Chronicle"; it would be more correct to say that there are four
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. It is true that these all grow out of a common
stock, that in some even of their later entries two or more of them
use common materials; but the same may be said of several groups
of medieval chronicles, which no one dreams of treating as single
chronicles. Of this fourfold Chronicle there are seven MSS. in
existence; _C.C.C. Cant._ 173 (A); _Cott. Tib._ A vi. (B); _Cott.
Tib._ B i. (C); _Cott. Tib._ B iv. (D); _Bodl. Laud. Misc._ 636 (E);
_Cott. Domitian_ A viii. (F); _Cott. Otho_ B xi. (G). Of these G is
now a mere fragment, and it is known to have been a transcript of A.
F is bilingual, the entries being given both in Saxon and Latin. It
is interesting as a stage in the transition from the vernacular to
the Latin chronicle; but it has little independent value, being a
mere epitome, made at Canterbury in the 11th or 12th century, of a
chronicle akin to E. B, as far as it goes (to 977), is identical with
C, both having been copied from a common original, but A, C, D, E have
every right to be treated as independent chronicles. The relations
between the four vary very greatly in different parts, and the neglect
of this consideration has led to much error and confusion. The common
stock, out of which all grow, extends to 892. The present writer sees
no reason to doubt that the idea of a national, as opposed to earlier
local chronicles, was inspired by Alfred, who may even have dictated,
or at least revised, the entries relating to his own campaigns; while
for the earlier parts pre-existing materials, both oral and written,
were utilized. Among the latter the chronological epitome appended to
Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_ may be specially mentioned. But even
this common stock exists in two different recensions, in A, B, C, on
the one hand, and D, E on the other. The main points of difference are
that in D, E (1) a series of northern annals have been incorporated;
(2) the Bede entries are taken, not from the brief epitome, but from
the main body of the _Eccl. Hist._ The inference is that, shortly
after the compiling of this Alfredian chronicle, a copy of it was sent
to some northern monastery, probably Ripon, where it was expanded in
the way indicated. Copies of this northernized Chronicle afterwards
found their way to the south. The impulse given by Alfred was
continued under Edward, and we have what may be called an official
continuation of the history of the Danish wars, which, in B, C, D
extends to 915, and in A to 924. After 915 B, C insert as a separate
document a short register of Mercian affairs during the same period
(902-924), which might be called the acts of Æthelflaed, the famous
"Lady of the Mercians," while D has incorporated it, not very
skilfully, with the official continuation. Neither of these documents
exists in E. From 925 to 975 all the chronicles are very fragmentary;
a few obits, three or four poems, among them the famous ballad on
the battle of Brunanburh, make up the meagre tale of their common
materials, which each has tried to supplement in its own way. A has
inserted a number of Winchester entries, which prove that A is a
Winchester book. And this local and scrappy character it retains
to 1001, where it practically ends. At some subsequent time it
was transferred bodily to Canterbury, where it received numerous
interpolations in the earlier part, and a few later local entries
which finally tail off into the Latin acts of Lanfranc. A may
therefore be dismissed. C has added to the common stock one or
two Abingdon entries, with which place the history of C is closely
connected; while D and E have a second group of northern annals
901-966, E being however much more fragmentary than D, omitting, or
not having access to, much both of the common and of the northern
material which is found in D. From 983 to 1018 C, D and E are
practically identical, and give a connected history of the Danish
struggles under Æthelred II. This section was probably composed at
Canterbury. From 1018 the relations of C, D, E become too complicated
to be expressed by any formula; sometimes all three agree together,
sometimes all three are independent; in other places each pair in
turn agree against the third. It may be noted that C is strongly
anti-Godwinist, while E is equally pro-Godwinist, D occupying an
intermediate position. C extends to 1066, where it ends abruptly, and
probably mutilated. D ends at 1079 and is certainly mutilated. In
its later history D is associated with some place in the diocese of
Worcester, probably Evesham. In its present form D is a comparatively
late MS., none of it probably much earlier, and some of it later, than
1100. In the case of entries in the earlier part of the chronicles,
which are peculiar to D, we cannot exclude the possibility that they
may be late interpolations. E is continued to 1154. In its present
form it is unquestionably a Peterborough book. The earlier part is
full of Peterborough interpolations, to which place many of the later
entries also refer. But (apart from the interpolations) it is only the
entries after 1121, where the first hand in the MS. ends, which were
actually composed at Peterborough. The section 1023-1067
certainly, and possibly also the section 1068-1121, was composed at
St. Augustine's, Canterbury; and the former is of extreme interest
and value, the writer being in close contact with the events which he
describes. The later parts of E show a great degeneration in language,
and a querulous tone due to the sufferings of the native population
under the harsh Norman rule; "but our debt to it is inestimable; and
we can hardly measure what the loss to English history would have
been, if it had not been written; or if, having been written, it had,
like so many another English chronicle, been lost."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The above account is based on the introduction in vol.
