Law of Æthelberht
Encyclopedia
The Law of Æthelberht is a set of legal provisions written in Old English, probably dating to the early 7th century. It originates in the kingdom of Kent
, and is the first Germanic-language
law code. It is also thought to be the earliest example of a document written in English, though extant only in an early 12th-century manuscript, Textus Roffensis
.
The code is concerned primarily with preserving social harmony
, through compensation
and punishment for personal injury. Compensations are arranged according to social rank, descending from king to slave. The initial provisions of the code offer protection to the church. Though the latter were probably innovations, much of the remainder of the code may be derived from earlier legal custom transmitted orally.
or the "Rochester Book". The Kentish laws occupy folios 1v to 6v , of which Æthelberht's has 1v to 3v. This is a compilation of Anglo-Saxon laws, lists and genealogies drawn together in the early 1120s, half a millennium after Æthelberht's law is thought to have been first written down. Æthelberht's law precedes the other Kentish law codes, which themselves precede various West Saxon and English royal legislation, as well as charters relating to Rochester Cathedral. Æthelberht's law is written in the same hand as the laws of other Kentish monarchs.
The compilation was produced at the instigation of Ernulf, bishop of Rochester
, friend of the lawyer-bishop Ivo of Chartres
.
Ernulf was a legally minded bishop like Ivo, a canon lawyer and judge. He was responsible for commissioning copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at Canterbury Cathedral Priory and Peterborough Abbey, as prior and abbot respectively.
Francis Tate
made a transcription of Textus Roffensis .c 1589, which survives as British Museum MS Cotton Julius CII. Henry Spelman
, Ecclesiarum Orbis Brittanici (London, 1639), provided a Latin translation of provisions relating to the church. In 1640 Johannes de Laet translated the whole code into Latin. Though no original survives, several 18th century authors copied it. The first full edition (with Latin translation) was:
Many other Latin translations editions of the Kentish laws or Textus Roffensis followed in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, mostly from English and German editors. Notable examples include:
Bede
(Historia Ecclesiastica
ii. 5), writing in Northumbria
more than a century after King Æthelberht, attributes a code of laws to the king:
's law the latter king relates that he consulted the laws of Æthelberht.
The code as it survives was not written in the king's name and the 12th-century author of the rubric
may have been influenced by Bede in his attribution. The lack of attribution in the original text may be a sign that law-making was not primarily a royal activity as it was to become in later centuries.
There is evidence that much of the code was taken from pre-existing customary practice transmitted orally. The church provisions aside, the code's structure looks like an "architectural mnemonic", proceeding from top to bottom. It begins with the king and ends with slaves. Likewise, the section on personal injuries, which contains most of the code's provisions, begins with hair at the top of the body and ends with the toenail. Use of poetic devices such as consonance
and alliteration
also indicate the text's oral background. Æthelberht's law is hence largely derived from ælþeaw, established customary law, rather than royal domas, "judgements".
It is not clear why the code was written down however. The suggested date coincides with the coming of Christianity—the religion of the Romans
and Franks
—to the English of Kent. The code may be an attempt to imitate the Romans and establish the Kentish people as a respectable "civilised" [Wormald] people. Christianity and writing were furthered too by the Kentish king's marriage to Bertha
, daughter of the Frankish king Charibert I
. There have been suggestions that Augustine of Canterbury
may have urged it. Legal historian Patrick Wormald
argued that it followed a model from the 614 Frankish church council in Paris
, which was attended by the abbot of St Augustine's and the bishop of Rochester. The wergeld ratios for churchmen in Æthelberht's code are similar to those of other Germanic laws, like Lex Ribuaria and the Swabian
and Bavarian
laws.
Another legal historian, Lisi Oliver, offered a similar means of division:
In addition to protecting church property, the code offers a fixed means of making social conflict and its escalation less likely and ending feud by "righting wrongs" [Wormald]. Two units of currency are used, the scilling and the sceatt. In Æthelberht's day a sceatt was a unit of gold with the weight of a grain of barley, with 20 sceattas per scilling. One ox was probably valued at one scilling or "shilling".
The law is written in Old English, and there are many archaic features to the code's language. For instance, it uses an instrumental
"dative of quantity" [Oliver] that is obsolete in later Old English grammar: Gif friman edor gegangeð, iiii scillingum gebete ("If a freeman enters an enclosure, let him pay with 4 shillings"). This is a construction found in other West Germanic languages but not elsewhere in Old English except once in the Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric (2.1). As another example, in the apodosis
the verb is always in the end position in Æthelberht's law; while this is grammatical in Old English, it is an archaic construction for a legal text.
Words such as mæthlfrith ("assembly peace") drihtinbeage ("lord-payment"), leodgeld ("person-price"), hlaf-ætan ("loaf-eater"), feaxfang ("seizing of hair") and mægðbot ("maiden-compensation") are either absent in other Old English texts or very rare. Doubling vowels to indicate length (for instance, taan, "foot"), common to all written insular languages in the early Middle Ages but increasingly uncommon later on, occurs three times in Æthelberht's code but not elsewhere in Textus Roffensis.
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
, and is the first Germanic-language
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
law code. It is also thought to be the earliest example of a document written in English, though extant only in an early 12th-century manuscript, Textus Roffensis
Textus Roffensis
The Textus Roffensis, or in full, Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi per Ernulphum episcopum , refers to a manuscript in which two originally separate manuscripts written about the same time, between 1122 and 1124, are bound together...
.
The code is concerned primarily with preserving social harmony
Social order
Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. It refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving....
, through compensation
Compensation
Compensation can refer to:*Financial compensation, various meanings*Compensation , various advantages a player has in exchange for a disadvantage*Compensation *Compensation , by Ralph Waldo Emerson...
and punishment for personal injury. Compensations are arranged according to social rank, descending from king to slave. The initial provisions of the code offer protection to the church. Though the latter were probably innovations, much of the remainder of the code may be derived from earlier legal custom transmitted orally.
Manuscript, editions and translations
There is only one surviving manuscript of Æthelberht's law, Textus RoffensisTextus Roffensis
The Textus Roffensis, or in full, Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi per Ernulphum episcopum , refers to a manuscript in which two originally separate manuscripts written about the same time, between 1122 and 1124, are bound together...
or the "Rochester Book". The Kentish laws occupy folios 1v to 6v , of which Æthelberht's has 1v to 3v. This is a compilation of Anglo-Saxon laws, lists and genealogies drawn together in the early 1120s, half a millennium after Æthelberht's law is thought to have been first written down. Æthelberht's law precedes the other Kentish law codes, which themselves precede various West Saxon and English royal legislation, as well as charters relating to Rochester Cathedral. Æthelberht's law is written in the same hand as the laws of other Kentish monarchs.
The compilation was produced at the instigation of Ernulf, bishop of Rochester
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
, friend of the lawyer-bishop Ivo of Chartres
Ivo of Chartres
Saint Ivo ' of Chartres was the Bishop of Chartres from 1090 until his death and an important canon lawyer during the Investiture Crisis....
.
Ernulf was a legally minded bishop like Ivo, a canon lawyer and judge. He was responsible for commissioning copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at Canterbury Cathedral Priory and Peterborough Abbey, as prior and abbot respectively.
Francis Tate
Francis Tate
Francis Tate was an English antiquary and politician, Member of Parliament for Northampton and Shrewsbury.-Life:He was born in 1560 at Gayton, the second son of Bartholomew Tate of Delapre, Northamptonshire, by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Francis Tanfield of Gayton...
made a transcription of Textus Roffensis .c 1589, which survives as British Museum MS Cotton Julius CII. Henry Spelman
Henry Spelman
Sir Henry Spelman was an English antiquary, noted for his detailed collections of medieval records, in particular of church councils.-Life:...
, Ecclesiarum Orbis Brittanici (London, 1639), provided a Latin translation of provisions relating to the church. In 1640 Johannes de Laet translated the whole code into Latin. Though no original survives, several 18th century authors copied it. The first full edition (with Latin translation) was:
- George HickesGeorge HickesGeorge Hickes was an English divine and scholar.-Biography:Hickes was born at Newsham, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1642...
and Humfrey WanleyHumfrey WanleyHumfrey Wanley was a librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English, employed by manuscript collectors such as Robert and Edward Harley. He was the first keeper of the Harlein Library, now the Harleian Collection.-Life:...
, Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaelogicus (Oxford, 1703–05)
Many other Latin translations editions of the Kentish laws or Textus Roffensis followed in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, mostly from English and German editors. Notable examples include:
- Felix LiebermannFelix LiebermannFelix Liebermann was a Jewish German historian, who is celebrated for his scholarly contributions to the study of medieval English history, particularly that of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman law. Born in 1851, Berlin, he came from a Jewish-German family and was the younger brother of the painter...
, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Halle, 1897–1916), with German translation - Frederick Levi Attenborough, The Laws of the Earliest English Kings (Camrbidge, 1922), with English translation
- Lisi Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto, 2002), with English translation
Origin
The code is attributed to Æthelberht, and for this reason is dated to that king's reign (c. 590 – 616x618). Æthelberht's code is thought to be both the earliest law code of any kind in any Germanic language and the earliest surviving document written down in the English language. Æthelberht is thought to be the king behind the code because the law's red-ink introductory rubric in Textus Roffensis attributes it to him.Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
(Historia Ecclesiastica
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...
ii. 5), writing in Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
more than a century after King Æthelberht, attributes a code of laws to the king:
Among the other benefits which he thoughtfully conferred on his people, he also established enacted judgments for them, following the examples of the Romans, with the council of his wise men. These were written in English speech, and are held and observed by them to this day.Bede goes on to describe details of the code accurately. In the introduction to Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
's law the latter king relates that he consulted the laws of Æthelberht.
The code as it survives was not written in the king's name and the 12th-century author of the rubric
Rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text which is traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier...
may have been influenced by Bede in his attribution. The lack of attribution in the original text may be a sign that law-making was not primarily a royal activity as it was to become in later centuries.
There is evidence that much of the code was taken from pre-existing customary practice transmitted orally. The church provisions aside, the code's structure looks like an "architectural mnemonic", proceeding from top to bottom. It begins with the king and ends with slaves. Likewise, the section on personal injuries, which contains most of the code's provisions, begins with hair at the top of the body and ends with the toenail. Use of poetic devices such as consonance
Consonance
Consonance is a stylistic device, most commonly used in poetry and songs, characterized by the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession, as in "pitter patter" or in "all mammals named Sam are clammy".Consonance should not be confused with assonance, which is the...
and alliteration
Alliteration
In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
also indicate the text's oral background. Æthelberht's law is hence largely derived from ælþeaw, established customary law, rather than royal domas, "judgements".
It is not clear why the code was written down however. The suggested date coincides with the coming of Christianity—the religion of the Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
—to the English of Kent. The code may be an attempt to imitate the Romans and establish the Kentish people as a respectable "civilised" [Wormald] people. Christianity and writing were furthered too by the Kentish king's marriage to Bertha
Bertha of Kent
Saint Bertha was the Queen of Kent whose influence led to the introduction of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. She was canonized as a saint for her role in its establishment during that period of English history.Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, Merovingian King of Paris...
, daughter of the Frankish king Charibert I
Charibert I
Charibert I was the Merovingian King of Paris, the second-eldest son of Chlothar I and Ingund. His elder brother was Gunthar, who died sometime before their father's death....
