23. ADJUDICATION OF DISPUTES AND OTHER ASPECTS OF ANGLO-SAXON LAW (ELEVENTH CENTURY)
INTRODUCTION
Although we have law codes from the Anglo-Saxon period, which survived in large part because of King Alfred’s compilation of the laws of Kent, Wessex, and Mercia in the ninth century, it is difficult to determine exactly how the law might have been utilized. For example, were disputes resolved in front of the king or his representative in a formal setting, such as a court, or were they resolved on a more ad hoc basis? Two examples of legal procedures follow, both of which are known to us through the survival of written charters. In the first, King Cnut’s shire-moot adjudges a family dispute over land. In the second, a slave owner, possibly on her deathbed, frees a number of her slaves. Slave-owning was regulated by secular law, yet the charter of manumission is couched in terms similar to grants made to religious institutions, thus demonstrating how connected the two systems—royal and church administration—were.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
Similar to modern-day court procedures, the process of dispute adjudication in early medieval England required some kind of formal petition or charge. Unlike modern-day Anglo-American law, however, disputes were not resolved in front of a “jury of one’s peers” but rather by a council of male elites who acted as royal representatives, since justice ultimately flowed from the king. Although individuals could distribute their “movable” wealth—which included ownership of slaves—at their own discretion, these transfers of property could be challenged and therefore come under the auspices of the royal law court.
Document 1: Legal Disputes
A Dispute Over Land (before 1036)
Fânwen.
This writing makes known that a shire-moot sat at Ægelnoth’s stone, in the day of King Cnut, presided over by Bishop Æthelstân, Ranig the aldorman, Eadwine the aldorman’s son, Leofiwine son of Wulfsige, and Thurkil White; and Tofig Prud [Earl Tostig “the Proud”] came there on the king’s behalf; and also there were Bryning the shire-reeve, Ægelweard at Frome, Leofwine at Frome, Godric at Stoke, and all the thanes in Herefordshire.
Then Eadwine, Eanwen’s son, came to the moot and raised a claim against his own mother to a portion of land, namely at Wellington and Cradley. The bishop asked, who would answer for [represent] his mother? Then answered Thurkil White that he would, if the claim was made known to him. Since he did not know the specifics of the claim, three thanes were selected from the moot, [who were instructed to ride] to where she was: that is, to Fawley. The [thanes chosen] were Leofwine at Frome, Ægelsige the Red, and Winsige scægthman.
And when they came to her, they asked what claim she had to the lands for which her son was suing. She replied that she had no land that in any way belonged to him, and was very bitterly incensed against her son; and then called Leoflæd her kinswoman to her, Thurkil’s wife, and, before them all, thus spoke to her: “Here sits Leoflæd my kinswoman, to whom I give not only my land, but my gold, and my garments, and robes, and all that I own, after [I have died].” And she then said to the thanes, “Do nobly and well: announce my decision to the moot before all the good men, and declare to them to whom I have given my land and all my property; and to my own son never anything; and of this bid them be witness.” And they then so did, rode to the moot, and declared to all the good men what she had commanded them to do. Then Thurkil White stood up in the moot, and prayed all the thanes to grant to his wife claim the lands which her kinswoman had given her; and they did so. And Thurkil then rode to StÆthelberht’s monastery, with the leave and witness of all the folk, and caused it to be set in a Christ’s book.
Manumission of Slaves (no date)
Geatflæd has given freedom, for love of God and for her soul’s need, to Ecceard the smith, and Ælstan and his wife, and all their offspring, born and unborn, and to Arkil, and Cole, and Ecferđ Aldhun’s daughter, and all the men whose persons she took for their food in the evil days. Whoso shall alter this and bereave her soul thereof, may God Almighty bereave him of this life and of the kingdom of heaven; and be he accursed, dead and quick, ever to eternity. And she has also freed the men whom she solicited from Cwæspatric, that is: Ælfwald and Colbrand, Ælsie, and Gamal his son, Eđred, Tredewude and Uhtred his stepson, Aculf, and Thurkyl, and Æsige. Who shall bereave them of this, may God Almighty and St Cuthbert be wroth to them.
Source: Diplomatarium Anglicum Aevi Saxonici: A Collection of English Charters, from the Reign of King of Aethelberht of Kent to That of William the Conqueror (1865). Edited by Benjamin Thorpe. London: Macmillan & Co., 1865. Pp. 336–338, 621.
AFTERMATH
Disputes over land were probably common in the Anglo-Saxon period, especially since the most common form of inheritance was “partible”—all the children in a given family inherited. Although the outlines of land ownership changed dramatically after the Norman Conquest, conflicts over land persisted and were heard in increasing numbers in the formal court systems devised by King Henry II (r. 1155–1189) and his sons. In addition, slavery after the conquest largely disappeared from England, although it did persist in areas of the British Isles, notably in Ireland. Slavery was replaced by villeinage, which rendered a peasant personally free but tied to the land she or he was charged to work.
ASK YOURSELF
How would early medieval people gain access to royal justice? Was it only the provenance of elites?
How do you think peasants gained access to justice and who would preside?
How did people become slaves in early medieval England, and what did slaves do after they were freed?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Compare the description of dispute resolution in the reign of King Cnut to the records of later medieval litigation as exemplified in this section.
Consider the relative differences in status between slavery and serfdom (or villeinage) in the Middle Ages.
Consider the ways in which sociopolitical status and gender could affect an individual’s access to justice in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Further Information
The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Edited and translated by F. L. Attenborough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 [1922].
Oliver, Lisi. The Body Legal in Barbarian Law. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.