 12052), HBS 116 (London: 2005), 30–31Google Scholar. For surveys of English and Continental cemetery consecration rites, see Gittos, Liturgy (n. 10 above), 42–51; Gittos, “Creating the Sacred” (n. 11 above), 195–200.

28 “Famulorum famularumque. tuarum corporibus in hoc cimiterium intrantibus quietis sedem ab omni incursione malorum spirituum et tutelam benignus largitor tribuas. ut post animarum corporumque resurrectionem coadunatam. te donante atque concedente beatitudinem sempiternam percipere mereantur… . Te flagitamus ut hoc sanctorum tuorum cimiterium ab omni spurcitia et inquinamento spirituum inmundorum custodire. mundare. et benedicere digneris atque corporibus humanis huic loco aduenientibus sinceritatem perpetuam tribuere non desinas.” This passage is transcribed from the Egbert Pontifical, in Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals, 58; and see the corresponding passages in Conn, “Dunstan and Brodie,” 77–78; Wilson, Archbishop Robert, 101–2; Turner, Claudius Pontificals, 60–61; Vogel and Elze, Pontifical romano-germanique, 1:192–93, no. 54; Orchard, Ratoldus, 30.

29 “Deus cuius miseratione animae fidelium requiescunt. huic cymiterio angelum tuum deputes custodem. et da propitius ut omnium quorum hic corpora sepeliantur. animae absolutae ab omni dolore sine fine letentur.” This passage appears only in some recensions: the Latin is transcribed from Wilson, Archbishop Robert, 102; and see the corresponding passage in Conn, “Dunstan and Brodie,” 79.

30 This definition applies to excommunication in later Anglo-Saxon England: Treharne, “Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 189–99; Hamilton, Sarah, “Remedies for ‘Great Transgressions’: Penance and Excommunication in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Tinti, Francesca (Woodbridge, 2005), 83–105 at 94–102Google Scholar. For a longer historical view and descriptions of less formal modes of excommunication in the early Christian and early medieval period, see Vodola, Elisabeth, Excommunication in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986), 7–20Google Scholar.

31 See n. 2 above. For a nuanced reevaluation of this interpretation, see Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 294–313.

32 Especially Augustine, De cura pro mortuis gerenda, ed. Joseph Zycha, CSEL 41 (Vienna, 1900), 4.8 (633–34), 8.10 (636–38), 18.22 (658). Augustine's position is summarized in the Old English Scriftboc, ed. Spindler, Robert, Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confessionale pseudo-Egberti), ein Beitrag zu den kirchlichen Gesetzen der Angelsachen (Leipzig, 1934), 189–90 at 25b–cGoogle Scholar. Compare also Fulk, R. D. and Jurasinski, Stefan, The Old English Canons of Theodore, EETS s.s. 25 (Oxford, 2012), 14 at A.137Google Scholar. For commentary, see Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 267–69; Effros, “Beyond Cemetery Walls” (n. 2 above), 6–7; Rebillard, Éric, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, trans. Rawlings, Elizabeth Trapnell and Routier-Pucci, Jeanine (Ithaca, 2009), 85–88Google Scholar.

33 Augustine, De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 4.16 (629–31) and 18.22 (658–59); Gregory the Great, Dialogues, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Antin, Paul, Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues, tome III (livre IV), SC 265 (Paris, 1980), 176Google Scholar, at iv.52. For development of burial ad sanctos, see Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar; Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 266–71. See also Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf, “Church Burial in Anglo-Saxon England: The Prerogative of Kings,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster 29 (1995): 98–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Gregory indicates that sinners would compound their sin through church burial; he also recounts divine punishments suffered by clergymen who buried sinners in churches: Gregory, Dialogues, 176–84, at iv.52–56. These chapters were accessible in England by the tenth century, as they are summarized in the Hibernensis and translated in the Old English version of the Dialogues: Wasserschleben, Irische Kanonensammlung (n. 17 above), 58–59, at xviii.8; Hecht, Hans, Bischofs Wærferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen (Leipzig, 1900), 339–42, at iv.52–56Google Scholar. Compare also Gregory, Dialogues, 188–94, at iv.57, in which Gregory orders and later rescinds exclusionary burial for a monk who hoarded gold; the Old English is in Hecht, Bischofs Wærferth, 344–46. See also Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 269–71; Effros, “Beyond Cemetery Walls” (n. 2 above), 2–4.

35 Hans Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula in England (Munich, 1978), 314, chap. 9. The vernacular version, preserved in two eleventh-century manuscripts, renders the Latin “iusti hominis” as Old English “rihtwis læwede,” “righteous layman”: Sauer, Theodulfi, 315, chap. 9; and compare the adaptation of Theodulf's passage by Wulfstan of York, in Fowler, Roger, Wulfstan's Canons of Edgar, EETS 266 (London, 1972), 8–9, chap. 29Google Scholar. The 313 Council of Mainz is edited by Werminghoff, Albertus, Concilia Aevi Karolini, MGH Conc. 2.1 (Hanover, 1906), 272, at 36.liiGoogle Scholar; and see Deliyannis, “Church Burial,” 105–6.

36 Haddan, Arthur West and Stubbs, William, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 1871), 3:190–91Google Scholar, at II.i.4–5, and 3:211, at Appendix 5; the text is attributed to Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (r. 668–690). Alternatively, Theodulf of Orléans held that earlier generations of dead should not be expelled from churches: Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, 314–15, chap. 9.

37 Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 308–9.

38 N. 17 above. Compare also Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, 3:194, at II.v.8; Spindler, Altenglische Bussbuch, 189, at 25a.

39 References to excommunication are preserved in church councils from the fourth century onward, but it was only toward the late ninth century that rituals for excommunication began to coalesce: Genevieve Steele Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication in Medieval France and England, 900–1200” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1977), 13–17, and see 97–98 for a list of formulae which mention exclusion from Christian burial.

40 For medicinal excommunication and distinctions between excommunication and anathema, see Vodola, Excommunication (n. 30 above), 5–16; Little, Lester K., Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (Ithaca, 1993), 30–33Google Scholar; Treharne, “Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 189–90. Compare Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication,” 35–36.

41 “Nullus presbyter missas aliquando celebrare, nec si infirmati fuerint, confessiones eorum recipere, vel sancrosanctam communionem eis, nisi resipuerint, etiam in ipso fine vitae suae praesumat unquam dare; sed sepultura asini sepeliantur, et in sterquilinium super faciem terrae sint; ut sint in exemplum opprobet maledictionis presentibus generationibus et futuris.” The formula is edited with commentary by Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication,” 134–38 at 138, with analysis at 26–41. The dung-heap and ass's burial are drawn from Jer. 8:2 and 22:19. See also Hamilton, Sarah, “Interpreting Diversity: Excommunication Rites in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Gittos, Helen and Hamilton, Sarah (Farnham, 2016), 125–58 at 129Google Scholar.

42 “Sepultura asini sepeliantur et in sterquilinium sint super faciem terrae”: Wasserschleben, F. G. A., Reginonis Abbatis Prumiensis: Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis (Leipzig, 1840), 375Google Scholar, at ii.416. Regino composed this text 906–13, and his reliance on the Reims formula is discussed by Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication,” 28. See also Little, Maledictions, 36–38 and 257; Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 129–33; and n. 41 above.

43 Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication,” 51–61; Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 133; Little, Maledictions, 38.

44 “Sintque cadavera eorum in escam cunctis volatilibus celi et bestiis agri … si emendare noluerint, celum claudimus et terram ad sepeliendum negamus”: Zimmermann, Harald, Papsturkunden 896–1046, 1: 896–996 (Vienna, 1984), 156, no. 88Google Scholar; and see also Vogel and Elze, Pontificale romano-germanique (n. 27 above), 1:315–17, no. xc, at 316–17. The text is adapted from Deut. 28:26, and compare also Ps. 78:2–3. For dating and analysis, see Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication,” 54–57 and 73–75. See also Little, Maledictions, 38–39 and 257–58; Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 135–39.

45 Six excommunication formulae are edited in Vogel and Elze, Pontificale romano-germanique (n. 27 above), 1:308–17, chap. lxxxv–xc. Excommunication rites appear in only five of the eleven manuscripts used in Vogel and Elze's edition, and one of these (Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 53) contains only the “Pope Leo” formula: Pontificale romano-germanique, 1:xli; and see also Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 133 n. 34. For the limitations of the modern edition of the Romano-German Pontifical, see Parkes, Henry, “Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze's Pontificale romano-germanique,” in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Hamilton, Sarah and Gittos, Helen (Farnham, 2016), 75–101Google Scholar.

46 Treharne, “Unique Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 201–2. For the earliest extant excommunication formulae in English manuscripts, see Hamilton, “Remedies” (n. 30 above), 104–5: of the twenty-two formulae listed, only seven (preserved in four manuscripts) can be confidently dated to the eleventh century, with another five (preserved in three manuscripts) dated around the turn of the twelfth century.

47 “Nec habeant alteram quam asynorum sepulturam,” adapting Jer. 22:19. The text is edited by Doble, G. H., Pontificale Lanaletense (Bibliothèque de la Ville de Rouen A. 27 Cat. 368), HBS 74 (London, 1937), 130–31, at fols. 183r–184rGoogle Scholar. The Lanalet Pontifical was produced in the first half of the eleventh century, but its precise dating is debated: an Old English note on fol. 196 states that the book was owned by Bishop Lyfing, but it is unclear whether this attribution refers to Lyfing, bishop of Wells and archbishop of Canterbury (died 1020), or to Lyfing, bishop of Cornwall, Crediton, and Worcester (died 1046). The excommunication formula was added to fols. 183r–184r in a heavier hand, which the text's editor classifies as “an early hand, but probably somewhat later than the bulk of the book”; Victor Leroquais dates this script to the end of the eleventh century: Les Pontificaux manuscripts des bibliothèques publiques de France (Paris, 1937), 2:298Google Scholar; Doble, Pontificale Lanaletense, 130 n. 2. For dating and provenance, see Dumville, David N., “On the Dating of Some Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10 (1991): 51–52Google Scholar; Dumville, David N., “Liturgical Books for the Anglo-Saxon Episcopate: A Reconsideration,” in his Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies (Woodbridge, 1992), 66–95 at 86–87Google Scholar; Stokes, Peter A., English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut c. 990–c. 1035 (Cambridge, 2014), 55–57Google Scholar; Toswell, M. J., “St. Martial and the Dating of Late Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” Scriptorium 51 (1997): 3–14Google Scholar; Gneuss, Helmut and Lapidge, Michael, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto, 2014), 667, no. 922CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), 447–48, no. 374Google Scholar. Lester K. Little notes this formula's similarity to tenth-century Continental monastic curses: “La Morphologie des malédictions monastiques,” Annales 34 (1979): 43–60 at 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benedictine Maledictions, 48–50.

48 Compare also the Sherborne Pontifical — BL Cotton Tiberius C.i, fols. 43–203 (Cotton Tiberius C.i) — which was written in Germany but was likely in England by the early 1070s: Gneuss and Lapidge, Manuscripts, 300–301, no. 376; Ker, Manuscripts, 260, no. 197; Hamilton, “Remedies” (n. 30 above), 95–96. The manuscript contains a version of the “Pope Leo” formula (fols. 195v–197r), as well as one of Regino's formulae, which does not mention burial (fols. 197r–199r). Regino's text is edited from this manuscript by Liebermann as Excomm. 1: Gesetze, 1:142–43. The “Pope Leo” formula is available in digital facsimile through the British Library, www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Tiberius_C_I&index=95. The next extant English formula to discuss an excommunicant's burial is a twelfth-century interpolation in the Red Book of Darley: below, n. 217.

49 “Anathematizamus et excommunicamus et a consortio sanctę matris ęcclesię eliminamus .N., et sicut hę lucernę extinguuntur, ita corpus et anima illius in perpetuum extinguantur, nisi resipiscerit et ad satisfactionem uenerit.” This is a late eleventh-century addition to Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 265, at 211–13. The text is edited by Sauer, Hans, “Die Excommunikationsriten aus Wulfstans Handbuch und Liebermann's Gesetze,” in Bright is the Ring of Words: Festschrift für Horst Weinstock zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Poller, Clausdirk and Weinstock, Horst (Bonn, 1996), 283–307 at 294, no. 3Google Scholar. Compare the Old English formula recorded in the mid-twelfth century, in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 (CCCC 303): “he shall be cut off from the entrance of the holy church and from fellowship with all of God's chosen” [beon hi asyndreden fram infarelde þæra haligan gelaþunge 7 fram ferscipe alre Godes gecorenre]; Treharne, “Unique Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 210.

50 “Ligamus et dissipamus inimicos sanctę Dei ecclesię de domo domini .N. et maledicimus eos per auctoritatem apostolice sedis et per episcopale consilium, ut nullam christianorum societatem habeant, ecclesiamque Dei non ingrediantur, neque missa eis ab aliquo cęlebretur”; Sauer, “Excommunikationsriten,” 291–92, no. 1.

51 Notably, the Latin formula in the mid-twelfth-century manuscript CCCC 303, specifies that “we excommunicate, damn, and anathematize .N., and sequester him from the boundaries of the holy church of God” [excommunicamus, dampnamus, anathematizamus, atque a liminibus sancte Dei ecclesie sequestramus .N.]: Treharne, “Unique Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 210. Similar language was used in the brief excommunication formula added to fol. 1v of the Dunstan Pontifical (BN lat. 943), although this was apparently written after the manuscript was brought to France in the later eleventh century: Hamilton, “Remedies” (n. 30 above), 96–97; the Dunstan Pontifical is available as a digital facsimile through the Gallica website, at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001165p. Compare also the formula in the Sherborne Pontifical (n. 48 above).

52 “Post hec episcopus plebi ipsam excommunicationem communibus uerbis debet explanere, ut omnes intelligant, quam terribiliter damnatus sit, et ut nouerint, quod ab illa hora in reliquum non pro christiano, sed pro pagano habendus sit.” These directions, drawn from one of Regino's formulae, appear in the Sherborne Pontifical (n. 48 above); Vogel and Elze, Pontificale romano-germanique (n. 27 above), 311, at lxxxv.6. See also Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication” (n. 39 above), 66–67.

53 N. 27 above, and compare also the Penitential of Theodore's call to remove bodies of pagans from churches, n. 36 above.

54 “Sciat se alienum esse a consortio sancte Dei ecclesie et a corpore et sanguine Domini nostri Iesu Christi … nisi prius hic digna emendauerit penitentia ante mortem”: S515, edited by Kelly, S. E., Charters of Malmesbury Abbey (Oxford, 2005), 212, no. 25Google Scholar and discussed further below. “Nunc et tunc et usque in sempiternum abdicatum et excommunicatum sine fine cruciandum”: S724, edited by Kelly, S. E., Charters of Abingdon Abbey, Part 2 (Oxford, 2001), 400, no. 100Google Scholar; this is a charter of King Edgar dated 964. See also Hamilton, “Remedies” (n. 30 above), 100–102; and the list of curses in pre-900 Anglo-Saxon sanction clauses compiled by the ASChart Project, at http://www.aschart.kcl.ac.uk/diplomatic/idx_curse.html.

55 “Dampnatus atque sepultus in inferno inferiori”: S355, ed. Kelly, S. E., Charters of Abingdon Abbey, Part 1 (Oxford, 2000), 77, no. 18Google Scholar; this is a charter of King Alfred produced 892x899. “Ligge he efre on healle grundleasan pytte”: S817, ed. Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon Charters (Cambridge, 1939), 70, no. 38Google Scholar; the charter is dated to Edgar's reign, 963x975 (and compare S976). “Sy his lif her gescert. 7 his wunung on helle grunde”: S985, edited by Florence Harmer, E., Anglo-Saxon Writs, 2nd ed. (Stamford, 1989), 182, no. 26Google Scholar; the writ was issued by Cnut, 1017–1020. For damnation in sanction clauses, see Petra Hofmann, “Infernal Imagery in Anglo-Saxon Charters” (Ph.D. diss., University of St. Andrews, 2008).

56 “Ne hi nan man ne burge binnan gehalgodan mynstre, ne furþum to hæþenum pytte ne bere, ac drage butan cyste butan hi geswicon.” This passage is preserved uniquely in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, fols. 140–47 in an expanded version of Vercelli Homily IX: Scragg, D., The Vercelli Homilies, EETS 300 (1992), 159–83, at 161Google Scholar. See also Treharne, “Unique Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 197–98; Thompson, Dying and Death (n. 2 above), 171–72.

57 Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 296–98, 308–9, 313.

58 For the clergy's involvement in lawmaking, see for example Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 299–300, 310, 330–39, 449–65; Oliver, Beginnings (n. 1 above), 14–20, 83–85; Oliver, Lisi, “Royal and Ecclesiastical Law in Seventh-century Kent,” in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Baxter, Stephen et al. (Farnham, 2009), 97–112Google Scholar.

59 II Æthelstan was issued at a council at Grately. For the chronology of Æthelstan's codes and the makeup of lawmaking councils in his reign, see Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 299. Wormald questions whether Æthelstan was himself present at the Grately council, although the first person singular is used in II Æthelstan 25 (as Wormald notes). Later codes state that the provisions of II Æthelstan were promulgated according to the king's wishes or in his presence: V Æthelstan Prol., VI Æthelstan 10.

60 “Ond se ðe mannað swerige, 7 hit him on open wurþe, ðæt he næfre eft aðwyrþe ne sy, ne binnon nanum gehalgodum lictune ne licge, þeah he forðfore, buton he hæbbe ðæs biscopes gewitnesse, ðe he on his scriftscire sy, þæt he hit swa gebet hæbbe, swa him his scrift scrife. 26.1] 7 his scrift hit gecyþe þam biscope binnon XXX nihta, hweþer he to þære bote cirran wolde. Gif he swa ne do, bete be þam þe se biscop him forgifan wille.” Patrick Wormald suggests that these provisions were added to the text in the later years of Æthelstan's reign: English Law (n. 25 above), 176–77, 291, 307–8.

61 Compare the early tenth-century I Edward 3: “Also, we said concerning those people who were false swearers — if that should be revealed, or if the oath should fail them or be overruled — that they should never afterwards be oath-worthy, but [only] worthy of the ordeal” [Eac we cwædon be þam mannum ðe mansworan wæran, gif ðæt geswutelod wære, oððe him að burste oððe ofercyðed wære, þæt hy siððan aðwyrðe næran, ac ordales wyrðe].

62 V Æthelstan 1.5.

63 Oaths were to be rendered in churches or amid devotional activity: see especially Alfred 33; II Æthelstan 23. The legal tract Swerian includes formulae to be used in oaths of accusation and exculpation during judicial inquiries: these require testors to swear “by the Lord” [on ðone Drihten] (clauses 1–6), “by the name of God almighty” [on ælmihtiges Godes naman] (7–9), and “by the name of the living God” [on lifiendes Godes naman] (10–11). Patrick Wormald dates the text to the tenth century: English Law (n. 25 above), 383–84.

64 Compare Wihtred 3–3.2 [= Liebermann Wihtred 3–4]; Alfred 1.2–1.8.

65 Æthelstan's laws acknowledge the advice of bishops, and these policies were surely created in consultation with ecclesiastical advisors: Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 299–300.

66 II Æthelstan 26.1 requires that the clergyman compensate (bete) as the bishop assigns, indicating penitential atonement rather than secular compensation: n. 60 above. See also DOE s.v. betan.

67 The diversity of later Anglo-Saxon burial practices indicates that the these were not dictated by the Church: tenth-century lay burial was probably overseen by family or community members, although local clergy were likely involved. See Bullough, “Burial” (n. 12 above); Hadley and Buckberry, “Caring for the Dead” (n. 11 above), 136–37 and 147; Thompson, Dying and Death (n. 2 above), 32–33, 45–46, 82–85; and compare also Geake, Helen, “The Control of Burial Practice in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Cross Goes North: The Process of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, ed. Carver, Martin (York, 2003), 259–69, especially 266–67Google Scholar.

68 For example, Alfred 5–5.3, 42–42.4; III Æthelstan 3; V Æthelstan 3.1.

69 N. 40 above.

70 I Edmund Prol.; Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 310. For I Edmund’s differences from contemporary canon law, in both its form and content, see Michael D. Elliot, “Canon Law Collections in England ca 600–1066: The Manuscript Evidence” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 2013), 51–53.

71 “Þæt þa halgan hadas, þe Godes folc læron sculon lifes bisne, ðæt hi heora clænnesse healdan be heora hade, swa werhades swa wifhades, swa hwaðer swa hit sy. 7 gif hi swa ne don, þonne syn hi þæs wyrðe þe on ðam canone cweð, and þæt hi þolian worldæhta 7 gehalgodre legerstowe, buton hi gebetan.” This transcription follows Liebermann's edition, but see n. 72 below for the manuscript context.

72 I follow the earliest extant copy of this law, preserved in the early eleventh century in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201 (CCCC 201), at p. 96 (Liebermann's MS D). In this redaction, the two sets of punishments are described in separate phrases, with the second — beginning “And that they will forfeit” [And þæt hi þolian] — demarcated with its own rubricated initial. By contrast, versions preserved in twelfth-century manuscripts interpret the second set of punishments as an explication of the first: in these later redactions, the canonical punishment consisted of forfeiture and unconsecrated burial. However, these penalties are uncharacteristic of pre-Conquest canonical punishments, and it is more reasonable to interpret them as penalties imposed by secular authority, as they are in other Anglo-Saxon laws. Twelfth-century versions are edited by Liebermann, Gesetze, 1:184–85; and see Elliot, “Canon Law,” 51–55. Digital facsimiles of CCCC 201 are available through Parker Library on the Web, https://parker.stanford.edu; and the Early English Laws Project, http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/manuscripts.

73 For differentiation of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, see Carella, “Earliest Expression for Outlawry” (n. 14 above); Marafioti, “Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice” (n. 5 above).

74 Deposition was prescribed for sexual misconduct in Late Antique canon law: Elliot, “Canon Law,” 17, 54; D. Whitelock et al., Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, vol. 1: A.D. 871–1204, part 1 (Oxford, 1981), 62 n. 1. For deposition and penance required for a single clerical offense, see the Penitential of Theodore, in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils (n. 36 above), 3:184–85, at I.ix.1 and I.ix.8; Handbook, 21, lines 146–47.

75 Compare Alfred 21, which requires homicidal priests to be deposed before receiving secular punishment. I discuss this strategy in Marafioti, Nicole, “Crime and Sin in the Laws of Alfred,” in Languages of the Law in Early Medieval England: Essays in Memory of Lisi Oliver, ed. Jurasinski, Stefan and Rabin, Andrew (Leuven, 2019), 59–84Google Scholar.

76 Forfeiture was already well attested in Anglo-Saxon royal law: it was prescribed in response to religious violations in I Æthelstan 4, and compare also Wihtred 3.2 [= Liebermann, Wihtred 4.1].

77 “Se þe wið nunnan hæme, gehalgodre legerstowe ne sy he wyrðe — buton he gebete — þe ma þe manslaga; þæt ilce we cwædon be æwbrice.” These conditions presumably applied to laypeople, since the offending nun or clerical participant in adultery would already be subject to the provisions of I Edmund 1. Compare Alfred 8; see also Thompson, Dying and Death (n. 2 above), 171–75.

78 “Gif hwa Cristenes mannes blod ageote, ne cume he na on ðæs cyninges neawiste, ær he on dædbot ga, swa him biscop tæce 7 his scrift him wisige.”

