Law and litigation in the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi

Anglo-Saxon England

Volumn 24, Issue , 1995, Pages 131-183

  Kennedy, Alan ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84971916734     PISSN: 02636751     EISSN: 14740532     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100004683     Document Type: Article

References (188)

1. For the Vita, see Wulfstan of Winchester: the Life of St Æthelwold, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1991).
2. Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae, Scriptores 15, ed. T. Gale (Oxford, 1691), pp. 463–488 (from C).
3. D. J. Stewart, Liber Eliensis, ad Fidem Codicum Variorum 1 (London, 1848).
4. LE, p. 34, n. 7.
5. S. Keynes and A. Kennedy, Anglo-Saxon Ely: Records of Ely Abbey and its Benefactors in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (Woodbridge, forthcoming).
6. See the obits in Cartularium Monasteriide Rameseia, ed. W. H. Hart and P. A. Lyons, 3 vols., RS (London, 1884–1893) 3, 165–167, at 166.
7. S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978 - 1016 : a Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 253–254 (Appendix I).
8. C. R. Hart, The Early Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966) [hereafter ECEE], pp. 176 –177.
9. see C. Hart, The Danelaw (London, 1992), pp. 149 – 150
10. ‘List of Sureties for Peterborough Estates’ in Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A.J. Robertson, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 72 – 75 (no. 39) and 74 – 83 (no. 40), and the materials embedded in the spurious Thorney foundation charter (S 792), printed in ECEE, pp. 165–86.
11. H. Adams et. al., Essay in Anglo-Saxon Law (Boston, 1876), p. 380, n. 1.
12. P. Wormald, ‘A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Lawsuits’, ASE 17 (1988), 247–281.
13. P. Wormald, ‘Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 149–168, esp. 149–51.
14. See Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904; repr. 1959), pp. 92 – 95 (ch. 106)
15. for translation and commentary, see S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), pp. 109–110 and 275.
16. Libæ ch. 5 (LE II, ch. 7). See A. Williams, ‘Princeps Merciorum Gentis: the Family, Career and Connections of TElfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia 956 - 83 ’, ASE 10 (1982), 143 – 172, at 165
17. Wormald, ‘Handlist’, no. 108; and, most recently, Hart, Danelaw, p. 463.
18. see Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 20–23 and 118–21 (no. 8)
19. For discussion of some of these matters, see C. Hart, ‘Athelstan “Half-King” and his Family”, ASE 2 (1973), 115–144, at 129–30, repr
20. Chronicon Abbatia Rameseiensis [hereafter Chron. Rams.], ed. W.D. Macray, RS (London, 1886), pp. 54–55 (ch. 28).
21. On Wulfstan of Dalham, see C. R. Hart, The Early Charters of Northern England and the North Midlands (Leicester, 1975) [hereafter ECNE], p. 379.
22. Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 269 – 273 (Appendix 2)
23. F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), map on p. 350.
24. No judicial activity is attributed to Edward the Martyr. Cbron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 76–78 (ch. 47)
25. Charters, ed. Robertson, pp. 76–77 and 80–1 (no. 40).
26. J. Campbell, ‘Bede's Words for Places’, in his Essay in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp. 99 – 119, at 113.
27. See Williams, ‘Princeps Merciorum Gentis’, pp. 164–166.
28. For a general survey of groups of hundreds as single administrative units, see H. M. Cam, ‘Early Groups of Hundreds’, in her Liberties and Communities in Medieval England. Collected Studies in Local Administration and Topography (London, 1963), pp. 91–105.
29. This was among the rationalizations offered by the Leges Henrici Primi early in the twelfth century: see Leges Henrici Primi, ed. L. J. Downer (Oxford, 1972), chs. 7.5 and 31.1.
30. See E. Miller, The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 14 and 31–2
31. see P. Warner, ‘Pre-Conquest Territorial and Administrative Organisation in East Suffolk’, Anglo-Saxon Settlements ed. D. Hooke (Oxford, 1988), pp. 9–34, at 17–20.