. There have been suggestions that Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...
may have urged it. Legal historian Patrick Wormald
Patrick Wormald
Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.He attended Eton College as a King's Scholar...
argued that it followed a model from the 614 Frankish church council in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, which was attended by the abbot of St Augustine's and the bishop of Rochester. The wergeld ratios for churchmen in Æthelberht's code are similar to those of other Germanic laws, like Lex Ribuaria and the Swabian
Lex Alamannorum
The terms Lex Alamannorum and Pactus Alamannorum refer to two early medieval law codes of the Alamanni. They were first edited in parts in 1530 by Johannes Sichard in Basel.-Pactus Alamannorum:...
and Bavarian
Lex Baiuvariorum
The Lex Baiuvariorum was a collection of the tribal laws of the Bavarii of the sixth through eighth centuries. The first compilation was edited by Eberswind, first abbot of Niederaltaich, in 741 or 743. Duke Odilo, founder supplemented the code around 748...
laws.
Content and language
Patrick Wormald divided the text into the following sections (the chapter numbers are those in Frederick Levi Attenborough's Laws of the Earliest English Kings and in Lisi Oliver's Beginnings of English Law) :- Compensation for churchmen [Attenborough: 1 ; Lisi: 1–7]
- Compensation for the king and his dependents [Attenborough: 2–12; Lisi: 8–17]
- Compensation for an eorl and his dependents [Attenborough: 13–14; Lisi: 18–19]
- Compensation for a ceorl and his dependents [Attenborough: 15–25, 27–32; Lisi: 20–26, 28–32]
- Compensation for the semi-free [Attenborough: 26–27 Lisi: 26–27]
- Personal injuries [Attenborough: 33–72; Lisi: 33–71]
- Compensation and injuries concerning women [Attenborough: 73–84; Lisi: 72–77]
- Compensation for servants [Attenborough: 85–88; Lisi: 78–81]
- Compensation for slaves [Attenborough: 89–90; Lisi: 82–83]
Another legal historian, Lisi Oliver, offered a similar means of division:
- Offences against the church and secular public assembly [Lisi: 1–7]
- Offences relating to the king and his household [Lisi: 1–7]
- Offences againest eorlas ("noblemen") [Lisi: 8–17]
- Offences against ceorlas ("freemen") [Lisi: 20–32]
- Personal injury offences [Lisi: 33–71]
- Offences against women [Lisi: 72–77]
- Offences against esnas ("semi-free", "servants") [Lisi: 78–81]
- Offences against þeowas ("slaves") [Lisi: 81–83]
In addition to protecting church property, the code offers a fixed means of making social conflict and its escalation less likely and ending feud by "righting wrongs" [Wormald]. Two units of currency are used, the scilling and the sceatt. In Æthelberht's day a sceatt was a unit of gold with the weight of a grain of barley, with 20 sceattas per scilling. One ox was probably valued at one scilling or "shilling".
The law is written in Old English, and there are many archaic features to the code's language. For instance, it uses an instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
"dative of quantity" [Oliver] that is obsolete in later Old English grammar: Gif friman edor gegangeð, iiii scillingum gebete ("If a freeman enters an enclosure, let him pay with 4 shillings"). This is a construction found in other West Germanic languages but not elsewhere in Old English except once in the Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric (2.1). As another example, in the apodosis
Apodosis
Apodosis may refer to:*In linguistics, the main clause in a conditional sentence*In logic, the apodosis corresponds to the consequent; ....
the verb is always in the end position in Æthelberht's law; while this is grammatical in Old English, it is an archaic construction for a legal text.
Words such as mæthlfrith ("assembly peace") drihtinbeage ("lord-payment"), leodgeld ("person-price"), hlaf-ætan ("loaf-eater"), feaxfang ("seizing of hair") and mægðbot ("maiden-compensation") are either absent in other Old English texts or very rare. Doubling vowels to indicate length (for instance, taan, "foot"), common to all written insular languages in the early Middle Ages but increasingly uncommon later on, occurs three times in Æthelberht's code but not elsewhere in Textus Roffensis.