Stefan Jurasinski and Lisi Oliver, eds. The Laws of Alfred: The “Domboc” and the Making of Anglo-Saxon Law. Studies in Legal History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 472. $99.99 (cloth)
Stephen M. Yeager,From Lawmen to Plowmen: Anglo-Saxon Legal Tradition and the School of Langland. (Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 17.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Pp. x, 268. $65. ISBN: 978-1-4426-4347-5
Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2020
On discovering their nakedness, they covered themselves; on hearing the voice of God, they hid am... more On discovering their nakedness, they covered themselves; on hearing the voice of God, they hid amid the trees of paradise. This primordial moment of concealment-the moment in which Adam and Eve attempt to hide themselves from the face of God-was clearly an impracticable endeavor from the start. The intangibility of God's face and the disembodiment of his voice would render his omniscience at once distant and ubiquitous, at once secret and manifest. Those physical trees of paradise, placed there by the Creator himself, could hardly conceal the shameful couple from his scrutiny. Yet still they tried. The lavishly illustrated vernacular translation of the first six books of the Old Testament known as the Old English Hexateuch (a manuscript produced in the eleventh century at Canterbury, probably at Saint Augustine's Abbey) makes that futile attempt to hide from God uncannily palpable. 1 In the top frame on fol. 7v (fig. 1), God stands at the left looking from a distance through the tree that divides the frame and separates him from Adam and Eve, as they entangle themselves with one another in a nest of serpentine branches. With his hands clasped at his heart, Adam looks in God's direction with an expression of profound confusion and regret-a tear even seems to flow from his eye. It is as though Adam recognizes not only his act of betrayal but also the failure of his own attempt at concealment, as he tries to glance back at his Creator only to set his eyes on this solid tree, an object that occludes Adam's vision but not God's. In contrast to Adam's longing gesture, Eve grasps a loose branch in one hand and holds her face in the other, looking downward and away. As Adam clutches his heart and Eve grasps her face, they are together held and fettered by the foliage that inadequately conceals them.
The ‘Worcester’ Historians and Eadric Streona’s Execution
Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, Jul 17, 2014
Recent scholarship has placed a great deal of emphasis on history writing as a genre, especially ... more Recent scholarship has placed a great deal of emphasis on history writing as a genre, especially regarding the late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods. As M.F. Giandrea notes, history was conceived of in terms of political or ideological representation more than as a search for the truth of the past. Historical narratives thus provide not only a view of on-going political discussions and social concerns, but an interpretation of their significance through historical structures. This paper explores how post-Conquest Anglo-Norman history writers narrated the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England by Cnut. In particular, the focus is on the representations of the betrayals by Eadric “Streona” of Kings Æthelred and Edmund and his subsequent execution by Cnut in Hemming’s Cartulary and the Worcester chronicle attributed to the monk John. This paper argues that the post-Conquest sources, associated with what R.W. Southern has depicted as a monastic program of pro-English historiography, recognized the literary function of Eadric in their Anglo-Saxon sources and adopted his character and the performance of his execution into their own history writing in making contemporaneous political and ideological claims regarding kingship and loyalty.
The ‘Worcester’ Historians and Eadric Streona’s Execution
Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, Jul 17, 2014
Recent scholarship has placed a great deal of emphasis on history writing as a genre, especially ... more Recent scholarship has placed a great deal of emphasis on history writing as a genre, especially regarding the late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods. As M.F. Giandrea notes, history was conceived of in terms of political or ideological representation more than as a search for the truth of the past. Historical narratives thus provide not only a view of on-going political discussions and social concerns, but an interpretation of their significance through historical structures. This paper explores how post-Conquest Anglo-Norman history writers narrated the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England by Cnut. In particular, the focus is on the representations of the betrayals by Eadric “Streona” of Kings Æthelred and Edmund and his subsequent execution by Cnut in Hemming’s Cartulary and the Worcester chronicle attributed to the monk John. This paper argues that the post-Conquest sources, associated with what R.W. Southern has depicted as a monastic program of pro-English historiography, recognized the literary function of Eadric in their Anglo-Saxon sources and adopted his character and the performance of his execution into their own history writing in making contemporaneous political and ideological claims regarding kingship and loyalty.
The Fulmannod Society Social Valuing of the Male Legal Subject
Boydell & Brewer, Jul 1, 2013
A great deal of work has been done on the Anglo-Saxon laws’ treatment of the body and the individ... more A great deal of work has been done on the Anglo-Saxon laws’ treatment of the body and the individual. For example, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe examined corporal punishment and ordeal between 970 and 1035 , concluding that these were ways of “making known” a legal subject through the constitution of the body as a legal text. Mary Richards responded to this by examining the early laws’injury tariffs and argued that the wounded body conveyed both the evidence of a crime and a means to a restitution, connecting individual and community stability. Andrew Rabin then developed these ideas and argued for the focus of Wulfstan’s laws on the knowable self. In particular, he argues that it provides a means of ordering social relations as well as a model for structuring the legal subject—as law organizes society in response to external pressures, the individual must internalize the legal text so that the ordered psychology of the legal subject parallels the ordered community of which he is a part. Building from this scholarly foundation, I argue that the order of Alfred’s composition laws provides evidence for the laws’ concern for the social value of the individual. In particular, I examine why the structure of the laws suddenly shifts from a head-to-toe order to finish with a seemingly spasmodic series of injuries to genitals, arm, shoulder, hand, rib, eye, shoulder, shin, sinews, and tendons. In the compensation for these wounds, I suggest that the focus is no longer evidentiary, but rather valuing. We can see a reflection on the social value of the individual and how the laws attempt to deal not with the individual himself—which is adequately addressed by the earlier composition laws—but with the work he can do within the society, how he is productive. This ties back into the larger structural theory of Alfred's laws: the foundation of the society is the individual keeping his oath and his pledge. However, here, the value of the individual is highlighted by the law in terms of what he can produce. Moreover, these laws speak not to social rank in valuing the individual, but to the work he can do. Manhood, then, under the law, is not about which tool a man uses—penis, sword, or shovel—but what he can contribute to the maintenance of the society, workforce and work.
Introduction: Anglo-Saxon Predecessors and Precedents
Remembering the Medieval Present: Generative Uses of England’s Pre-Conquest Past, 10th to 15th Centuries, 2019
This introduction prefaces a collection of ten essays focusing on how individuals living in the l... more This introduction prefaces a collection of ten essays focusing on how individuals living in the late tenth through fifteenth centuries engaged with the authorizing cultural and political fiction of Anglo-Saxon England.
Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England
The Journal of Legal History, 2016
Anglo-Saxon law has not been a major focus of the Journal of Legal History, with only seven or ei... more Anglo-Saxon law has not been a major focus of the Journal of Legal History, with only seven or eight articles devoted to this area over more than thirty years. Likewise, the Selden Society concentr...
A Crowning Achievement: The Royal Execution and Damnation of Eadric Streona
Heads Will Roll, 2012
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1017 records in two sentences the rise and fall of Eadric Str... more The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1017 records in two sentences the rise and fall of Eadric Streona in the reign of Cnut. Execution in late Anglo-Saxon England was a dramatic performative action for a king that would have been clearly understood by the contemporary English audience. Cnut, a conqueror king, having Eadric Streona, a powerful ealdorman, executed is particularly communicative regarding realities of political power, royal justice, and national expectations of royal behavior. In the Anglo-Saxon sources, the story of Eadric is developed to communicate a series of claims to the English aristocracy through, as Scheub suggests historical narrative does invocations of tradition, cultural expectation, and historical memory. However, whereas the chronicler structures a narrative through which Cnut is able to make an implicit threat of violence to the English aristocracy and demand loyalty, the encomiast represses the threat of violence in favor of justice. Keywords:Anglo-Saxon England; Cnut; Eadric Streona; royal execution
The phrase ealles Englalandes cyningc appears for the first time in I-II Cnut, and represents a s... more The phrase ealles Englalandes cyningc appears for the first time in I-II Cnut, and represents a shift in the discourse of Anglo-Saxon kingship, changing it from king over a people to king over a territory, redefining the discourse of nationhood. §1. In 1018, the year following his accession, the Danish conqueror Cnut met with the English witan to establish the terms by which the English would accept him as king and to produce a new set of laws. A few years later, c. 1020/21, Cnut and his council issued a second set of laws comprised of two parts: a religious and a secular portion, respectively given the titles I and II Cnut by scholars, and which I will refer to as the unified I-II Cnut. 1 As a foreign-born ruler, Cnut had disrupted the English social and political landscape. Now, with the help of his witan-especially Wulfstan, Archbishop of York-Cnut appropriated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of lex scripta, a move with significant consequences for the history of English law and national identity. In the prologue to his new legislation, Cnut speaks as "ealles Englalandes cyningc." 