32. See Warner, ‘Pre-Conquest Territorial and Administrative Organisation’, pp. 21–34.
33. P. Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, Ethelred the Unready, ed. D. Hill, BAR Brit. ser. 59 (Oxford, 1978), 47 – 80, at 59
34. P. Stafford, ‘The Laws of Cnut and the History of Anglo-Saxon Royal Promises’, ASE 10 (1982), 173 – 190
35. See Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 78 –80 (ch. 49).
36. F. E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), pp. 315 – 316
37. Byrhtferth's Vita S. Oswaldi: see Whitelock, in LE, pp. 12-13, and The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. J. Raine, 3 vols., RS (London, 1879–1894) 1, 399 – 475, at 466.
38. Abbot Ealdwulf seems to have exercised temporal powers in fact at Peterborough (see Charters, ed. Robertson, pp. 74–85, at 78–81 (no. 40)), and he might have been a better choice from this point of view.
39. Æthelstan's will survives in what seems to be a truncated form in Latin translation in Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 59–60 (ch. 33). It does appear nevertheless from what survives that he took care to inform Æthelwine of his dispositions.
40. P. Stafford, Unification and Conquest: a Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1989), pp. 159 – 161
41. suggests that the aristocratic will of the tenth century can be seen as ‘a dialogue between nobles and royal power’. See Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 169–170 (ch. 103).
42. It may be worth noting that the manner of his intervention in the Ramsey dispute heard at Wandlebury (Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 78–80 (ch. 49)) effectively undermined the procedures which had been set up to resolve it.
43. H.M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), p. 178, n. 1
44. D. Whitelock, ‘The Dealings of the Kings of England with Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, The Anglo-Saxons. Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P. Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 70–88, at 78–81.
45. Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 63 – 64 (ch. 35).
46. Vita S. Oswaldi, ed. Raine, p. 429
47. E. John, Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, 1966), p. 222, seems to rely on this statement in calling Ælfwold an ealdorman, but what Byrhtferth appears to be doing is offering an excuse for his not holding this office.
48. For details, see Hart, ‘Athelstan “Half-King” and his Family’, pp. 131–132.
49. He is best known as the doomed hero of the battle at Maldon in 991, commemorated in the Old English poem. See The Battle of Maldon, ed. D. G. Scragg (Manchester, 1981), pp. 14 – 20
50. M. Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Byrhtnoth and his Family’, The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. D. Scragg (Oxford, 1991), pp. 253–262.
51. Ely and Ramsey (LE II, ch. 62; Chron. Rants. ed. Macray, pp. 116–117
52. Chadwick long ago clearly found relations between Æthelwine and Byrthnoth something of a puzzle, for he left the matter as a series of questions: see Studies, p. 177, n. 1. Arguments raised by C. R. Hart, ‘The Ealdordom of Essex’, An Essex Tribute. Essays presented to Frederick G. Emmison, ed. K. Neale (London, 1987), pp. 57 – 83, at 71 – 3
53. John, Orbis Britanniae, pp. 219 – 225
54. There are indications of a lost hundred in Domesday Book: see F.M. Stenton, in Victoria History of the County of Huntingdon 3 vols., ed. W. Page etal. (London, 1926 – 1974) 1,318-319.
55. See F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 524 – 526, for a first collation of the figures, and Hart, Dane/aw, pp. 298–301 for references to editions of the various versions and for a new dating of the assessment to 918 x 926.
56. Charters, ed. Robertson, p. 80 – 83 (no. 40).
57. John, Orbis Britanniae, p. 149.
58. On the Fonthill letter itself (S 1445), see S. Keynes, ‘The Fonthill Letter’, Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), 53 – 97
59. M. Gretsch, ‘The Language of the Fonthill Letter’, ASE 23 (1994), 57–102.
60. A. G. Kennedy, ‘Disputes about “Bocland”: the Forum for their Adjudication’, ASE 14 (1985), 175–195.
61. R. Fleming, ‘Monastic Lands and England's Defence in the Viking Age’, EHR 100 (1985), 247 – 265, at 249 – 51, considers that S 779 is spurious, but accepts as genuine the tradition current c.1000that the place was deserted in 970
62. D.N. Dumville, Wessex and Englandfrom Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), p. 34, n. 20, is somewhat less so persuaded.