79 It is conceivable that this prohibition could extend to an entire royal residence or burh: Bosworth-Toller, s.v. neáh-west, definition 1.

80 Compare II Edmund 4.

81 II Æthelstan Epil.; I Edmund Prol.

82 Compare I Edmund 2, 6. See also Alfred 7; Wihtred 3, 3.1 [= Liebermann, Wihtred 3, 4.1].

83 II Edgar 2–2.1 [= I Cnut 11–11.1]. See also Hadley and Buckberry, “Caring for the Dead” (n. 11 above), 122–23.

84 VIII Æthelred 5.1 [= I Cnut 3.2], composed by Archbishop Wulfstan. Cemeteries are mentioned only in the recension in BL Cotton Nero A.i (MS G).

85 V Æthelred 12–12.1 [= VI Æthelred 20–21, VIII Æthelred 13, I Cnut 13–13.1], composed by Archbishop Wulfstan. Soul-scot also appears in one manuscript version of I Æthelstan, but this seems to be a later interpolation by Wulfstan: Tinti, Francesca, “The ‘Costs’ of Pastoral Care: Church Dues in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Tinti, Francesca (Woodbridge, 2005), 27–51 at 33–34Google Scholar; Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 295.

86 “Glorioso rege Eadgaro precipiente, ad deterrendos quosque malos horribili poena talis lex est constituta in Anglorum prouincia: ut si quispiam cleptes in tota uel predo inueniretur patria, caecatis luminibus, truncatis manibus, auulsis auribus, incisis naribus, et subtractis pedibus excruciaretur diutius; et sic demum decoriata pelle capitis cum crinibus, per omnia pene membra mortuus relinqueretur in agris, deuorandus a feris et auibus atque nocturnicanibus.” The text was composed in the 970s and is edited by Lapidge, M., The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Studies 4.ii (Oxford, 2003), 310–13Google Scholar; I follow Lapidge's translation.

87 II Cnut 30.4–30.5, composed by Archbishop Wulfstan; and compare also I Æthelred 1.5–1.6. The connection between Lantfred's account and Old English law was established by Whitelock, D., “Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon Law,” in Nordica et Anglica: Studies in Honor of Stefan Einarsson, ed. Orrick, A. H. (The Hague, 1968), 83–92Google Scholar. Patrick Wormald doubts that this text preserves a lost written law, but he finds it reasonable that this passage recounts “a known initiative of late in Edgar's reign”; English Law (n. 25 above), 127. Compare the similar list of punishments in Ælfric of Eynsham's late tenth-century homily on the book of Maccabees: Walter W. Skeat, Ælfric's Lives of Saints: Being a Set of Sermons on Saints’ Days Formerly Observed by the English Church, EETS o.s. 76, 82, 94, 114 (1881–1900), 2:74–77.

88 II Cnut 30.5; Marafioti, “Punishing Bodies” (n. 2 above), 52–55. This is precisely what happens in Lantfred's text: the innocent man survives his mutilation and turns to God and St. Swithun. Similarly, one of Wulfstan's early lawcodes anticipates that a mutilated offender could survive a three-day period of abandonment, after which his body and soul might be healed: Edward and Guthrum, 10.

89 Lantfred's reference to carrion recalls Deut. 28:26 and Ps. 78:2–3; compare the “Pope Leo” excommunication formula, n. 44 above.

90 The Scriftboc requires penances from seven days to five years, depending on the circumstances of the offense: Spindler, Altenglische Bussbuch (n. 32 above), 177, at vi.7b and 193–94, at xxviii.35–36. The Canons of Theodore require seven years of penance, which might be reduced if the thief settled with his victim: Fulk and Jurasinski, Canons (n. 32 above), 9, chap. 69, 71.

91 The Old English Penitential assigns different penances based on the thief's social rank and the stolen items: for those who steal out of necessity, three weeks of penance may be prescribed, but confessors are urged not to compel the needy to fast, “for love of God” [for godes lufan]: Josef Raith, Die altenglische Version des Haltigar'schen Bussbuches (Sog. Poenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberti) (1933; repr. Darmstadt, 1964), 32, at ii.25 and 56–57, at iv.19–20. Compare also the seven-day penance prescribed in the Scriftboc, n. 90 above.

92 Wormald, Patrick, Papers Preparatory to the Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, volume II: From God's Law to Common Law, ed. Baxter, Stephen and Hudson, John (London, 2014)Google Scholar, http://earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk, 119–29; Wormald, Patrick, “Charters, Laws and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England,” in his Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West (London, 1999), 289–311 at 306–7Google Scholar; Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 210–13.

93 “7 gif hwylc man sy, þe eallon folce ungetrywe sy, fare þæs cynges gerefa to 7 gebringe hine under borge, þæt hine man to riht gelæde þam þe him onspræcon. 4.1] Gif he ðonne borh næbbe, slea man hine 7 on ful lecge. 4.2] 7 gif hwa hine forenne forstande, beon hy begen anes rihtes wyrðe. 4.3] 7 se þe þys forsytte 7 hit geforðian nylle, swa ure ealra cwide is, sylle þam cynge CXX scll’.” This sequence adapts III Edgar 7–7.3, which do not mention burial.

94 N. 92 above.

95 I Æthelred 1; and compare III Edgar 6.

96 Compare III Edgar 1.1, which declares everyone worthy of just judgments; and III Edgar 6 and I Æthelred 1, which declare that every person must have a surety in order to participate in judicial processes.

97 One hundred and twenty shillings is the fine due for disobedience (oferhyrness) in earlier law: I Edward 2.1; II Edward 2; IV Æthelstan 7; but compare II Æthelstan 25.1–25.2.

98 Compare I Æthelred 1.6 and 2.1, which require death for certain repeat offenders but do not mention burial.

99 II Æthelstan 26; I Edmund 1 and 4, all quoted above.

100 In charter boundary clauses, the term is occasionally used to describe topographical features; I identified 102 attestations of this usage in the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. The vast majority of these refer to ful bodies of water, which were presumably unclean or unfit for drinking. However, there are nine royal charters of likely authenticity whose boundary clauses describe foul land, with the earliest dating to Æthelstan's reign. A “foul pit” appears in charters of Edgar (S773, S786: “fulan pyt”) and Æthelred (S909: “foule putte”); a “foul ditch” appears in two charters of Æthelred (S842, S865: “fulan dic”); a “foul gap” or “pass” appears in a charter of Æthelred (S842: “fulan geate”); a “foul road” or “way” appears in charters of Æthelstan (S411: “fulan wege”) and Harthacnut (S993: “fulan wege”); and “foul land” appears in charters of Æthelstan (S437: “fulan rod”) and Edward the Confessor (S998: “fulan lande”). Compare references to a “foul road” or “way” in two stand-alone boundary clauses (S1542, S1556: “fulan wege”). Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with Wilkin, John Price and Xiang, Xin (Toronto, 2009)Google Scholar; see also DOE, s.v. ful, definition 2.a. An association between ful sites and execution burial is suggested by Reynolds, Deviant Burial (n. 7 above), 224.

101 Reynolds, Deviant Burial (n. 7 above), 155–56, 203–27.

102 Compare references to “heathen burials,” which have been shown to apply to deviant or execution burials in tenth- and eleventh-century charter boundary clauses: Reynolds, Deviant Burial (n. 7 above), 219–22, 274–77. It is conceivable that ful was similarly used in charter boundary clauses to denote execution cemeteries or sites of deviant burial.

103 DOE, s.v. ful, definition 1.a.

104 Compare the use of ful in descriptions of failed ordeals, n. 109 below.

105 Nn. 34–38 above.

106 Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 328.

107 I discuss this point in greater detail in Marafioti, “Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice” (n. 5 above); Marafioti, Nicole, “The Legacy of King Edgar in the Laws of Archbishop Wulfstan,” in Remembering the Medieval Present: Generative Uses of England's Pre-Conquest Past, 10th to 15th Centuries, ed. Gates, Jay Paul and O'Camb, Brian (Leiden, 2019), 21–50, at 48–50Google Scholar.

108 “And gif hwa þeof clænsian wylle, lecge an C to wedde, healf landrican 7 healf cinges gerefan binnan port, 7 gange to þrimfealdan ordale. 7.1] Gif he clæne beo æt þam ordale, nime upp his mæg; gif he þonne ful beo, licge þar he læg, 7 gilde an C.”

109 See especially Ordal 5.2.

110 For varieties of ordeal, see III Æthelred 6.

111 Compare II Æthelstan 11, which only requires an oath to exonerate a dead thief.

112 Forfeiture for theft was attested in charters from the early tenth century: see for example S1445 (900x24), S443 (938), S753 (967), S792 (973), S1457 (975x87), S877 (996), S893 (998), S927 (1012); these are annotated by Wormald, Patrick, “A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Lawsuits,” Anglo-Saxon England 17 (1988): 247–81, at 261–64, nos. 25, 31, 37, 41, 45, 57, 60, 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 322.

114 IV Æthelred 4 reads in full: “A person who commits house-breach within a town without permission, and commits the greatest infraction of resisting the law, or who attacks some innocent person on the royal road, if he is killed, let him lie in an ungildan ækere” [homo qui hamsocnam faciet intra portum sine licentia et summam infracturam aget de placito ungebendeo uel qui aliquem innocentem affliget in uia regia, si iaceat, iaceat in ungildan ækere].

115 Robertson, A. J., The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I (Cambridge, 1925), 1:75Google Scholar.

116 DOE s.v. æcer; Bosworth-Toller, s.v. un-gilde.

117 Robertson, drawing an analogy with the Old Norse phrase i úgildum akri, suggests that the Old English means “that he shall lie in the ground used for those for whom no wergeld is paid”; Laws, 2:325 n. 5. This interpretation follows Liebermann, who understands the dead to be buried in a dishonorable place reserved for those ineligible for wergeld: “liege er in dem nicht [durch Wergeld] entgoltenen [unehrlichen] Feld”; Gesetze, 1:235. Compare also Patrick Wormald, who reads ungildan as modifying ækere, rendering the phrase “in unredeemed ground”: Papers Preparatory (n. 92 above), 117.

118 VI Æthelred 38.

119 IV Æthelred 4.1 reads: “If he fights before requesting justice for himself, and he lives, he shall compensate the king with five pounds for forcible entry” [Si pugnet, antequam sibi rectum postulet, ac uiuat, emendet regis burhbrece quinque libris]. The subsequent clause establishes a further payment for offenders to reconcile with the wronged town.

120 Compare Edgar's policy, which requires severely mutilated thieves to be abandoned in the fields (relinqueretur in agris): n. 86 above.

121 I Edgar 2; III Edgar 7–7.1, 7.3; I Æthelred 1.6, 2.1; II Æthelred 6; III Æthelred 4.1, 8; IV Æthelred 5.4. It is certainly possible that the bodies of offenders executed under these laws were deposited in unconsecrated ground, but such treatment is not described as a punishment in these clauses, as it is in the clauses discussed above.

122 The text is edited by Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 90–93, no. 44, with commentary at 336–39. See also Smith, Scott T., Land and Book: Literature and Land Tenure in Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, 2012), 79–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 310; Wormald, “Handlist,” 261–62, nos. 39–40.

123 The first part of this charter describes a dispute which persisted through the reigns of kings Eadred and Eadwig and was finally settled under Edgar: the king and a Mercian council confiscated the land and reassigned it to an ealdorman, who subsequently sold it to Ecgferth.

124 “Þa cwæð se cyng him to andsware mine witan habbað ætrecð Ecgferðe ealle his are. þurh þæt swyrd þe him on hype hangode þa he adranc. nam þa se cyng ða are þe he ahte .xx. hyda æt Sendan .x. æt Sunnanbyrg. 7 forgef Ælfheah ealdormenn”; Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 92, no. 44: I adapt Robertson's translation. Ælfheah was ealdorman of Hampshire: “Ælfheah 33,” Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, http://www.pase.ac.uk. Edgar's grant of Sunbury to Ælfheah is recorded in S702, dated to 962 and witnessed by Dunstan.

125 “Þa cwæð se cyng. þæt mihte beon geboden him wið clænum legere. ac ic hæbbe ealle þa spæce to Ælfhege læten”; Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 92, no. 44: I adapt Robertson's translation. The concluding phrase has been translated differently by Scott T. Smith: “I have decided the entire case for Ælfheah”; Land and Book, 88. This rendering implies that Ælfheah was granted the forfeited land but not judicial rights over the case; in such an interpretation, it is not clear who would release the body or receive the wer payment. However, in other contexts, the phrase ealle þa spæce encompasses judicial rights, which informs my reading above: compare for example VI Æthelstan 4 and S806.

126 I Edmund 1, discussed above. It has been suggested that Ecgferth drowned while undergoing a judicial ordeal by cold water, but it is illogical that he would have carried a sword during an ecclesiastical ritual: compare Brooks, Nicolas, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), 249Google Scholar. Scholars have also proposed that Ecgferth committed suicide: see Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 338 for a refutation of this interpretation; also Smith, Land and Book, 87–88.

127 See also the examples in Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 338.

128 Compare II Æthelstan 11; III Æthelred 7–7.1.

129 S894 (dated 998) notes that the estate at Sunbury was entrusted by Dunstan to a certain widow named Æthelflæd for the duration of her life, after which it reverted to Westminster. Although Æthelflæd is never identified as Ecgferth's widow, it is reasonable that she would be the recipient of her husband's former estate, given Dunstan's earlier efforts on her behalf: Smith, Land and Book, 89 n. 69.

130 The extant version of the charter was likely recorded in the period 968x988, after Dunstan had purchased the property in question: Smith, Land and Book, 80.

131 I Æthelred 4.1; and compare for example the use of clæne and ful in III Æthelred 7.1, n. 108 above. See also DOE s.v. clæne, definitions 6–7; Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 339.

132 For wer as a fine or compensation payment in the value of the offender's wergild, see Bosworth-Toller, s.v. wer, definitions 3.II–III. I have estimated Ecgferth's wergild at 1200 shillings (at twenty shillings to the pound), the value assigned to upper classes by the early eleventh century: Cnut 1020 Prol. By comparison, Dunstan would later pay £115 for the pair of forfeited estates: Robertson, Charters (n. 55 above), 92–93.

133 Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 310.

134 For the phrase ealle þa spæce, see n. 125 above.

135 S883 is edited by Kelly, Abingdon 2 (n. 54 above), 483–89, no. 125; I adapt the translation from Whitelock, Dorothy, English Historical Documents, volume I: c. 500–1042, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), 571, no. 118Google Scholar. See also Wormald, “Handlist” (n. 112 above), 262, no. 54; Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 310–12; Keynes, Simon, The Diplomas of King Æthelred “The Unready,” 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), 111–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

136 “Aþeluuig meus prepositus in Bucingaham et Winsige prepositus on Oxonaforda inter Christianos predictos sepelierunt fratres. Leofsige igitur dux audito hoc uerbo meam adiit presentiam, prefatos incusans prepositos, peremptis fratribus non recte inter Christianos sepultis”; Kelly, Abingdon 2 (n. 54 above), 484, no. 125.

137 For the participants, see “Æthelwig 3,” “Wynnsige 22,” and “Leofsige 17” in Prosopography (n. 124 above). For the reeves’ authority in this case, see Blair, John, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (Stroud, 1994), 103–4Google Scholar.

138 “Ego autem, nolens contristari Aþelwig quia mihi erat carus et preciosus, una simul et sepultos cum Christianis requiescere permisi, et predictam terram eidem in hereditatem concessi perpetuam”; Kelly, Abingdon 2 (n. 54 above), 484, no. 125.

139 “Æthelwig 3” in Prosopography (n. 124 above).