ii. of the Rev. C. Plummer's edition of _Two of the Saxon Chronicles
Parallel_ (Clarendon Press, 1892, 1899); to which the student may
be referred for detailed arguments. The _editio princeps_ of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was by Abraham Wheloc, professor of Arabic at
Cambridge, where the work was printed (1643-1644). It was based mainly
on the MS. called G above, and is the chief source of our knowledge of
that MS. which perished, all but three leaves, in the Cottonian fire
of 1723. Edmund Gibson of Queen's College, Oxford, afterwards bishop
of London, published an edition in 1692. He used Wheloc's edition, and
E, with collations or transcripts of B and F. Both Wheloc and Gibson
give Latin translations. In 1823 appeared an edition by Dr. Ingram, of
Trinity College, Oxford, with an English translation. Besides A, B, E,
F, Ingram used C and D for the first time. But both he and Gibson made
the fatal error of trying to combine the disparate materials contained
in the various chronicles in a single text. An improvement in this
respect is seen in the edition made by Richard Price (d. 1833) for
the first (and only) volume of _Monumenta Historica Britannica_ (folio
1848). There is still, however, too much conflation, and owing to the
plan of the volume, the edition only extends to 1066. A translation is
appended. In 1861 appeared Benjamin Thorpe's six-text edition in the
Rolls Series. Though not free from defects, this edition is absolutely
indispensable for the study of the chronicles and the mutual relations
of the different MSS. A second volume contains the translation. In
1865 the Clarendon Press published _Two Saxon Chronicles (A and E)
Parallel, with supplementary extracts from the others_, by the Rev.
John Earle. This edition has no translation, but in the notes and
introduction a very considerable advance was made. On this edition is
partly based the later edition by the Rev. C. Plummer, already cited
above. In addition to the translations contained in the editions
already mentioned, the following have been issued separately. The
first translation into modern English was by Miss Anna Gurney,
privately printed in 1819. This was largely based on Gibson's edition,
and was in turn the basis of Dr. Giles' translation, published in 1847,
and often reprinted. The best translation is that by the Rev. Joseph
Stevenson, in his series of _Church Historians of England_ (1853). Up
to the Conquest it is a revision of the translation contained in _Mon.
Hist. Brit._ From that point it is an independent translation.
(C. PL.)
ANGLO-SAXON LAW. 1. The body of legal rules and customs which
obtained in England before the Norman conquest constitutes, with
the Scandinavian laws, the most genuine expression of Teutonic legal
thought. While the so-called "barbaric laws" (_leges barbarorum_)
of the continent, not excepting those compiled in the territory now
called Germany, were largely the product of Roman influence, the
continuity of Roman life was almost completely broken in the island,
and even the Church, the direct heir of Roman tradition, did not carry
on a continuous existence: Canterbury was not a see formed in a Roman
province in the same sense as Tours or Reims. One of the striking
expressions of this Teutonism is presented by the language in which
the Anglo-Saxon laws were written. They are uniformly worded in
English, while continental laws, apart from the Scandinavian, are all
in Latin. The English dialect in which the Anglo-Saxon laws have been
handed down to us is in most cases a common speech derived from West
Saxon--naturally enough as Wessex became the predominant English
state, and the court of its kings the principal literary centre from
which most of the compilers and scribes derived their dialect and
spelling. Traces of Kentish speech may be detected, however, in the
_Textus Roffensis_, the MS. of the Kentish laws, and Northumbrian
dialectical peculiarities are also noticeable on some occasions, while
Danish words occur only as technical terms. At the conquest, Latin
takes the place of English in the compilations made to meet the demand
for Anglo-Saxon law texts as still applied in practice.