63. Miller, Ely, pp. 15 and 25 - 6 : see also Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, ed. L.F. Salzmann (London, 1938-) 4, 4–5.
64. LE, pp. 414–415.
65. See John, Orbis Britanniae, pp. 210 - 233
66. Hart, ECEE, pp. 42 - 43
67. and J. Pope, ‘Ailfric and the Old English Version of the Ely Privilege’, England before the Conquest. Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 85 – 113, at 96 – 7.
68. Ely, pp. 24 – 30
69. and Victoria County History (Cambridge), pp. 4–8.
70. For what may be taken as orthodox wisdom, see Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 492–502
71. J. Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanor: a Study of the History of English Criminal Procedure (New York, 1937), pp. 336–378, objected to the existence of broad private jurisdictions in the century before the Conquest.
72. Responses to his arguments were unsympathetic: see H. Cam, in AHR (1938), 583–587
73. and T.F.T. Plucknett, in Law Quarterly Rev. 54 (1938), 295–298.
74. See also the comments of N. Hurnard, ‘The Anglo-Norman Franchises’, EHR 64 (1949), 289–327 and 433–60, at 292.
75. In later writings Cam was more ambivalent about what was entailed in private hundreds: see ‘ The “Private” Hundred in England before the Norman Conquest’, Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. C. Davies (Oxford, 1957), pp. 50–60
76. H. Cam, Law-Finders and Law-Makers in Medieval England (London, 1962), pp. 59–70.
77. ‘The Evolution of the Mediaeval English Franchise’, Speculum 32 (1957), 427-442, at 428–33.
78. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 963E: Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892 – 1899) 1,115-117.
79. For Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanor, p. 355, n. 62, the exclusion of public authorities had not reached ‘a formulary stage’ during the reign of the Confessor.
80. Harmer, Writs, pp. 125–131
81. see John, Orbis Britanniae, pp. 219–229.
82. In the Fonthill case, it seems clear enough that Helmstan bribed Ealdorman Ordlaf to support his case (Keynes, ‘Fonthill Letter’, p. 75), and Ordlaf's assertion that he would not help Helmstan in a unjust cause seems (at least to the modern mind) transparently disingenuous.
83. See also again Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 169–170 (ch. 103).
84. Cf. S. Keynes, ‘ Crime and Punishment in the Reign of King ALthelred the Unready’, People and Places in Northern Europe 500 - 1600 : Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. I. Wood and N. Lund (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 67–81, at 69–70.
85. D. Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon Law’, Nordica et Anglica: Studies in Honor of Stefan Einarsson, ed. A. H. Orrick (The Hague, 1968), pp. 83 – 92, at 87 – 92.
86. On the implications of the tale, see also P.R. Hyams, ‘Trial by Ordeal: the Key to Proof in the Early Common Law’, On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honour of Samuel E. Thorne, ed. M. S. Arnold (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), pp. 90–126, at 93-5.
87. For recent discussion of the value of the concept of‘ownership’ in early medieval contexts, see S. Reynolds, ‘Bookland, Folkland and Fiefs’, Anglo-Norman Stud. 14 (1992), 211–227, at 212–15.
88. J. Campbell, ‘The Sale of Land and the Economics of Power in Early England’, Haskins Soc. Jnl 1 (1989), 3 – 27.
89. T. M. Charles-Edwards, ‘The Distinction between Land and Moveable Wealth in Anglo-Saxon England’, English Medieval Settlement, ed. P. H. Sawyer (London, 1979), pp. 97–104.