2 With this seemingly unremarkable phrase, he overturns English legal tradition. Underlying this title is a rhetorical claim to stabilize and unify all of England-Anglo-Saxon and Dane-as a single nation, 3 an outcome that had not been possible since the beginning of the Scandinavian settlement of England in the mid-ninth century. To achieve this, I-II Cnut redefined kingship in terms of territory rather than ethnicity or culture, thus laying a foundation, not just for his right to rule, but for the construction of a new notion of national community. §2. The establishment of English kingship as territorial is performed in the voice of a Danish conqueror, through the hand of Wulfstan. Cnut certainly wanted to establish his authority over the whole of England and looked to the English witan to help him accomplish this. In particular, Pauline Stafford has argued that Cnut wished to be accepted as a Christian king and thus he vigorously supported the English church (Stafford 1982). The witan was undoubtedly encouraged by Cnut's support of the church and by his willingness to work with them. Wulfstan, probably the foremost member of the witan and the most influential political figure of the time, must have seen an opportunity in drafting Cnut's laws. 4 He most likely understood that, with the conquest of the English, "Cnut's code would be the primary model of royally-directed legislation for their kingdom's new masters" (Wormald 1999b, 245). By helping to shape this legislation, he expanded his previous goal of correcting abuses within the church, and focused on the moral corruption of the whole of English society, clerical and secular. Patrick Wormald has referred to Wulfstan's ambitious plan of social engineering as an attempt to create "the holy society" (Wormald 1999b). Together, king, council, and councilor come together and, in composing the laws, reconceive English law and, through it, the nation. §3. Although, as I will argue below, ealles Englalandes cyningc is likely a translation of a Latin formula used in Anglo-Saxon charters, totius Albionis rex, it is the act of translation that emphasizes a shift in the English-language tradition of lex scripta. The change raises a number of issues. Among these is the question of how the tradition of lex scripta operated, the politics that drove the creation of law, and the form it took. The change in the language of the phrase begs the question of who the audience for the laws was. Additionally, we must ask about the significance of the language itself in the construction of meaning, especially since the style of I-II Cnut is markedly Wulfstanian. It is Wulfstan's compositional style that, I argue, shapes the most fundamental meaning of Cnut's kingship. Finally, we must reflect on the consequences for the tradition after Cnut's participation. In order to address these issues, I will examine the prologues and conclusions to I-II Cnut, paying particular attention to their use of the title ealles Englalandes cyningc. My two primary concerns in this paper are, first, to establish Cnut's political situation and response, and second, to examine the influence of Wulfstan's style on the introductions and conclusions to Cnut's laws. In doing so, I will build my argument in five stages by addressing the following points: 1) the political context of Cnut's conquest and accession to the English throne; 2) the tradition of Anglo-Saxon lex scripta: how it relates to politics, and the importance of language and naming as evidence for nationhood and community building; 3) the evidence of Anglo-Saxon royal styles in the laws and charters, especially considering translation and audience; 4) Wulfstan's style and linguistic play in the laws, and the potential for interpreting such play; and finally, 5) the afterlife of the rhetoric of territorial kingship in English lex scripta. §4. Cnut's laws provide a picture of how he was trying to establish his rule in England. As Susan Reynolds notes regarding the tenth-century formation of an English kingdom, unity and solidarity were mostly functions of political circumstance. Cnut's precarious kingship certainly required an attention to politics, and the change in the language of kingship in the laws themselves indicates a response to the political field Cnut was facing and an attempt to create a new national identity. As Simon Keynes points out, Cnut did not conquer England in one fell swoop, but in incremental stages from 1016 to the political settlement of 1018 (Keynes 1994, 44). His rule was not one he could simply assume was secure. Moreover, England was historically fragmented. The English were only formed into a single kingdom over the course of the tenth 2 of 33 12/7/17, 12:19 PM
Remembering the Medieval Present: Generative Uses of England’s Pre-Conquest Past, 10th to 15th Centuries, 2019
This volume of essays focuses on how individuals living in the late tenth through fteenth centuri... more This volume of essays focuses on how individuals living in the late tenth through fteenth centuries engaged with the authorizing culture of the Anglo-Saxons. Drawing from a reservoir of undertreated early English documents and texts, each contributor shows how individual poets, ecclesiasts, legists, and institutions claimed Anglo-Saxon predecessors for rhetorical purposes in response to social, cultural, and linguistic change. Contributors trouble simple de nitions of identity and period, exploring how medieval authors looked to earlier periods of history to de ne social identities and make claims for their present moment based on the political ction of an imagined community of a single, distinct nation uni ed in identity by descent and religion.
Timothy Bolton, Cnut the Great. (The English Monarchs Series.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii, 244; 9 black-and-white plates and 2 maps. $40. ISBN: 978-0-300-20833-7
Remembering the Medieval Present: Generative Uses of England's Pre-Conquest Past, 10th to 15th Centuries, 2019
Why do people stop believing one thing and start believing another? And how and why do beliefs t... more Why do people stop believing one thing and start believing another? And how and why do beliefs transform society? Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale is a master study in the literary narrative of history and in the history of belief: it tells the story of the conversion of pagan pre-conquest England to Christianity. This chapter asks readers to consider how the style of narration by the Man of Law of an already well-known English legend informed audience responses related to belief and disbelief. The Tale asks readers: what is plausible and what is implausible about the shared past? In considering the Man of Law's famously disruptive narrative style, this chapter draws attention to the ways in which Chaucer's recasting of national myth and legend and his appropriation of both local and Roman history drive readers to consider the nature of belief itself and its relationship to felt truths as they are expressed in literary narrative.
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