[v.02 p.0036]
2. It is easy to group the Anglo-Saxon laws according to the manner of
their publication. They would fall into three divisions: (1) laws and
collections of laws promulgated by public authority; (2) statements of
custom; (3) private compilations of legal rules and enactments. To
the first division belong the laws of the Kentish kings, Æthelberht,
Hlothhere and Eadric, Withraed; those of Ine of Wessex, of Alfred,
Edward the Elder, Æthelstan,[1] Edmund, Edgar, Æthelred and Canute;
the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum and the so-called treaty between
Edward and Guthrum. The second division is formed by the convention
between the English and the Welsh _Dunsaetas_, the law of the
Northumbrian priests, the customs of the North people, the fragments
of local custumals entered in Domesday Book. The third division would
consist of the collections of the so-called _Pseudo-leges Canuti_, the
laws of Edward the Confessor, of Henry I., and the great compilation
of the _Quadripartitus_, then of a number of short notices and
extracts like the fragments on the "wedding of a wife," on oaths,
on ordeals, on the king's peace, on rural customs (_Rectitudines
singularum personarum_), the treatises on the reeve (_gerefa_) and on
the judge (_dema_), formulae of oaths, notions as to wergeld, &c. A
fourth group might be made of the charters, as they are based on
Old English private and public law and supply us with most important
materials in regard to it. Looking somewhat deeper at the sources
from which Old English law was derived, we shall have to modify our
classification to some extent, as the external forms of publication,
although important from the point of view of historical criticism, are
not sufficient standards as to the juridical character of the various
kinds of material. Direct statements of law would fall under the
following heads, from the point of view of their legal origins: i.
customary rules followed by divers communities capable of formulating
law; ii. enactments of authorities, especially of kings; iii. private
arrangements made under recognized legal rules. The first would
comprise, besides most of the statements of custom included in the
second division according to the first classification, a great many
of the rules entered in collections promulgated by kings; most of the
paragraphs of Æthelberht's, Hlothhere's, and Eadric's and Ine's
laws, are popular legal customs that have received the stamp of royal
authority by their insertion in official codes. On the other hand,
from Withraed's and Alfred's laws downwards, the element of enactment
by central authority becomes more and more prominent. The kings
endeavour, with the help of secular and clerical witan, to introduce
new rules and to break the power of long-standing customs (e.g. the
precepts about the keeping of holidays, the enactments of Edmund
restricting private vengeance, and the solidarity of kindreds as to
feuds, and the like). There are, however, no outward signs enabling
us to distinguish conclusively between both categories of laws in the
codes, nor is it possible to draw a line between permanent laws and
personal ordinances of single sovereigns, as has been attempted in the
case of Frankish legislation.
[Footnote 1: The _Judicia civitatis Lundoniae_ are a gild statute
confirmed by King Æthelstan.]
3. Even in the course of a general survey of the legal lore at
our disposal, one cannot help being struck by peculiarities in the
distribution of legal subjects. Matters which seem to us of primary
importance and occupy a wide place in our law-books are almost
entirely absent in Anglo-Saxon laws or relegated to the background.
While it is impossible to give here anything like a complete or
exact survey of the field--a task rendered almost impossible by the
arbitrary manner in which paragraphs are divided, by the difficulty
of making Old English enactments fit into modern rubrics, and by the
necessity of counting several times certain paragraphs bearing on
different subjects--a brief statistical analysis of the contents of
royal codes and laws may be found instructive.
We find roughly 419 paragraphs devoted to criminal law and procedure
as against 91 concerned with questions of private law and civil
procedure. Of the criminal law clauses, as many as 238 are taken
up with tariffs of fines, while 80 treat of capital and corporal
punishment, outlawry and confiscation, and 101 include rules of
procedure. On the private law side 18 clauses apply to rights of
property and possession, 13 to succession and family law, 37 to
contracts, including marriage when treated as an act of sale; 18 touch
on civil procedure. A subject which attracted special attention was
the law of status, and no less than 107 paragraphs contain disposition
dictated by the wish to discriminate between the classes of society.