90. Libæ, chs. 11,14 and 36 (LJEII, chs. 11,11a and 26). One might compare here the provisions of the text printed by Liebermann, Gesetze 1, 224 – 227
91. Appendix zu II Æthelred and dated by him c. 950–1000, which Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, pp. 60–61
92. J. L. Laughlin, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Legal Procedure’, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law pp. 183 – 305
93. For discussion of this aspect of the suit from a somewhat different viewpoint, see Laughlin, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Legal Procedure’, pp. 253–254
94. See Chron. Rams., ed. Macray, pp. 74 –75 (ch. 44). The description here leaves it open to doubt whether the ceremony was connected more with invoking the blessing of the saint than with the formalities of the conveyance.
95. The land had already been obtained by Abbot Eadnoth in a completed transaction with a third party, and the placing of four sods on the altar in the Ramsey crypt recalls (as noted by Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanor, p. 363, n. 93) the spell for hexed land in one of the Old English charms
96. (Anglo-Saxon Charms, ed. F. Grendon (New York, 1931), pp. 172–176 (no. A13)).
97. F. Pollock, The Land Laws (London, 1887), 198 – 200
98. F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd ed., reissued with introduction and bibliography by S. F. C. Milsom (Cambridge, 1968) 2, 80–87.
99. In similar vein, see H. C. Lodge, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Land-Law’, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, pp. 55–119, at 101–2
100. P. Vinogradoff, ‘Transfer of Land in Old English Law’, Harvard Law Rev. 20 (1906–1907), 532–548, at 533–5.
101. For other discussion of the importance or relevance of livery to Anglo-Saxon conveyances, see G. J. Turner, ‘Brookland and Folkland’, Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. J.G. Edwards (Manchester, 1933), pp. 357–386, at 358–65
102. S.E. Thorne, ‘Livery of Seisin’, Law Quarterly Rev. 52 (1936), 345–364.
103. Charters, ed. Robertson, pp. 75–83, at 82 (no. 40)), which asserts that the eight hundreds of Oundle were both witnesses and sureties to a particular transaction.
104. See J.C.H.R. Steenstrup, Normannerne, 4 vols. (Copenhagen, 1876 – 1882) 4 [Danetag], 195–208, for what can be argued along these lines; and for summaries of his views
105. see Liebermann, Die Gesetze 2, Glossary s.v. lagamen, 565–566.
106. For the analogous history of another official graced with a Scandinavian name, see J.M. Kaye, ‘The Sacrabar’, EHR 88 (1968), 744–758, whose conclusion is that the word represents the full extent of the borrowing.
107. See also the comments of O. Fenger, ‘The Danelaw and the Danish Law: Anglo-Scandinavian Relations during the Viking Period’, Scandinavian Stud in Law 16 (1972), 83–96, at 88 and 94
108. and N. Lund, ‘King Edgar and the Danelaw’, MScand 9 (1976), 181–195, at 193.
109. H. Vollrath, ‘Gesetzgebung und Schriftlichkeit. Das Beispiel der angelsachsischen Gesetze’, Historisches Jahrbucb 99 (1979), 28–54, at 46–7.
110. On this point, see the suggestion of Williams, ‘Princeps Merciorum Gentis pp. 164–166.
111. One might note also S. Reynolds, ‘What Do We Mean by “Anglo-Saxons” and “Anglo-Saxons”?’, Jnl of Brit. Hist. 24 (1985), 395–414, at 406–13, for some sceptical remarks about enduring ‘Danishness’ in the north and east of England during the later tenth and eleventh centuries.
112. III Æthelred, ch. 3.1. For a survey of opinion from the viewpoint of the origin of the English jury, see R. V. Turner, ‘The Origins of the Medieval English Jury: Frankish, English, or Scandinavian?’, Jnl of Brit. Stud. 1 (1968), 1–10.
113. These others are Lincoln, Stamford and York. See Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 532 – 533
114. R.P. Abels, ‘ Bookland and Fyrd Service in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Norman Stud. 8 (1985), 1 – 25
115. Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, CA, 1988), pp. 97–131.
