The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law

The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law
Author: Stefan Jurasinski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107083419

This is the first book-length study of the four penitentials composed in Old English. This book argues that they are also important to our understanding of how written law developed in early England. This book considers their backgrounds and shows how they illuminate obscure passages in better-known Old English texts.

The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law

The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law
Author: Stefan Jurasinski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316033333

Some of the earliest examples of medieval canon law are penitentials - texts enumerating the sins a confessor might encounter among laypeople or other clergy and suggesting means of reconciliation. Often they gave advice on matters of secular law as well, offering judgments on the proper way to contract a marriage or on the treatment of slaves. This book argues that their importance to more general legal-historical questions, long suspected by historians but rarely explored, is most evident in an important (and often misunderstood) subgroup of the penitentials: composed in Old English. Though based on Latin sources - principally those attributed to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (d.690) and Halitgar of Cambrai (d.831) - these texts recast them into new ordinances meant to better suit the needs of English laypeople. The Old English penitentials thus witness to how one early medieval polity established a tradition of written vernacular law.

Anglo-Saxon Prognostics

Anglo-Saxon Prognostics
Author: R. M. Liuzza
Publisher: DS Brewer
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843842556

Edition and translation of prognostic guides and calendars, intended as an effort to foretell the future.

The Laws of Alfred

The Laws of Alfred
Author: Stefan Jurasinski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2021-05-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108897894

Alfred the Great's domboc ('book of laws') is the longest and most ambitious legal text of the Anglo-Saxon period. Alfred places his own laws, dealing with everything from sanctuary to feuding to the theft of bees, between a lengthy translation of legal passages from the Bible and the legislation of the West-Saxon King Ine (r. 688–726), which rival his own in length and scope. This book is the first critical edition of the domboc published in over a century, as well as a new translation. Five introductory chapters offer fresh insights into the laws of Alfred and Ine, considering their backgrounds, their relationship to early medieval legal culture, their manuscript evidence and their reception in later centuries. Rather than a haphazard accumulation of ordinances, the domboc is shown to issue from deep reflection on the nature of law itself, whose effects would permanently alter the development of early English legislation.

Medieval Handbooks of Penance

Medieval Handbooks of Penance
Author: John Thomas McNeill
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1990
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 0231096291

Penance in the ancient church -- The penitentials -- The condition of the texts -- Early Irish penitential documents -- Early Welsh penitential documents -- Penitentials of the Anglo-Saxon church -- Penitentials by Irish authors which were apparently compiled on the continent -- Anonymous and pseudonymous Frankish and Visigothic penitentials of the eighth and ninth centuries -- Penitentials written or authorized by Frankish ecclesiastics -- Selections from later penitential documents -- Penitential elements in medieval public law -- Synodical decisions and ecclesiastical opinions relating to the penitentials -- An eighth-century list of superstitions -- Selections from the customs of Tallaght -- Irish canons from a Worcester collection -- On documents omitted -- The manuscripts of the penitentials.

English law before Magna Carta

English law before Magna Carta
Author: Stefan Jurasinski
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2010-09-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004187561

This volume marks the centenary of Liebermann’s Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903-1916) by bringing together essays by scholars specializing in medieval legal culture. The essays address not only Liebermann’s legacy, but also major issues in the study of early law.

Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England

Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England
Author: Jay Paul Gates
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843839180

Anglo-Saxon authorities often punished lawbreakers with harsh corporal penalties, such as execution, mutilation and imprisonment. Despite their severity, however, these penalties were not arbitrary exercises of power. Rather, they were informed by nuanced philosophies of punishment which sought to resolve conflict, keep the peace and enforce Christian morality. The ten essays in this volume engage legal, literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to investigate the role of punishment in Anglo-Saxon society. Three dominant themes emerge in the collection. First is the shift from a culture of retributive feud to a system of top-down punishment, in which penalties were imposed by an authority figure responsible for keeping the peace. Second is the use of spectacular punishment to enhance royal standing, as Anglo-Saxon kings sought to centralize and legitimize their power. Third is the intersection of secular punishment and penitential practice, as Christian authorities tempered penalties for material crime with concern for the souls of the condemned. Together, these studies demonstrate that in Anglo-Saxon England, capital and corporal punishments were considered necessary, legitimate, and righteous methods of social control. Jay Paul Gates is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in The City University of New York; Nicole Marafioti is Assistant Professor of History and co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Jo Buckberry, Daniela Fruscione, Jay Paul Gates, Stefan Jurasinski, Nicole Marafioti, Daniel O'Gorman, Lisi Oliver, Andrew Rabin, Daniel Thomas.

Law and Language in the Middle Ages

Law and Language in the Middle Ages
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2018-07-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004375767

Law and Language in the Middle Ages investigates the relationship between law and legal practice from the linguistic perspective, exploring not only how legal language expresses and advances power relations but also how the language of law legitimates power.

Between Medieval Men

Between Medieval Men
Author: David Clark
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0191567884

Between Medieval Men argues for the importance of synoptically examining the whole range of same-sex relations in the Anglo-Saxon period, revisiting well-known texts and issues (as well as material often considered marginal) from a radically different perspective. The introductory chapters first lay out the premises underlying the book and its critical context, then emphasise the need to avoid modern cultural assumptions about both male-female and male-male relationships, and underline the paramount place of homosocial bonds in Old English literature. Part II then investigates the construction of and attitudes to same-sex acts and identities in ethnographic, penitential, and theological texts, ranging widely throughout the Old English corpus and drawing on Classical, Medieval Latin, and Old Norse material. Part III expands the focus to homosocial bonds in Old English literature in order to explore the range of associations for same-sex intimacy and their representation in literary texts such as Genesis A, Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Phoenix, and Ælfric's Lives of Saints. During the course of the book's argument, David Clark uncovers several under-researched issues and suggests fruitful approaches for their investigation. He concludes that, in omitting to ask certain questions of Anglo-Saxon material, in being too willing to accept the status quo indicated by the extant corpus, in uncritically importing invisible (because normative) heterosexist assumptions in our reading, we risk misrepresenting the diversity and complexity that a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and sexuality suggests may be more genuinely characteristic of the period.

Secession on Trial

Secession on Trial
Author: Cynthia Nicoletti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1108415520

This book explores the treason trial of President Jefferson Davis, where the question of secession's constitutionality was debated.