Languages Of The Law In Early Medieval England

As broad in scope as the interests of its honoree, this volume brings together leading historians of early English and continental law to pay tribute to Lisi Oliver. The essays gathered here range from the earliest laws of the kings of Kent in the seventh century to the reception of Old English law in the seventeenth. Interested both in how law was made and the ways in which it was applied, the contributors explore the careers of such prominent legislators as Alfred the Great and Wulfstan of York while also examining issues of gender, social status and textual transmission. This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of law, the legal culture of Anglo-Saxon England, and the emergence of modern concepts of self and statehood in the early middle ages.

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.

Textus Roffensis, a Rochester Cathedral book of the early twelfth century, holds some of the most significant texts issued in early medieval England, ranging from the oldest English-language law code of King Aethelberht of Kent (c. 600) to a copy of Henry I's Coronation Charter (5 August 1100). Textus Roffensis also holds abundant charters (including some forgeries), narratives concerning disputed property, and one of the earliest library catalogues compiled in medieval England. While it is a familiar and important manuscript to scholars, however, up to now it has never been the object of a monograph or collection of wide-ranging studies. The seventeen contributors to this book have subjected Textus Roffensis to close scrutiny and offer new conclusions on the process of its creation, its purposes and uses, and the interpretation of its laws and property records, as well as exploring significant events in which Rochester played a role and some of the more important people associated with the See. The work of the contributors takes readers into the mind of the scribes and compiler (or patron) behind the Textus Roffensis, as well as into the origins and meaning of the texts that the monks of early twelfth-century Rochester chose to preserve. The essays contained here not only set the study of the manuscript on a firm foundation, but also point to new directions for future work.

Valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society. Pre-Conquest English law was among the most sophisticated in early medieval Europe. Composed largely in the vernacular, it played a crucial role in the evolution of early English identity and exercised a formative influence on the development of the Common Law. However, recent scholarship has also revealed the significant influence of these legal documents and ideas on other cultural domains, both modern and pre-modern. This collection explores the richness of pre-Conquest legal writing by looking beyond its traditional codified form. Drawing on methodologies ranging from traditional philology to legal and literary theory, and from a diverse selection of contributors offering a broad spectrum of disciplines, specialities and perspectives, the essays examine the intersection between traditional juridical texts - from law codes and charters to treatises and religious regulation - and a wide range of literary genres, including hagiography and heroic poetry. In doing so, they demonstrate that the boundary that has traditionally separated "law" from other modes of thought and writing is far more porous than hitherto realized. Overall, the volume yields valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society.

A comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the interrelationship between law and literature in Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Tudor England.

Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages takes a detailed view on the role of manuscripts and the written word in legal cultures, spanning the medieval period across western and central Europe.

This is the first major study of the interplay between Latin and Germanic vernaculars in early medieval records, examining the role of language choice in the documentary cultures of the Anglo-Saxon and eastern Frankish worlds.

Grammar and Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages is the only book in this field which examines linguistics in the Middle Ages from the standpoint of both the medievalist and the historian of linguistics. Primary source material along with previously unpublished texts are used extensively with all foreign texts translated into English, and are listed in a useful bibliography to aid further study. Historical surveys, author studies and introductions to medieval grammatical terminology are also included to help clarify the historical context of the study. The volume will prove invaluable reading and an important reference work for those studying historical linguistics, for medieval and cultural historians, and to all who are interested in the intellectual life and literature of medieval Europe.