116. E. John, Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1960), pp. 168 – 177
117. For reconstruction of the history of these hides and the three others at Horningsea, see LE, pp. 420–421.
118. Dumville, Wessex and England, pp. 151 –152
119. This was how Vinogradoff construed the Peterborough memoranda: see ‘Transfer of Land’, pp. 532–534.
120. Hart, Danelaw, pp. 6 and 97, seems to draw the same conclusion from such records for eastern England in general.
121. M.M. Sheehan, The Will in Medieval England (Toronto, 1963), p. 32.
122. H. D. Hazeltine in Wills, ed. Whitelock, pp. 10-18
123. Sheehan, The Will, pp. 47 - 54
124. and S. Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England’ The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed.
125. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 226 – 257, at 251 – 5.
126. This position is not necessarily inconsistent with the view that technical language developed in Old English for use in written wills, as A. Campbell, ‘An Old English Will’, JEGP 37 (1938), 133 – 152, at 134 – 6.
127. Hazeltine, in Wills, ed. Whitelock, pp. 10-12.
128. see John, Land Tenure, pp. 176–177.
129. see also Hart, Danelaw, pp. 455–465.
130. see also S. Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, ASE 23 (1994), 165–193, at 169–70.
131. This of course is not a new supposition: see Wills, ed. Whitelock, p. 51
132. and Sheehan, Will, pp. 22 – 23
133. see S. Keynes, ‘A Lost Cartulary of St Albans Abbey’, ASE 22 (1993), 253 – 279
134. ‘The Will of Wulf OEN 26 (1993), 16 – 21
135. S 1457 (Charters, ed. Robertson, no. 59).
136. As noted by D.J.V. Fisher, ‘The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’, Cambridge Hist. Jnl 10 (1952), 254–270, at 263–4.
137. On what might properly be called ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’, see R. V. Colman, ‘ Reason and Unreason in Early Medieval Law’, Jnl of interdisciplinary Hist. 4 (1973), 571 – 591.
138. see Laughlin, ‘Anglo-Saxon Legal Procedure’, pp. 186–187.
139. On the argument that the judicial oath might properly be considered a kind of ordeal, see Hyams, ‘Trial by Ordeal’, pp. 92–93.
140. R. Bartlett, Trial by Eire and Water: the Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), pp. 24 – 33.
141. M.M. Bigelow, Placita Anglo-Normannica; Law Cases from William I to Richard I (London, 1879), pp. 16-19
142. S. Reynolds, Communities and Kingdoms in Western Europe, 900 – 1300 (Oxford, 1984), p. 25, n. 44
143. Keynes, ‘Fonthill Letter’, p. 70.
144. Wormald, ‘Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, p. 157.
145. Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson, 2 vols., RS (London, 1858), 1, 457–459 and 475.
146. S. Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word’, Uses of Literacy ed. McKitterick, pp. 36 –62, at 45–6
147. see Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, pp. 23–38.
148. For discussion of this point as it concerns what Asser said about King Alfred and his judges, see Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, pp. 342 – 333
149. See Liebermann, Geseze 3, 155, 226–227, 228–9, 230 and 233.
150. D. Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut’, EHR 63 (1948), 433–452, at 442–3.
151. Stafford, Unification and Conquest, p. 50.
152. The relevant passage is printed by E. P. Sauvage, AB 4 (1885), 367 – 410, at 409.
153. For evidence that these laws found written form, see Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon Law’, pp. 83 – 87, who argued from the corresponding passage in Wulfstan Cantor's Narratio metrica de sancto Switkuno that they were later used in II Cnut.
154. For a comprehensive survey of the later codes as written texts, see Keynes, ‘ Royal Government and the Written Word’, pp. 227–245.
155. P. Wormald, ‘The Uses of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and its Neighbours’, TRHS 5th ser. 27 (1977), 95 – 114, at 111 - 13
156. Wormald, ‘ Lex Scripta and V'erbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, Early Medieval Kingship, ed.
157. P. H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105–138, esp. 122-4
158. and Wormald, ‘Aithelred the Lawmaker’, esp. pp. 48–49.
