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Law codes and legal norms in later Anglo-Saxon England Law codes and legal norms in later Anglo-Saxon England.

This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on long-standing debates about the role of the written word in later Anglo- Saxon legal culture. Using the law codes of King Æthelstan's reign as a 'case study', it argues that many of the unusual features of early English law are not so much product...

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Published in:Historical Research Vol. 86; no. 233; pp. 465 - 487
Main Author: Roach, Levi
Format: Case Study
Published: Oxford University Press / USA Aug2013
Subjects:
Athelstan, King of England, 895-939
Anglo-Saxon law
Transmission of texts
History of the codification of laws
Tithes
Cattle stealing
Anglo-Saxon Period, Great Britain, 449-1066
British history sources
United Kingdom
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on long-standing debates about the role of the written word in later Anglo- Saxon legal culture. Using the law codes of King Æthelstan's reign as a 'case study', it argues that many of the unusual features of early English law are not so much products of orality, as of a fundamentally different approach to legal norms than is prevalent in the modern Western world. It thus seeks to move beyond recent literacy-orality debates, suggesting that it is more profitable to investigate the attitudes shown towards legal norms (both written and oral) within Anglo- Saxon society.