140 This Old English phrase was used in the early eleventh century: see the passage quoted below, n. 168.

141 Compare the twelfth-century Latin translation in Quadripartitus: in I Æthelred 4.1, “buried in foulness” [in ful lecge] is rendered “buried with the damned” [cum dampnatis inhumetur].

142 N. 106 above.

143 Compare Edgar's grant of Ecgferth's forfeited land (and jurisdiction over his case) to Ælfheah, which declares the gift to be made “out of thanks for his great devotion” [pro obsequio ejus devotissimo]: S702, and n. 124 above.

144 Fines for neglecting or disobeying royal law were standard throughout the tenth century: for example I Æthelred 4.3 (n. 93 above).

145 The timing of this exchange may explain why the grant was presented as royal clemency: S883 was issued amid a series of penitential charters in which Æthelred sought to redeem past wrongs; by permitting the brothers' consecrated burial, Æthelred's judgment could be construed as an act of Christian mercy. Æthelred's penitential charters are discussed by Cubitt, Catherine, “The Politics of Remorse: Penance and Royal Piety in the Reign of Æthelred the Unready,” Historical Research 85.228 (2012): 179–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roach, Levi, “Penitential Discourse in the Diplomas of Æthelred ‘the Unready’,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (2013): 258–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

146 These charters may have been created in response to a later challenge by Alfred's relatives, between the mid-tenth and mid-eleventh century: Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 60–61, 214–16; Kelly, S. E., Charters of Bath and Wells (Oxford, 2007), 29, 75–77Google Scholar.

147 S414 is preserved uniquely in a twelfth-century cartulary of Bath: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 111; the text is edited by Kelly, Bath and Wells, 72–75, no. 5. S415 is preserved in three manuscripts produced between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries: the text is edited with commentary by Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 211–18, no. 25. See also Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 307–8.

148 These are nearly identical. In the quotations below, I follow S415.

149 Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5. See further n. 155 below.

150 “Ad Romanam ecclesiam, ut ibi se coram apostolico Iohanne iureiurando defenderet. Et hoc fecit coram altare sancti Petri”; Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5.

151 Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5.

152 “Et tunc apostolicus ad nos remisit et quid de eo ageretur a nobis consuluit, an cum ceteris Christianis corpus illius poneretur. His peractis et nobis renunciatis, optimates nostre regionis cum propinquorum illius turma efflagitabant omni humilitate ut corpus illius per nostram licentiam cum corporibus poneretur Christianorum nobisque illorum efflagitationi consentientibus Romam remissimus et, consentiente papa, positus est ad ceteros Christianos, quamuis indignus esset. Et sic iudicata est mihi tota possessio eius in magnis et modicis”; Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5.

153 “Nos has prefatas terras non iniuste rapuisse”; Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5.

154 “Quemadmodum iudicauerunt omnes optimates regionis Anglorum, insuper et apostolicus pape Romane ecclesie Iohannes”; Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 212, no. 25; and compare Kelly, Bath and Wells, 73, no. 5.

155 Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 307–8; Marafioti, King's Body (n. 16 above), 56–60.

156 Alfred is said to be envious (“emulus”) of the king's good fortune, and the charters have Æthelstan referring to him as “my rival” (“emulum meum”). Kelly, Bath and Wells, 77–78; and n. 149 above.

157 Eadwine died under suspicious circumstances, in which Æthelstan was later rumored to have had a hand: Marafioti, King's Body (n. 16 above), 60 n. 33.

158 II Æthelstan 26–26.1, n. 60 above; and see Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 307–8.

159 The witness list and proem may have been modeled on S476, a grant by Edmund dated 941; compare also S480, a grant by Edmund dated 942, which shares parts of the proem with S514 and S515. Alternatively, the model may have been a lost charter of Edmund: Kelly, Malmesbury (n. 54 above), 215; Kelly, Bath and Wells (n. 146 above), 75–76.

160 I Edmund 1 (n. 71 above).

161 Compare III Æthelstan 7–7.1.

162 Rabin, Andrew, “Old English Forespeca and the Role of the Advocate in Anglo-Saxon Law,” Mediaeval Studies 69 (2007): 223–54Google Scholar.

163 This is not to suggest that forfeited property could not be reclaimed, for there are numerous instances of kings reversing earlier judgments and restoring confiscated property: Wormald, “Handlist” (n. 112 above), 250–52.

164 Marafioti, “Punishing Bodies” (n. 2 above).

165 For Wulfstan's career and influence, see especially Whitelock, Dorothy, “Archbishop Wulfstan, Homilist and Statesman,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. 24 (1942): 25–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wormald, Patrick, “Archbishop Wulfstan and the Holiness of Society,” in his Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: Law as Text, Image, and Experience (London, 1999), 225–51Google Scholar; Townend, Matthew, ed., Wulfstan, Archbishop of York: Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference (Turnhout, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

166 “And we lærað þæt ælc man leornige þæt he cunne pater noster and credon, be þam þe he wille on gehalgodan licgan oððe husles wyrðe beon; forðam he ne bið wel cristen þe þæt geleornian nele, ne he nah mid rihte oðres mannes to onfonne æt fulluhte ne æt biscopes handa, se þe þæt ne cann, ær he hit geleornige”; Fowler, Canons of Edgar, 6 (n. 35 above), with dating at xxvi–xxxi. I follow the version in CCCC 201 (MS D) in the quotation above, but compare Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121: Fowler, Canons, 7; and n. 72 above. See also Gates, Jay Paul, “Preaching, Politics and Episcopal Reform in Wulfstan's Early Writings,” Early Medieval Europe 23 (2015): 93–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and further n. 168 below.

167 “He ne bið wel cristen þe þæt geleornian nele, ne he nah mid rihte æniges mannes æt fulluhte to onfonne, ne æt bisceopes handa se ðe þæt ne cann, ær he hit geleornige, ne he rihtlice ne bið husles wyrðe ne clænes legeres, se ðe on life þæt geleornian nele, huru on Englisc, buton he on Læden mæge.” The text is edited by Bethurum, Dorothy, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957), 183, no. 8c, lines 148–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bethurum dates the text later than the Canons of Edgar but earlier than 1008. The passage was adapted after Wulfstan's death in the composite homily Sermo Bone Praedicatio: Napier, Arthur, Wulfstan (Berlin, 1883), 32, no. 58, lines 3–8Google Scholar; and see Ogawa, Hiroshi, Language and Style in Old English Composite Homilies (Tempe, 2010), 48–62Google Scholar.

168 “We lærað, þæt ælc cristen man geleornige huru, þæt he cunne rihtne geleafan ariht understandan, and paternoster and credan, be ðam þe he wylle æfter forðsiðe mid cristenra gemanan on gehalgedan restan and gebedrædenne habban oððon ær on life husles beon wyrðe, forðam he ne byð wel cristen, þe ðæt geleornian nele, ne he nah mid rihte oþres mannes to onfonne æt fulluhte ne æt biscopes handa, ær he hit geleornige, þæt he wel cune”; Napier, Wulfstan, 307, no. 59, lines 20–28. For a translation with commentary, see Rabin, Andrew, The Political Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (Manchester, 2015), 154–58Google Scholar; see also Lionarons, Joyce Tally, The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan: A Critical Study (Woodbridge, 2010), 35Google Scholar. The text is preserved uniquely in the York Gospels (York, Minster Library, MS Additional 1) and is annotated in Wulfstan's hand: Ker, Neil, “The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan,” in England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, Peter and Hughes, Kathleen (Cambridge, 1971), 315–31, at 330–31Google Scholar.

