Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:49:37.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Forgers of Law and Their Readers: The Crafting of English Political Identities between the Norman Conquest and the Magna Carta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2010

Bruce R. O'Brien
Bruce R. O'Brien
Affiliation:
Institute of Historical Research
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A short time after 1206 and before 1215, a Londoner assembled a massive collection of older and near contemporary English laws, called the Leges Anglorum by historians, and inserted long interpolations and spurious codes that enunciated many of the principles that guided the baronial opposition to King John and later became part of the Magna Carta. To those familiar with the struggle leading up to the creation of the Magna Carta, these principles should cause no surprise. These ancient laws were made to proclaim that “in the kingdom right and justice ought to reign more than perverse will” (ECf4, 11.1.A.6; Liebermann 1903, 635). In another part of the collection, King Arthur, making his first appearance in English law, is credited with establishing as law the requirement that all nobles, knights, and freemen of the whole kingdom of Britain swear “to defend the kingdom against foreigners and enemies” (ECf4, 32.A.5–7; Liebermann 1903, 655). More surprising is the attribution of the regularly assembled Hustings court in London to the Trojans (who became the Britons). The seventh-century West Saxon king, Ine, suddenly looms large in the ranks of Britain's lawmakers; he not only reigns for the good of all, but is also given the lordly virtues of twelfth-century chivalric romance: he is “generous, wise, prudent, moderate, strong, just, spirited, and warlike” (as was appropriate for the time and place) (ECf4, 32.C.2, 32.C.8; Liebermann 1903, 658–59). A confection of bits of other law, attributed here to King Alfred, orders an end to vice, national education for freemen, and unity for all “as if sworn brothers for the utility of the kingdom” (Leges Angl, Pseudo-Alfred 1–6; Liebermann 1894, 19–20). Finally, in the grandest statement of English political ambition, Arthur appears again as the great conqueror, whose spirit was not satisfied by Britain alone: “Courageously and speedily he subjugated all Scandinavia, which is now called Norway, and all the islands beyond, namely Iceland and Greenland, which belong to Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Gotland, Denmark, Samland, Vinland, Curland, Runoe, Finland, Wirland, Estland, Karelien,Lapland, and all other lands and islands of the eastern Ocean as far as Russia” (ECf4, 32.E; Liebermann 1903, 659).

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 467 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barlow, Frank. 1970. Edward the Confessor. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, Frank. 1979. The English Church, 1066–1154. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Barlow, Frank. 1986. Thomas Becket. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Robert. 2000. England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. A. R. 1981. “Reform and Resistance to Royal Authority in Fourteenth-Century France: The Leagues of 1314–15.” Parliaments, Estates and Representation 1: 103–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catto, Jeremy. 1981. “Andrew Hom: Law and History in Fourteenth-Century England.” In The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. Davis, R. H. C. and Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., 367–91. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Downer, L. J., ed. 1972. Leges Henrici Primi. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Duggan, Charles. 1963. Twelfth-Century Decretal Collections and Their Importance in English History. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Duggan, Charles. 1996. “Papal Judges Delegate and the Making of the ‘New Law’ in the Twelfth Century.” In Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Bisson, Thomas, 172–99. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Garnett, George. 1986. “Coronation and Propaganda: Some Implications of the Norman Claim to the Throne of England in 1066.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 36: 100–08.Google Scholar
Garnett, George. 2007. Conquered England: Kingship, Succession, and Tenure, 1066–1166. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerald of Wales. 1861–91. Opera, ed. Brewer, J. S.. 8 vols. Rolls Series. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Gransden, Antonia. 1976. “The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth Century.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27: 337–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Judith. 1986. The Government of England under Henry I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, G. D. G., ed. 1993. The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Herbert of Bosham. 1875–85. “Vita.” In Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Robertson, J. C. and Sheppard, J. B.. 7 vols. Rolls Series. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Holt, J. C. 1985. “The Origins of the Constitutional Tradition in England.” In Magna Carta and Medieval Government, 1–22. London: Hambledon Press.Google Scholar
Holt, J. C. 1992. Magna Carta. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
John of Salisbury. 1987. Entheticus Maior and Minor, ed. and trans. Van Laarhoven, Jan. 3 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Kagay, Donald J., ed. 1994. Usatges of Barcelona: The Fundamental Law of Catalonia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Kumar, Krishnan. 2003. The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liebermann, Felix. 1894. Über die Leges Anglorum saeculo xiii ineunte Londiniis collectae. Halle, Germany: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Liebermann, Felix, ed. 1903. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen. 1. Halle, Germany: S. M. Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Liebermann, Felix 1913. “A Contemporary Manuscript of the ‘Leges Anglorum Collectae.’” English Historical Review 28: 732–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Bruce. 1996. “From Morðor to Murdrum: The Preconquest Origin and Norman Revival of the Murder Fine.” Speculum 71: 321–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Bruce. 1999a. God's Peace and King's Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Bruce. 1999b. “The Becket Conflict and the Invention of the Myth of Lex non scripta.” In Learning the Law: Teaching and Transmission of English Law, 1150–1900, ed. Bush, Jonathan A. and Wiffjels, A., 1–12. London: Hambledon Press.Google Scholar
Pronay, Nicholas, and Taylor, John, eds. 1980. Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, Susan. 1997. Kingdom and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roger of Howden. 1868–71. Chronica, ed. Stubbs, William. 4 vols. Rolls Series. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Smalley, Beryl. 1973. The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Turner, Ralph V. 1994. King John. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Ullmann, Walter, 1965. “On the Influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth in English History.” In Speculum Historiale: Geschichte im Spiegel von Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdeutung Johannes Spörl dargebracht, ed. Bauer, C., Böhn, L., and Miiller, M., 257–76. Freiburg: Alber.Google Scholar
Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. 1961. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Whittaker, W. J., ed. 1895. The Mirrour of Justices, intro. by Maitland, F. W.. 7. Selden Society. London: B. Quaritch.Google Scholar
Wormald, Patrick. 1994a. “Quadripartitus.” In Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy, ed. Garnett, G. and Hudson, J., 111–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wormald, Patrick. 1994b. “Laga Edwardi: The Textus Roffensis in Context.” Anglo-Norman Studies 17: 243–66.Google Scholar
Wormald, Patrick. 1999. The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, 1: Legislation and its Limits. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar