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A handlist of Anglo-Saxon lawsuits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Patrick Wormald
Patrick Wormald
Affiliation:
The University of Glasgow
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Extract

There is no acknowledged corpus of Anglo-Saxon lawsuits. Scholars have had the benefit of Bigelow's Placita Anglo-Normannica for over a century, and this will soon be superseded by the definitive edition which has occupied Professor van Caenegem since 1952. But the nearest that Anglo-Saxonists have come to a counterpart is the set of thirty-five ‘Select Cases in Anglo-Saxon Law’ appended to the Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, which four of Bigelow's fellow Bostonians published as a symbolic, if apparently unintended, celebration of America's origins in centennial 1876. The limitations of this admittedly useful exercise extend beyond the facts that three of its cases are not Anglo-Saxon at all, and that its editors were unable to distinguish between the Latin names for Dover and Canterbury. Since then, the selections of Harmer, Robertson and Whitelock have made many more texts generally available, but without isolating the procedural records from other ‘historical documents’. Mean-while, the English evidence was ignored in the impressive list which Hübner intended as the basis of Placita section in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica: that august institution has tracked Germanic footsteps across the Alps, the Rhine, the Pyrenees and even the Straits of Gibraltar, but it as seldom followed. the Anglo-Saxons across the North Sea.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 17 , December 1988 , pp. 247 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 Bigelow, M. M., Placita Anglo-Normannica: Law Cases from William I to Richard I (London, 1879); Professor van Caenegem's replacement, which he has been kind enough to give me sight of, should be published by the Selden Society in 1989 or 1990.Google ScholarAdams, H. et al. , Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law (Boston, 1876), pp. 309–83.Google ScholarHübner, R., ‘Gerichtsurkunden der fränkischen Zeit’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, germanistische Abteilung 12 (1891), ‘Nachtrag’, 1–118, 14 (1893), ‘Nachtrag’, 1–258, and separatim. W. H. Stevenson offered a list of forfeitures for crime, Cr., p. 113; it has been significantly expanded by S. D. Keynes, ‘Crime and Punishment in the Reign of Æthelred the Unready’ (forthcoming).Google ScholarSee also Kennedy, A., ‘Disputes about bocland: the Forum for their Adjudication’, ASE 14 (1985), 175–95, esp. 181–9. For the abbreviations used in these notes, see pp. 258–9.Google Scholar

2 I have already published a survey of the material, with special reference to nos. 11–12 and 45–6, 69: ‘Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Davies, W. and Fouracre, P. (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 149–68; and there will be much further discussion in my forthcoming book. The Making of English law: King Alfred to King Henry I. This paper was germinated by research for the latter, and fertilized by the discussions which gave rise to the former. I owe much to the advice and criticism of Peter Clarke, Robin Fleming, Jim Holt, Paul Hyams, Simon Keynes, Michael Lapidge, Patrick Sims-Williams, David Rollason and Chris Wickham; but even more to the ‘Bucknell group’, and most of all to its ‘Scottish affairs correspondent’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 LE, pp. li–liii; Simon Keynes and Alan Kennedy are preparing an edition and translation of the Libellus quorundam insignium operum beati Æthelwoldi episcopi, which is the core of LE for these purposes. Hart, C. R., The Earl Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966), e.g. pp. 30, 42.Google Scholar

4 Whitelock, D., ‘Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon Law’, Nordica et Anglica: Studies in honour of Stefan Einarsson, ed. Orrick, A. H. (The Hague, 1968), pp. 83–92, with reference to nos. 154–5; but note that Wulfstan took the stories from Lantfred’s Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni (see M. Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Stud. 4.2 (Oxford, forthcoming)).Google ScholarGraus, F., ‘Die Gewalt bei den Anfängen des Feudalisms und die “Gefangenbefreiungen” der merowingischen Hagiographie’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte I (1961), 61–159.Google Scholar

5 This is also, by and large, the criterion applied by Professor van Caenegem in his forthcoming edition of post-Conquest pleas (see n. 1 above).

6 E.g. ASC 755 ( = 757, for 786); ‘Historia Regum’, s.a. 774, in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold, 2 vols., RS (London, 1882–1885) II, 45.Google Scholar

7 S 1170 (688); Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH, Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 502–3 (Epistolae, no. xiii).Google ScholarThe two texts are associated and explained by Edwards, Heather in ‘The Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Glasgow Univ., 1985), pp. 152–6.Google Scholar

8 S 155 (799). Cf. S 149 (796), and this list's nos. 3, 6; Wormald, P., ‘Bede, the Bretwaldas and the Origins of the Gens Artglorum’, Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Wormald, P., Bullough, D. and Collins, R. (Oxford, 1983), pp. 99–129, at 115–17.Google Scholar

9 S 30 (762, = 747).

10 S 1291 (957); S 956 (1019). Cf. S 889 (996), or the famous (if obscure) querela in S 1368 (964?).

11 S 876 (993); S 885 (995); S 893 (998). It must be admitted that S 876 comes very close to the terms of this list’s no. 59, not least in that it too was issued at a great council concerned with the general affairs of the kingdom.

12 Osberni Precentoris Vita S. Elphegi, in Anglia Sacra, ed. H. Wharton, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1691) II, 132.Google Scholar

13 E.g. S 850 (983); S 1449 (964 × 975); Ram., ch. 105.

14 Cf. S 1481 (1042 × 1055), where there is less explicit evidence of dispute before the king.

15 E.g. DB i.69a [Wiltshire, 23:7]; 121a [Cornwall, 4:21]; 174b [Worcestershire, 3:3]. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154: Vol. I, Regesta Willelmi Conquestoris et Willelmi Rufi 1066–1100, ed. H. C. W. Davis (Oxford, 1913), no. 88.Google Scholar

16 E.g. Lib. Æ, ch. 36 [ = LE ii.26]; Ram., ch. 44; Hem., pp. 259–60. Cf S 1476 (c. 1053): the estate was evidently in dispute after the Conquest (DB i.43C [Hampshire, 10:11], but the triplicate recording of Wulfweard's agreement with the Old Minster does not prove that there was a law-case before 1066 (cf. S 1471 (c. 1045)).

17 E.g. DB i.136d–137a [Hertfordshire, 16–1]; 169a [Gloucestershire, 56:2]; 259b [Shropshire, 4, 26:3]; 263a [Cheshire, B: 13]; 264a [Cheshire, 2:1]; Hem., pp. 276–7; Lib Æ, ch. 60 [ = LE ii.49–49b].Cf. such unresolved secular cases as DB i.57d [Berkshire, 1:38].

18 On the other hand, one cannot be sure, in default of further evidence, that the reference to Ælfmær's land in S 988 is to forfeited or disputed property.

19 Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1848–1849) I, 195–6.Google ScholarCf. The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, W. T. (Oxford, 1949), p. 50, for Cnut's threat to annihilate the Ramsey familia.Google Scholar

20 When Edgar seized lands from Æthelstan ‘Half-King’, the prelude to no. 108, nothing was said of a specific charge: Lib Æ, ch. 5, LE ii.7. And Dr Fleming has pointed me to DB i.263a [Cheshire, B:7], the confiscation of land beyond the Dee from King Gruffydd, but this seems unlikely to have followed a formal hearing.

21 De Obsessione Dunelmi, in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold, 1, 219; the editor was reminded of the lifestyle of a ‘Turkish Pacha’.

22 LE ii. 60. Cf. the similar penance imposed on the future Abbot Ealdwulf of Peterborough, who accidentally suffocated his son: Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, pp. 29–30.

23 Lib Æ, ch. 46 [ = LE ii.35]. Such stories are of course generally commoner than accounts of restitution by orthodox means.