Questions of public law and administration are discussed in 217
clauses, while 197 concern the Church in one way or another, apart
from purely ecclesiastical collections. In the public law division it
is chiefly the power, interests and privileges of the king that are
dealt with, in roughly 93 paragraphs, while local administration comes
in for 39 and purely economic and fiscal matter for 13 clauses. Police
regulations are very much to the fore and occupy no less than 72
clauses of the royal legislation. As to church matters, the most
prolific group is formed by general precepts based on religious and
moral considerations, roughly 115, while secular privileges conferred
on the Church hold about 62, and questions of organization some 20
clauses.
The statistical contrasts are especially sharp and characteristic when
we take into account the chronological sequence in the elaboration of
laws. Practically the entire code of Æthelberht, for instance, is a
tariff of fines for crimes, and the same subject continues to occupy
a great place in the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, Ine and Alfred,
whereas it appears only occasionally in the treaties with the Danes,
the laws of Withraed, Edward the Elder, Æthelstan, Edgar, Edmund and
Æthelred. It reappears in some strength in the code of Canute, but the
latter is chiefly a recapitulation of former enactments. The system of
"compositions" or fines, paid in many cases with the help of kinsmen,
finds its natural place in the ancient, tribal period of English
history and loses its vitality later on in consequence of the growth
of central power and of the scattering of maegths. Royalty and the
Church, when they acquire the lead in social life, work out a
new penal system based on outlawry, death penalties and corporal
punishments, which make their first appearance in the legislation of
Withraed and culminate in that of Æthelred and Canute.
As regards status, the most elaborate enactments fall into the period
preceding the Danish settlements. After the treaties with the Danes,
the tendency is to simplify distinctions on the lines of an opposition
between twelvehynd-men and twyhynd-men, paving the way towards
the feudal distinction between the free and the unfree. In the
arrangements of the commonwealth the clauses treating of royal
privileges are more or less evenly distributed over all reigns, but
the systematic development of police functions, especially in regard
to responsibility for crimes, the catching of thieves, the suppression
of lawlessness, is mainly the object of 10th and 11th century
legislation. The reign of Æthelred, which witnessed the greatest
national humiliation and the greatest crime in English history, is
also marked by the most lavish expressions of religious feeling and
the most frequent appeals to morality. This sketch would, of course,
have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the
unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the
paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to
tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. But, imperfect as
such statistics may be, they give us at any rate some insight into the
direction of governmental legislation.
4. The next question to be approached concerns the pedigree of
Anglo-Saxon law and the latter's natural affinities. What is its
position in the legal history of Germanic nations? How far has it been
influenced by non-Germanic elements, especially by Roman and Canon
law? The oldest Anglo-Saxon codes, especially the Kentish and the
West Saxon ones, disclose a close relationship to the barbaric laws
of Lower Germany--those of Saxons, Frisians, Thuringians. We find a
division of social ranks which reminds us of the threefold gradation
of Lower Germany (edelings, frilings, lazzen-eorls, ceorls, laets),
and not of the twofold Frankish one (_ingenui Franci, Romani_), nor
of the minute differentiation of the Upper Germans and Lombards. In
subsequent history there is a good deal of resemblance between the
capitularies' legislation of Charlemagne and his successors on one
hand, the acts of Alfred, Edward the Elder, Æthelstan and Edgar on the
other, a resemblance called forth less by direct borrowing of
Frankish institutions than by the similarity of political problems
and condition. Frankish law becomes a powerful modifying element
in English legal history after the Conquest, when it was introduced
wholesale in royal and in feudal courts. The Scandinavian invasions
brought in many northern legal customs, especially in the districts
thickly populated with Danes. The Domesday survey of Lincolnshire,
Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Norfolk, &c., shows remarkable deviations
in local organization and justice (lagmen, sokes), and great
peculiarities as to status (socmen, freemen), while from laws and
a few charters we can perceive some influence on criminal law
(_nidings-vaerk_), special usages as to fines (_lahslit_), the keeping
of peace, attestation and sureties of acts (_faestermen_), &c. But, on
the whole, the introduction of Danish and Norse elements, apart from
local cases, was more important owing to the conflicts and compromises
it called forth and its social results,--than on account of any
distinct trail of Scandinavian views in English law. The Scandinavian
newcomers coalesced easily and quickly with the native population.
