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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.

Law -- England -- History. --- Law, Anglo-Saxon. --- Law. --- Law, Anglo-Saxon --- Law --- Law - Non-U.S. --- Law, Politics & Government --- Law - Great Britain --- Acts, Legislative --- Enactments, Legislative --- Laws (Statutes) --- Legislative acts --- Legislative enactments --- Jurisprudence --- Legislation --- Anglo-Saxon law --- History --- History.

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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.

Law, Anglo-Saxon. --- Law --- Criminal law --- Civil law --- Law, Medieval. --- Manuscripts, English (Old) --- Anglo-Saxon manuscripts --- English manuscripts, Old --- Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon --- Manuscripts, Old English --- Old English manuscripts --- Medieval law --- Law, Civil --- Private law --- Roman law --- Crime --- Crimes and misdemeanors --- Criminals --- Law, Criminal --- Penal codes --- Penal law --- Pleas of the crown --- Public law --- Criminal justice, Administration of --- Criminal procedure --- Acts, Legislative --- Enactments, Legislative --- Laws (Statutes) --- Legislative acts --- Legislative enactments --- Jurisprudence --- Legislation --- Anglo-Saxon law --- History --- History. --- Law and legislation --- Legal status, laws, etc. --- Alfred, --- Corpus Christi College (University of Cambridge). --- Law, Anglo-Saxon