Download or read book The Old English Penitentials and Anglo Saxon Law written by Stefan Jurasinski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Old English Penitentials and Anglo Saxon Law written by Stefan Jurasinski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Laws of Alfred written by Stefan Jurasinski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Medieval Handbooks of Penance written by John Thomas McNeill and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book English law before Magna Carta written by Stefan Jurasinski and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo Saxon England written by Jay Paul Gates and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2014 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Between Medieval Men written by David Clark and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Pain Penance and Protest written by Sara M. Butler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In medieval England, a defendant who refused to plead to a criminal indictment was sentenced to pressing with weights as a coercive measure. Using peine forte et dure ('strong and hard punishment') as a lens through which to analyse the law and its relationship with Christianity, Butler asks: where do we draw the line between punishment and penance? And, how can pain function as a vehicle for redemption within the common law? Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this book embraces both law and literature. When Christ is on trial before Herod, he refused to plead, his silence signalling denial of the court's authority. England's discontented subjects, from hungry peasant to even King Charles I himself, stood mute before the courts in protest. Bringing together penance, pain and protest, Butler breaks down the mythology surrounding peine forte et dure and examines how it functioned within the medieval criminal justice system.
Download or read book English Penitential Discipline and Anglo Saxon Law in Their Joint Influence written by Thomas Pollock Oakley and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford History of the Laws of England Volume II written by John Hudson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page 981 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume in the landmark Oxford History of the Laws of England series, spans three centuries that encompassed the tumultuous years of the Norman conquest, and during which the common law as we know it today began to emerge. The first full-length treatment of all aspects of the early development of the English common law in a century, featuring extensive research into the original sources that bring the era to life, and providing an interpretative account, a detailed subject analysis, and fascinating glimpses into medieval disputes. Starting with King Alfred (871-899), this book examines the particular contributions of the Anglo-Saxon period to the development of English law, including the development of a powerful machinery of royal government, significant aspects of a long-lasting court structure, and important elements of law relating to theft and violence. Until the reign of King Stephen (1135-54), these Anglo-Saxon contributions were maintained by the Norman rulers, whilst the Conquest of 1066 led to the development of key aspects of landholding that were to have a continuing effect on the emerging common law. The Angevin period saw the establishment of more routine royal administration of justice, closer links between central government and individuals in the localities, and growing bureaucratization. Finally, the later twelfth and earlier thirteenth century saw influential changes in legal expertise. The book concludes with the rebellion against King John in 1215 and the production of the Magna Carta. Laying out in exhaustive detail the origins of the English common law through the ninth to the early thirteenth centuries, this book will be essential reading for all legal historians and a vital work of reference for academics, students, and practitioners.
Download or read book The Oxford History of the Laws of England Volume II written by John Hamilton Baker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 981 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Oxford History of the Laws of England" provides a detailed survey of the development of English law and its institutions from the earliest times until the twentieth century, drawing heavily upon recent research using unpublished materials.
Download or read book Heaven and Earth in Anglo Saxon England written by Helen Foxhall Forbes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian theology and religious belief were crucially important to Anglo-Saxon society, and are manifest in the surviving textual, visual and material evidence. This is the first full-length study investigating how Christian theology and religious beliefs permeated society and underpinned social values in early medieval England. The influence of the early medieval Church as an institution is widely acknowledged, but Christian theology itself is generally considered to have been accessible only to a small educated elite. This book shows that theology had a much greater and more significant impact than has been recognised. An examination of theology in its social context, and how it was bound up with local authorities and powers, reveals a much more subtle interpretation of secular processes, and shows how theological debate affected the ways that religious and lay individuals lived and died. This was not a one-way flow, however: this book also examines how social and cultural practices and interests affected the development of theology in Anglo-Saxon England, and how ’popular’ belief interacted with literary and academic traditions. Through case-studies, this book explores how theological debate and discussion affected the personal perspectives of Christian Anglo-Saxons, including where possible those who could not read. In all of these, it is clear that theology was not detached from society or from the experiences of lay people, but formed an essential constituent part.
Download or read book Law and Language in the Middle Ages written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book New Readings on Women in Old English Literature written by Helen Damico and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1990-04-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-examines a critical tradition unchallenged since the 19th century. The 20 essays reassess the place of women in Anglo-Saxon culture as demonstrated by the laws, works by women, and the depiction of them in the standard Old English canon of literature (Beowulf, Alfred, Wulfstan, et al.) Categories include the historical record, sexuality and folklore, language and gender characterization, and several deconstructions of stereotypes. Paper edition (unseen), $14.50. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Conceiving bodies written by Dana Oswald and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite reliance on ingredients like horse dung, Old English remedies for women’s medicine speak to contemporary reproductive concerns. Previous translators reduced the remedies to a general category of women’s medicine, but sustained examination of language reveals important distinctions: remedies for menstruation indicate social concerns about fertility, where remedies for ‘cleansing’ do not provide a clear path to conception, but rather foreclose it. Rarest of all are the remedies for childbirth, but their rarity is compounded by the practices of translators who conflate the language for women’s reproduction into an amorphous singularity. Through an original method of hysteric philology—the combining of traditional philology with contemporary feminist and medical epistemologies—this book situates itself in the historical treatment of reproductive people as both objects and subjects of medical practice, and gestures forward in time to the contemporary struggle for bodily autonomy.
Download or read book The Anglo Saxons written by J. Douglas Woods and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The popular notion that sees the Anglo-Saxon era as “The Dark Ages” perhaps has tended to obscure for many people the creations and strengths of that time. This collection, in examining many aspects of pre-Norman Britain, helps to illuminate how Anglo-Saxon society contributed to the continuity of knowledge between the ancient world and the modern world. But as well, it posits a view of that society in its own distinctive terms to show how it developed as a synthesis of radically different cultures. The Bayeux Tapestry is examined for its underlying political motivations; the study of Old English literature is extended to such works as laws, charters, apocryphal literature, saints’ lives and mythologies, and many of these are studied for the insight they provide into the social structures of the Anglo-Saxons. Other essays examine both the institution of slavery and the use of Germanic warrior terminology in Old Saxon as a contribution towards the descriptive analysis of that society’s social groupings. The book also presents a perspective on the Christian church that is usually overlooked by historians: that its existence was continuous and influential from Roman times, and that it was greatly affected by the Celtic Christian church long after the latter was thought to have disintegrated.
Download or read book Secession on Trial written by Cynthia Nicoletti and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the treason trial of President Jefferson Davis, where the question of secession's constitutionality was debated.