[v.02 p.0037]
The direct influence of Roman law was not great during the Saxon
period: we notice neither the transmission of important legal
doctrines, chiefly through the medium of Visigothic codes, nor the
continuous stream of Roman tradition in local usage. But indirectly
Roman law did exert a by no means insignificant influence through the
medium of the Church, which, for all its insular character, was still
permeated with Roman ideas and forms of culture. The Old English
"books" are derived in a roundabout way from Roman models, and the
tribal law of real property was deeply modified by the introduction of
individualistic notions as to ownership, donations, wills, rights of
women, &c. Yet in this respect also the Norman Conquest increased the
store of Roman conceptions by breaking the national isolation of the
English Church and opening the way for closer intercourse with France
and Italy.
5. It would be useless to attempt to trace in a brief sketch
the history of the legal principles embodied in the documents of
Anglo-Saxon law. But it may be of some value to give an outline of a
few particularly characteristic subjects.
(a) The Anglo-Saxon legal system cannot be understood unless one
realizes the fundamental opposition between folk-right and privilege.
Folk-right is the aggregate of rules, formulated or latent but
susceptible of formulation, which can be appealed to as the expression
of the juridical consciousness of the people at large or of the
communities of which it is composed. It is tribal in its origin, and
differentiated, not according to boundaries between states, but on
national and provincial lines. There may be the folk-right of West and
East Saxons, of East Angles, of Kentish men, Mercians, Northumbrians,
Danes, Welshmen, and these main folk-right divisions remain even when
tribal kingdoms disappear and the people is concentrated in one or
two realms. The chief centres for the formulation and application of
folk-right were in the 10th and 11th centuries the shire-moots, while
the witan of the realm generally placed themselves on the higher
ground of State expediency, although occasionally using folk-right
ideas. The older law of real property, of succession, of contracts,
the customary tariffs of fines, were mainly regulated by folk-right;
the reeves employed by the king and great men were supposed to take
care of local and rural affairs according to folk-right. The law had
to be declared and applied by the people itself in its communities,
while the spokesmen of the people were neither democratic majorities
nor individual experts, but a few leading men--the twelve eldest
thanes or some similar quorum. Folk-right could, however, be broken
or modified by special law or special grant, and the fountain of such
privileges was the royal power. Alterations and exceptions were, as
a matter of fact, suggested by the interested parties themselves,
and chiefly by the Church. Thus a privileged land-tenure was
created--bookland; the rules as to the succession of kinsmen were set
at nought by concession of testamentary power and confirmations of
grants and wills; special exemptions from the jurisdiction of the
hundreds and special privileges as to levying fines were conferred.
In process of time the rights originating in royal grants of privilege
overbalanced, as it were, folk-right in many respects, and became
themselves the starting-point of a new legal system--the feudal one.
(b) Another feature of vital importance in the history of Anglo-Saxon
law is its tendency towards the preservation of peace. Society
is constantly struggling to ensure the main condition of its
existence--peace. Already in Æthelberht's legislation we find
characteristic fines inflicted for breach of the peace of householders
of different ranks--the ceorl, the eorl, and the king himself
appearing as the most exalted among them. Peace is considered not so
much a state of equilibrium and friendly relations between parties,
but rather as the rule of a third within a certain region--a house,
an estate, a kingdom. This leads on one side to the recognition of
private authorities--the father's in his family, the master's as to
servants, the lord's as to his personal or territorial dependents.
On the other hand, the tendency to maintain peace naturally takes
its course towards the strongest ruler, the king, and we witness in
Anglo-Saxon law the gradual evolution of more and more stringent and
complete rules in respect of the king's peace and its infringements.
(c) The more ancient documents of Anglo-Saxon law show us the
individual not merely as the subject and citizen of a certain
commonwealth, but also as a member of some group, all the fellows
of which are closely allied in claims and responsibilities. The most
elementary of these groups is the _maegth_, the association of agnatic
and cognatic relations. Personal protection and revenge, oaths,
marriage, wardship, succession, supervision over settlement, and good
behaviour, are regulated by the law of kinship. A man's actions are
considered not as exertions of his individual will, but as acts of the
kindred, and all the fellows of the maegth are held responsible for
them. What began as a natural alliance was used later as a means of
enforcing responsibility and keeping lawless individuals in
order. When the association of kinsmen failed, the voluntary
associations--guilds--appeared as substitutes. The gild brothers
associated in mutual defence and support, and they had to share in
the payment of fines. The township and the hundred came also in for
certain forms of collective responsibility, because they presented
groups of people associated in their economic and legal interests.
(d) In course of time the natural associations get loosened and
intermixed, and this calls forth the elaborate police legislation of
the later Anglo-Saxon kings. Regulations are issued about the sale of
cattle in the presence of witnesses. Enactments about the pursuit
of thieves, and the calling in of warrantors to justify sales of
chattels, are other expressions of the difficulties attending peaceful
intercourse. Personal surety appears as a complement of and substitute
for collective responsibility. The _hlaford_ and his _hiredmen_ are
an institution not only of private patronage, but also of police
supervision for the sake of laying hands on malefactors and suspected
persons. The _landrica_ assumes the same part in a territorial
district. Ultimately the laws of the 10th and 11th centuries show
the beginnings of the frankpledge associations, which came to act so
important a part in the local police and administration of the feudal
age.
The points mentioned are not many, but, apart from their intrinsic
importance in any system of law, they are, as it were, made prominent
by the documents themselves, as they are constantly referred to in the
latter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Editions_: Liebermann, _Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen_
(1903, 1906) is indispensable, and leaves nothing to be desired as
to the constitution of the texts. The translations and notes are,
of course, to be considered in the light of an instructive, but not
final, commentary. R. Schmid, _Gesetze der Angelsachsen_ (2nd ed.,
Leipzig, 1858) is still valuable on account of its handiness and the
fulness of its glossary. B. Thorpe, _Ancient Laws and Institutes of
England_ (1840) is not very trustworthy. _Domesday Book_, i. ii. (Rec.
Comm.); _Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici_, i.-vi. ed. J.M. Kemble
(1839-1848); _Cartularium Saxonicum_ (up to 940), ed. W. de Gray
Birch (1885-1893); J. Earle, _Land Charters_ (Oxford, 1888); Thorpe,
_Diplomatarium Anglicanum; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters_, edited
by the Ordnance Survey and by the British Museum; Haddan and Stubbs,
_Councils of Great Britain_, i.-iii. (Oxford, 1869-1878).
[v.02 p.0038]
_Modern works_.--Konrad Maurer, _Über Angelsachsische
Rechtsverhaltnisse, Kritische Ueberschau_ (Munich, 1853 ff.), still
the best account of the history of Anglo-Saxon law; _Essays on
Anglo-Saxon Law_, by H. Adams, H.C. Lodge, J.L. Laughlin and E. Young
(1876); J.M. Kemble, _Saxons in England_; F. Palgrave, _History of the
English Commonwealth_; Stubbs, _Constitutional History of England_,
i.; Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, i.; H. Brunner,
_Zur Rechtsgeschichte der romisch-germanischen Urkunde_ (1880); Sir
F. Pollock, _The King's Peace_ (Oxford Lectures); F. Seebohm; _The
English Village Community_; Ibid. _Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law_;
Marquardsen, _Haft und Burgschaft im Angelsachsischen Recht_;
Jastrow, "Über die Strafrechtliche Stellung der Sklaven," Gierke's
_Untersuchungen_, i.; Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, iv.; F.W. Maitland,
_Domesday and Beyond_ (Cambridge, 1897); H.M. Chadwick, _Studies on
Anglo-Saxon Institutions_ (1905); P. Vinogradoff, "Folcland" in
the _English Historical Review_, 1893; "Romanistische Einflusse im
Angelsächsischen Recht: Das Buchland" in the _Mélanges Fitting_, 1907;
"The Transfer of Land in Old English Law" in the _Harvard Law Review_,
1907.
(P. Vi.)