169 Compare n. 166 above.

170 DOE s.v. cunnan, definitions IA and IID.

171 “22] And we lærað, þæt ælc Cristen man geleornige, þæt he huru cunne rihtne gelefan 7 ariht understandan 7 Pater noster 7 Credan geleornian … 22.3] And on þam godcundan gebede syn VII gebedu; mid þam se ðe hit inweardlice gesingð, he geærndað to Gode sylfum ymbe æfre ælce neode, þe man beþearf aðor oððe for þysum life oððe for ðam toweardan. 22.4] Ac hu mæg þonne æfre ænig mann hine inweardlice to Gode gebiddan, butan he hæbbe inweardlice rihtne geleafan to Gode? 22.5] Forþam he nah æfter forðsiðe Cristenra manna gemanan ne on gehalgedan lictune to restene, ne he nah þæs halgan husles to onfonne her on life. 22.6] Ne he ne byð wel Cristen, þe þæt geleornian nele, ne he nah mid rihte oðres mannes to onfonne æt fulluhte ne æt bisceopes handa þe ma, ær he hit geleornige, þæt he hit wel cunne.”

172 Nn. 166 and 167 above. See also Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 221–22 — although Lambert regards I Cnut 22–22.6 as an ideological statement rather than a set of practical decrees: 222 at n. 78.

173 Compare the diction of the Latin charters, above.

174 Nn. 41–45 above.

175 Marafioti, “Punishing Bodies” (n. 2 above), 51–56.

176 “Slea hine man 7 on fulan lecge”; II Cnut 33.1. Compare I Æthelred 4–4.3 (n. 93 above).

177 Marafioti, “Punishing Bodies” (n. 2 above), 52 n. 47. A guiding principle of Wulfstan's legislation is that death sentences not be issued for minor offenses: see V Æthelred 3, VI Æthelred 10, II Cnut 2.1. Several of his laws stipulate that an offender might be liable to forfeit his life, but these clauses all offer the possibility of mitigation: see I Cnut 2.2; II Cnut 43, 59, 61. Outside of II Cnut 33, Wulfstan prescribes outright death sentences only for proven treason against the king (V Æthelred 30, VI Æthelred 37, II Cnut 57); he also stipulates in II Cnut 26 that an individual proven to have plotted against his lord or committed theft “shall never seek his life” [næfre feorh ne gesecean].

178 “Forðam syn on lande ungetreowða micele for Gode and for worulde.” This statement appears in all recensions of the text: Bethurum, Homilies (n. 167 above), 257, no. 20(BH), lines 64–65; 263, no. 20(C), lines 77–78; and 270, no. 20(EI), lines 71–72. The mention of faithlessness in the Sermo Lupi is followed by a condemnation of lord-betrayal (hlafordswice), the only other offense in Wulfstan's legislation that requires an outright death sentence (see n. 177 above). Compare also judicial procedures for untrustworthy individuals (ungetrywan men) in II Cnut 22.1–3, 25, and 30. Wulfstan's extended attention to faithlessness suggests that he sought to define and set standard procedures for a nebulous category of offender.

179 For legal advocacy, see Rabin, “Old English Forespeca” (n. 162 above). For surety, see Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 273 and 279–80.

180 Alternatively, faithlessness to the population might be understood as treason, which would merit death (see n. 177 above).

181 The text is edited in Handbook, 16–34. See also Frantzen, Literature of Penance (n. 25 above), 139–41. Wulfstan's authorship is demonstrated by Heyworth, Melanie, “The ‘Late Old English Handbook’ for Use of a Confessor: Authorship and Connections,” Notes & Queries 252 (2007): 218–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and see also Cubitt, Catherine, “Bishops, Priests and Penance in Late Saxon England,” Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006): 41–63, at 53–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Handbook, 6–12; Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 353.

182 Six manuscripts preserve the Handbook in its entirety, all produced in the eleventh century and all associated with Archbishop Wulfstan or with his see of Worcester (r. 1002–1016): Handbook, 1–3 and 10; Heyworth, “Late Old English Handbook”; Cubitt, “Bishops, Priests, and Penance,” 60.

183 The Old English Penitential is edited by Raith, Altenglische Version (n. 91 above). The text and its dating are discussed by Frantzen, Literature of Penance (n. 25 above), 133–39; divergences from Haltigar's penitential are discussed by Fulk and Jurasinski, Canons (n. 32 above), l–li. Knowledge of Haltigar's penitential in tenth-century England is examined by Rusche, Philip G., “St. Augustine's Abbey and the Tradition of Penance in Early Tenth-Century England,” Anglia 120 (2002): 159–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elliot, “Canon Law” (n. 70 above), 191–93. I rely on Raith's edition for the Latin, but see Rusche, “St. Augustine's Abbey,” 160 n. 3 for other editions of Haltigar's penitential.

184 “Ne sille man nan ðara gerihta þe Cristenum mannum gebireð, ne for deaðe ne for life, ne hine man ne lecge mid Cristenum mannum”; Handbook, 22, lines 174–76.

185 Handbook, 22–23, lines 187–92.

186 “Gyf hwa on swilcum manfullum sinscipe þurhwunað oð his lifes ende buton ælcere geswicenesse, ne cunne we him nænne ræd geþencan, buton hit is æt Godes dome gelang; ne he to clænan ne mot”; Handbook, 23, lines 193–96. Although there is no word for “grave” or “cemetery” in the Old English, the meaning of this final clause can be reasonably deduced from the attention to burial rites in this section of the Handbook: see n. 185 above.

187 In the Handbook, lay adultery requires a lengthy fast, seduction by clergymen requires deposition from holy orders, and various types of fornication by the clergy are assigned penances but not unconsecrated burial: Handbook, 22, lines 171–72; 23, line 204; and 24, lines 228–42. Compare also Handbook, 22, lines 179–82: if a man has both a wife and a mistress, “no priest may give him any of the privileges with Christian men, unless he turns to penance” [ne do him nan preost nane gerihta mid Cristenum mannum, buton he to bote gecyrre]; this prohibition could conceivably encompass consecrated burial.

188 For example, Handbook, 22, lines 164–70 and 23, lines 200–201.

189 “Gyf man hine sylfne gewealdes ofslihð mid wæpne oððe mid hwilcum deofles onbrincge, nis na alifed þæt man for swilcne man mæssan synge, ne mid ænigum sealmsange þæt lic eorðan befæste, ne on clænan legere ne licge bebirged. Ðone ilcan dom man sceal don þam þe for his gilta pinunge his lif alæt — þæt bið þeof and morðwyrhta and hlafordswica”; Handbook, 21–22, lines 157–63. Compare Cross and Hamer, Wulfstan's Canon Law (n. 17 above), 112, at A.104, a canon of the 560 Council of Braga which denies funeral rites to suicides and “those who are being punished for their misdeeds” [his qui pro suis sceleribus puniuntur]. For this canon's influence on Wulfstan's legal thought, see Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 222–23 n. 83.

190 For suicides’ burial in Anglo-Saxon England, see Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth (n. 4 above), 300–1.

191 “Godes handgeweorc 7 his agenne ceap”; V Æthelred 3, and also VI Æthelred 10.1; II Cnut 2.1. For confession, see Edward and Guthrum 5; II Cnut 44–44.1.

192 See the introduction to section IV: Handbook, 20, lines 113–29.

193 Handbook, 23, lines 197–206.

194 The concluding phrase “þeof morðwyrhta hlafordswica” appears only in Junius 121: see further on this manuscript below. These three offenses — theft, illicit killing (morð), and lord-betrayal — are also listed in Wulfstan’s laws for Cnut and his homily Napier 51 as irredeemable (botleas) under earthly law: see II Cnut 26 [= III Edgar 7.3] and 53; Napier, Wulfstan, 274, lines 23–24 (n. 167 above). See also Bethurum, Homilies (n. 167 above), 37; Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 337 n. 334; Lionarons, Homiletic Writings (n. 168 above), 170–71; Rabin, Political Writings (n. 168 above), 127; Lambert, Law and Order (n. 5 above), 193–94; Bruce R. O’Brien, “From Morðor to Murdrum: The Preconquest Origin and Norman Revival of the Murder Fine,” Speculum 71 (1996): 321–57 at 347 n. 121. For an extended analysis of the term morð in Cnut’s laws, see Jurasinski, Stefan, “Reddatur Parentibus: The Vengeance of the Family in Cnut’s Homicide Legislation,” Law and History Review 20 (2002): 157–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for its use in Old English penitential literature, see Jurasinski, Stefan, The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law (Cambridge, 2015), 44–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

195 Junius 121 contains a version of Wulfstan's “commonplace book,” a collection of texts compiled by or for the archbishop, which provided source material for his own work. The texts are preserved in various combinations across several eleventh-century manuscripts, including some -- like the late eleventh-century Junius 121 -- which survive only as copies produced after Wulfstan's death. See especially Bethurum, Dorothy, “Archbishop Wulfstan's Commonplace Book,” PMLA 57 (1942): 916–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sauer, Hans, “The Transmission and Structure of Archbishop Wulfstan's ‘Commonplace Book’,” in Old English Prose: Basic Readings, ed. Szarmach, Paul E. (New York, 2000), 339–93Google Scholar; Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 213–19. See also above, nn. 166 and 182.

196 Peter Clemoes argues that the penitential was authored by Byrhtferth of Ramsey (died ca. 1020), based on stylistic similarities with his work: C. R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes, The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: British Museum Cotton Claudius B.IV, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 18 (Copenhagen, 1974), 51–52. However, this attribution is challenged by Baker, Peter S., “The Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey,” Speculum 55 (1980): 22–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

197 For the relative dating of the Old English Penitential and the Handbook, see Handbook, 12–14; Frantzen, Literature of Penance (n. 25 above), 137–41; Jurasinski, Old English Penitentials, 39–40.

198 S883, and compare also S414 and S415: all are discussed above.

199 It may be significant, in this context, that both pre-Conquest copies of I Edmund are preserved in Wulfstanian manuscripts: Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 309.

200 Wulfstan required that condemned (deaðscyldig) men be given chance to confess before death: Edward and Guthrum 5; II Cnut 44; see also n. 191 above.

201 N. 186 above.

202 Wormald, English Law (n. 25 above), 396–97; Rabin, Political Writings (n. 168 above), 197, with a translation at 198–206.

203 “7 gif hit hwa gedo, nabbe he Godes mildse, buton he geswice 7 bete, swa biscop getæce. 62] Gif he þonne on ðam unrihte geendige, þolige he clænes legeres 7 Godes mildse.”

204 “Gif hwa wið nunnan forlicge, sy ægðer his weres scildig, ge he ge heo. 63.1] 7 gif hi on ðam geendige, þolige he clænes legeres 7 Godes mildse.”

205 I Edmund 1 and 4. Compare also the Handbook, 22–23, lines 173–78, 187–96; and the Old English Penitential in Raith, Altenglische Version (n. 91 above), 20–22, at ii.8 and ii.11.

206 The only earlier law to construe consecrated burial as a right that could be forfeited (þolian) was I Edmund 1, n. 71 above.

207 Napier 59 and I Cnut 22.5, nn. 168–171 above; Handbook, 22, lines 174–76, quoted n. 184 above.

208 Nn. 203 and 204 above.

209 See VII Æthelred 7; Napier, Wulfstan (n. 167 above), 129, no. 27, lines 10–12 and 268, no. 50, lines 31–32.

210 N. 56 above.

211 “7 se preost se þe hæbbe nunnan oð his ende, oððe læwde man se þe hæbbe cyfese ofer his æwe, oððe hwa him to gesybne man hæbbe oð his endedæg, syn hi ealle amansumude of ealra heofonwara haligdome 7 eorþwarena. Ne gesinge þær nan man nane mæssan þær hi inne syn, ne husl ne gehalgodne hlaf ne sylle, ne hi nan man ne byrge binnan gehalgodan mynstre, ne furþum to hæþenum pytte ne bere, ac drage butan cyste butan hi geswicon”; Scragg, Vercelli (n. 56 above), 161. See also Treharne, “Unique Old English Formula” (n. 2 above), 197–98.

212 Compare references to a “foul pit” (“fulan pyt”) in three tenth-century charter boundary clauses, n. 100 above.

213 Sarah Hamilton notes that of the various recensions of the Romano-German Pontifical attested in England in the mid-eleventh century, the Sherborne Pontifical (Cotton Tiberius C.i) was the only one to include excommunication formulae: “Remedies” (n. 46 above), 95–96; and n. 48 above.

214 N. 44 above.

215 “Nec habeant alteram quam asynorum sepulturam”; Doble, Pontificale Lanaletense (n. 47 above), 131, adapting Jer. 22:19.

216 N. 56 above.

217 This long excommunication formula was added, in an early twelfth-century hand, to the mid-eleventh-century manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 422 (the Red Book of Darley), pp. 310–15. The passage on burial, adapted from Deut. 28:26, reads: “Sit cadaver eius canibus relictum et volatilibus caeli et non sit qui sepelliat eum.” The text is edited as Excomm. 6 in Liebermann, Gesetze, 1:436–37; see also Edwards, “Ritual Excommunication” (n. 39 above), 89–108 and 252.

218 According to Hemming's Cartulary, produced in the later eleventh century, Eadric was “killed, and dishonorably thrown outside the wall of London, and he was not even judged worthy of burial” [occisus, atque extra muram Lundonie ignominiose projectus, nec etiam sepulture judicatus est dignus]: Hearne, T., Hemingi Chartularium Ecclesiæ Wigorniensis (Oxford, 1723), 281Google Scholar. See also Gates, Jay Paul, “The ‘Worcester’ Historians and Eadric Streona’s Execution,” in Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gates, Jay Paul and Marafioti, Nicole (Woodbridge, 2014), 165–80Google Scholar, especially 168–74; Gates, Jay Paul, “A Crowning Achievement: The Royal Execution and Damnation of Eadric Streona,” in Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination, ed. Massy, Jeff and Tracy, Larissa (Leiden, 2012), 53–72Google Scholar.

219 The exhumation is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MSS C and D) for the year 1040, which reports that Harthacnut “ordered the dead Harold to be dragged up and to be thrown into a fen” [let dragan up þæne deadan Harald 7 hine on fen sceotan]: O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, 5: MS C (Cambridge, 2001)Google Scholar; Cubbin, G. P., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, 6: MS D (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar. It may be significant that the chronicler specified that Harold was dragged (“dragan”) from his grave, just as the Hatton 115 homily instructed its audience to drag (“drage”) excommunicants out without a coffin; see n. 211 above. The episode was later recounted in greater detail by John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury: Marafioti, King's Body (n. 16 above), 144–60 and n. 221 below.

220 For Harold Godwineson, see Watkiss, Leslie and Chibnall, Marjorie, The Waltham Chronicle (Oxford, 1994), 50–57Google Scholar. For Wæltheof, see Chibnall, Marjorie, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969), 2:322–323Google Scholar, at IV.ii.267.

221 For Harold Harefoot, see: Darlington, R. R. and McGurk, P., The Chronicle of John of Worcester, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1995), 2:530–31Google Scholar; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, 2 vols., ed. Mynors, R. A. B., Thompson, R. M., and Winterbottom, M. (Oxford, 1998), 1:336–37Google Scholar, at ii.188.4; Marafioti, King's Body (n. 16 above), 154–55. For Wæltheof, see Chibnall, Ecclesiastical History, 2:322–23, at IV.ii.267.

222 For example, the Articles of William I require criminals to be mutilated instead of killed: Liebermann, Gesetze, 1:488, Wl art 10; 1:489, Wl art Fr 10; and 1:491, Wl art Lond 17. See also Daniell, Christopher, “Conquest, Crime and Theology in the Burial Record: 1066–1200,” in Burial in Early Medieval England and Wales, ed. Lucy, Sam and Reynolds, Andrew, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 17 (London, 2002), 241–54Google Scholar.

223 The charter is attested first by Æthelred himself, the archbishop of Canterbury, and ten bishops; these are followed by five ealdormen (dux), ten abbots, and thirteen thegns (minister).

224 Barlow, The English Church (n. 5 above), 139, 145–46, and 152–53.

225 For secular punishments issued by clergy in tenth- and eleventh-century England, see Marafioti, “Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice” (n. 5 above), 785.