159. See also H. Vollrath, ‘Gesetzgebung und Schriftlichkeit’, pp. 28–54, for a sustained attack on the notion of a close connection between law-giving and its written form.
160. F. L. Ganshof, ‘The Use of the Written Word in Charlemagne's Administration’, in his The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy. Studies in Carolingian History, trans. J. Sondheimer (New York, 1971), pp. 125 – 142.
161. But for some different views about later Carolingian capitularies, see R. Schneider, ‘Zur rechtlichen Bedeutung der Kapitularientexte’, DAEM 23 (1967), 273 – 294
162. See also C. Schott, ‘Der Stand der Leges-Forschung’, FS 13 (1979), 29–55, at 48–9, for more recent work on the practical relevance of written law in early medieval Europe.
163. M.K. Lawson, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the Homiletic Element in the Laws of Æthelred and Cnut’, EHR 107 (1992), 565–586, sees the later Æthelredian codes, and I-II Cnut, as grounded firmly in preaching and the admonition of kings.
164. J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship (Oxford, 1971), pp. 32 – 44
165. A.W.B. Simpson, ‘The Laws of Ethelbert’, On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. Arnold pp. 3 – 17
166. W. W. Lehman, ‘The First English Law’, Jnl of Legal Hist. 6 (1985), 1 – 23 both argue in different ways that these laws represent genuine attempts to intervene in Kentish customary practice.
167. For renewed conviction that written law in Carolingian Francia was put to practical use, see R. McKitterick, ‘ Some Carolingian Law-Books, and their Functions’, Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government presented to Walter Ullmann on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. B. Tierney and P. Linehan (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 13 –27
168. McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians 751–987 (London, 1983), pp. 100 - 103
169. and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), esp. pp. 23 - 75
170. but see also J.L. Nelson, ‘ Literacy in Carolingian Government’, Uses of Literacy, ed. McKitterick, pp. 258–296.
171. Wormald, ‘Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis’, p. 113
172. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law 1, 53 – 54
173. C. H. Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy: an Historical Essay on the Boundaries between Legislation and Adjudication in England (New Haven, CT, 1910), pp. 42–108, esp. 46–53.
174. F. Kern, ‘Recht und Verfassung im Mittelalter’, HZ 3rd ser. 24 (1919), 1 – 79
175. translated in abbreviated form as ‘Law and Constitution in the Middle Ages’ by S.B. Chrimes, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1939), pp. 147–205.
176. For one reassessment, see H. Krause, ‘Dauer und Verganglichkeit im mittelalterlichen Recht’, Zeitung fur Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung 75 (1958), 206–251
177. See also Schott, ‘Der Stand der Leges-Forschung’, pp. 43–48, for recent assessments of the relevance of conceptualization of this sort to early medieval law in western Europe.
178. See for instance M. T. Clanchy, ‘Remembering the Past and the Good Old Law’, History 55 (1970), 165 – 176 and, more generally, Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, pp. 15–21.
179. Kern, ‘Recht und Verfassung im Mittelalter’, pp. 5-6
180. Chrimes, ‘Law and Constitution in the Middle Ages’, p. 151.
181. S 1507 (EHD, no. 96)
182. see also Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 173–178 and 313–26.
183. K. Kroeschell, ‘“Rechtsfindung.” Die mittelalterlichen Grundlagen einer modernen Vorstellung’, Festschriftfur Hermann He impel zum 70. Geburtstag, 3 vols. (Gottingen, 1971–1972) 3, 498–517, at 512: ‘Was die Urteilsfinder auf Befragen wissen, das war die lex. Es entsprach nicht nur der lex, sondern als war die lex.’
184. See, for instance, H. Maine, Ancient Law (London, 1861), p. 5.
185. Wormald, ‘Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes’, pp. 154–160
186. Charters, ed. Robertson, no. 69‘onriht… be ontale 7 be oftale.’
187. J. L. Nelson, ‘On the Limits of the Carolingian Renaissance’, Stud, in Church Hist. 14 (1977), 51 – 67
188. Politics and Kitual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 49–67, at 62.