24 Cf, e.g., DB ii.98r [Essex, 83:1].

25 E.g. Goscelin's Vita S. Wulfsini episcopi et confessoris, ed. C. H. Talbot, ‘The Life of St Wulfsin of Sherborne by Goscelin’, RB 69 (1959), 68–85, at 83–4; Miracula S. Augustini, in Acta Sanctorum, Mai VI, p. 402 (I would welcome enlightenment as to the industrial process that the three Kentishmen were engaged in).Google Scholar

26 Cf. Vollrath, H., Die Synoden Englands bis 1066, Konziliegeschichte, ed. Brandmüller, W. (Munich, 1985), pp. 251–8, 424–53; with all due respect to Dr Vollrath's erudition, it is difficult to accept her arguments that the ‘Vigilantius, De Basilica Sancti Petri’ which is cited as an authority for Dunstan's council in the Liber de Hyda represents a contemporary source, and without such authority, the historicity of the council itself is doubtful.Google Scholar

27 Brooks, N. P. and Walker, H. E., ‘The Authority and Interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Proc. of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Stud. I, ed. Brown, R. A. (Ipswich, 1979), 1–34.Google ScholarRollason, D. W., The Mildrith Legend: a Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), pp. 60–7.Google Scholar

28 For Dominic, see Lapidge, M., ‘The Medieval Hagiography of St Ecgwine’, Vale of Evesham Hist. Soc. Research Papers 6 (1977), 77–93, at 82–5; and ‘Dominic of Evesham, “Vita S. Ecgwini Episcopi et Confessoris”’, AB 96 (1978), 65–104.Google ScholarFor the account of Æthelwig, see Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England, c. 550–1307 (London, 1974), pp. 89–90 and 111–12.Google Scholar

29 Three cases in Æthelred II's time (nos. 63, 71–2) are covered by ‘pairs’ of charters, raising the possibility that they relate to different people and/or offences. For no. 63, the identity of the two Ælfrics is almost certain: each text refers to the same predecessor as tenant, and to the sentence of a Council of Cirencester. In no. 71, the equation of the two Leofsiges seems highly likely: only one ‘Leofsige dux’ appears in witness-lists of. Æthelred's charters. In no. 72, however, though it remains probable that the same Wulfgeat features in each, it does happen that a ‘Wulfgeat minister’ subscribes S 922 (1009), so that S 934 (1015) could be referring to his disgrace, rather than that of the Wulfgeat forfeited in 1006; for this reason, I have, exceptionally, listed the two references as 72(a) and 72(b). But I implicitly accept Dr Keynes's arguments (The Diplomas of King Æhelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 184–5) that the Æthelsiges of nos. 56, 60 are (probably) not the same person.Google Scholar

30 Compare Barlow's comment, V ÆR, p. 13, n. 4.

31 See below, p. 279.1 discuss the circumstances of these forgeries further in ‘Æthelwold and his Continental Counterparts: Contact, Comparison, Contrast’, Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. Yorke, B. (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 13–41, at 39–40.Google Scholar

32 DB i.182a [Herefordshire, 2:30].

33 The only obvious absentee among well-documented houses is Glastonbury – presumably because such documents did not interest its cartularists. See S 1705 (922), S 1777 (979 × 1016), with Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of Wessex (Leicester, 1964), nos. 447, 506.Google Scholar

34 See ‘Conclusion’, The Settlement of Disputes, ed. Davies and Fouracre, pp. 207–14, with cross-references.

35 BCS 312 has the most detailed ecclesiastical witness-list of the whole Anglo-Saxon period; it too is dated 12 October 803, and it is thus an eloquent comment on the shortcomings of the lists in S 1260, S 1431 and BCS 310–or, by extension, any other list of the period – as evidence for attendance at a synod.

36 E.g. S 164 (809); S 177 (814); S 186 (822); S 187 (823); S 296 (845)–Canterbury. S 1273 (855); S 210 (864) – Worcester. But note also the characteristic Canterbury formulation of S 168 (811).

37 Brooks, N. P., The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), pp. 191–7.Google Scholar

38 Brooks, Canterbury, pp. 323–4.

39 Vollrath, Synoden Englands, pp. 124–32. I am indebted to C. R. E. Coutts for kindly drawing my attention to canon IX of the Council of Chelsea (816), in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869–1878) III, 583, whose relevance 1 and others had inexplicably missed: it effectively instructs bishops to make and keep records iudicia concerning their own dioceses. Her Cambridge Univ. Ph.D. research into ‘English Church Councils to c. 850’ will add much to knowledge of these matters.Google Scholar

40 In general, see Brooks, Canterbury, pp. 168–70 and 327–30; also Wormald, P., Bede and the Conversion of England: the Charter Evidence (Jarrow, 1985), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

41 Facsimiles of English Royal Writs to A.D. 1100, presented to V. H. Galbraith, ed. T. A. M. Bishop and P. Chaplais (Oxford, 1957), no. 4.Google ScholarBrooks, N. P., ‘The Early Charters of Christ Church Canterbury’ (unpubl. D.Phil, dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1969), p. 90. The other work of this scribe indicates a floruit in the 1070s.Google Scholar

42 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F., 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916) 1, 396–9Google Scholar. Cf. ‘Hit Becwæð’, Ibid., p. 400.

43 Other extant chirographs among documents in the list are nos. 49, 77, 84; to judge from the existence of identical copies in the Ramsey and Thorney cartularies, the narrative record of no. 93 was also produced in this way. For deposit of other documents with the king, see S 1520 (1017 × 35), S 1521 (1035 × 1044) and S 1478 (1053 × 1055); also the spurious S 981.

44 Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), pp. 74–82;Google ScholarEnglish Historical Documents, c. 500–1042, ed. Whitelock, D., 2nd edn (London, 1979), p. 379; Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 95–126.Google Scholar

45 See now Dr Chaplais' riposte to Keynes, Diplomas: ‘The Royal Anglo-Saxon “Chancery” of the Tenth Century Revisited’, Studies in Medieval History presented to R.H. C. Davis, ed. Mayr-Harting, H. and Moore, R. I. (London, 1985), pp. 41–51; andGoogle ScholarKeynes, S. D. ‘Regenbald the Chancellor (sic)’, Anglo-Norman Studies X, ed. Brown, R. A. (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 185–222. I have attempted to find a measure of common ground in a review of Keynes, Diplomas: History 67 (1982), 309–10.Google Scholar

46 Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 92–4, 96, 102–4, 113, 122–3 and 201. The links noted by Dr Keynes between S 842 (no. 44) and S 869 (no. 48) extend to the wording of the forfeiture clause; it is interesting (if scarcely explicable) that the same wording reappears in S 877 (nos. 57–8), which was also preserved at the New Minster.

47 See Clanchy, M. T., ‘A Medieval Realist: Interpreting the Rules at Barnwell Priory, Cambridge’, Perspectives in Jurisprudence, ed. Attwooll, E. (Glasgow, 1977), pp. 176–94; andGoogle Scholar‘Law and Love in the Middle Ages’, Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. Bossy, J. (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 47–67.Google Scholar

48 See p. 247, n. 1, and p. 257 above: S 138 (795 = 792), cited by Stevenson as another early reference to forfeiture, is, like S 254, spurious.

49 Laws of Alfred, ch. 1 (Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, 1, 46–7). Forfeiture for serious crime was already envisaged in the laws of Ine, ch. 6 (Ibid., pp. 90–1); the fact remains that there is no good pre-Alfredian evidence for its enforcement.

50 See Keynes, , ‘Crime and Punishment’, forthcoming; also his ‘A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready’, TRHS 5th ser. 36 (1986), 195–217, at 211–13.Google Scholar