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English
Legal History
2/7/2007
Outline
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II. THE ANGLO-SAXON “CONSTITUTION” IN SUMMARY
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ANGLO-SAXON CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
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A.
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The Irish parallels (Mats. p.
II-48)
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B.
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Organization
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1.
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The Church cc.1–7
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Eorls cc. 18–19
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4.
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Ceorls cc. 20–71
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a.
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20–31 mundbyrd,
wergeld, prop. offenses
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b.
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32–71 personal injury
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5.
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Women cc.72–78
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6.
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Servants cc. 78–83 (brief overlap here)
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C.
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The conceptual economy of the code wergeld, frith, mundbyrd
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D.
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The sorts and conditions of men; Aethelbert’s Code and Ine’s Code
compared. (Mats. p. II-47)
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E.
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Three views of the code:
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1.
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What the customary law was.
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2.
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What a king ought to do.
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3.
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What happens at the beginning of literacy.
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A.
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Basic Summary
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a.
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The role of the king (see coronation oath, Mats.
p. II–3):
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a.
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keep the peace internally
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b.
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war, external peace, territorial expansion, personal aggrandizement, fyrd,
brycbot, burghbot
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c.
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patron of warriors (not only by giving rings but also land), “civil
servants” (thegns), monasteries->art, religion, poetry
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d.
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economy--laws about sales, merchants, borough charters, money
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2.
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Strong local institutions--hide, tithing, hundred, shire, borough--a
device for taxation, levying an army, administering justice (no distinction
between criminal and civil)
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3.
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Social structure--king, lord, freemen, slaves, certainly not a
democracy, but certainly too a notion of free men--the free peasant.
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4.
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The church
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B.
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Kinship, lordship, kinship--an attempt to get a sense of the dynamics.
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1.
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Great increase of the power of the king
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2.
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Lordship become more important than kindred
ties.
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3.
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What is the relationship between the increasing importance of kingship
and lordship and the seeming decline of the kindred?
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C.
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Bertha Phillpotts’ theory of the decline of the kindred.
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1.
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Where kindred is strong and can pay lordship is weak—Scandanavia, the
Low Countries vs. Iceland,
England, Normandy, Central and South
Germany.
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2.
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The main disintegrating force of the kindred is migration by sea.
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3.
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Granted the bilateral nature of the Germanic kindred it is a constantly
shifting group.
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D.
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The kindred as evidenced by:
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1.
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Anglo-Saxon kinship terminology: faedera=fbr fadhu=fs, eam=mbr,
modrige=ms; suhterga=nephew or 1st cousin bson or fbson--bilateral
terminology but preference for the patriline, shown in the term suhtergefaederan,
the relationship with one’s father’s brother and one’s cousins on one’s
father’s side and nephew. There is no equivalent term for kin on one’s
mother’s side.
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2.
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The laws (Mats., p. II-49)
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E.
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The relationship of the king to the laws (Mats.,
p. II-47). Is there an idea of “constitution” here.
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