Anglo-Saxon Law

Series of laws written in the vernacular, and unique among Teutonic peoples, were i ued from the seventh century onwards by Æthelberht, Hlothhere, Eadric, and Withraed, Kings of Kent, by Ine, King of We ex, by Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund, Edgar, Æthelred, and Canute, in 170 addition to a number of important by-laws and regulations of various kinds, which bear no king's name. We hear, also, of laws i ued by other kings which have been lost, and there must have been a considerable body of traditional law which was never committed to writing. What laws are extant, show us a society mainly agricultural, divided by birth into a noble, a free peasant, and a servile cla . There was also a dependent cla in Kent, intermediate between the freeman and the slave. The strongest social ties were those of the kindred, and the relationship between lord and man. The laws were i ued by the king and his councillors. Cases were decided by the production of oaths which varied in value according to the rank of the swearer, or by the several forms of the ordeal. No distinction was made between civil and criminal law, and even homicide could be atoned for by payment of a sum varying according to the social status of the dead man. The object of the laws was to restrict private vengeance, to prevent and punish theft (primarily of cattle), to stop dishonest trading, to secure the persons and residences of the people, to enforce the mutual obligations of relatives, and masters and men, to provide adequate defence for the kingdom by means of garrisoned boroughs and a well-armed mounted infantry, to protect the helple , and to safeguard the rights of the Church and its servants. The early laws present considerable difficulty owing to their antiquity. The laws of Æthelberht are the earliest records in the English language, though, like many of the other laws, they are only preserved in a MS. of the twelfth century. The standard edition is Liebermann's Gesetze der Angels ach sen (Halle, A. S. Max Niemeyer).— Bibliography : Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law ; H. M. Chadwick, Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions .