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The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, Legislation and its Limits
This volume, the first of two comprising "The Making of English Law, " provides the first full-length account of the Old English law-codes for over eighty years, and the first that has ever been published in the English language.
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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July 9, 2021
The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the 12th Century – legislation and its limits, by Patrick Wormald, 2001, 483 pages, 574 with index, etc
This book was a miss-purchase. Given the title, I was hoping for a work that examined how English law was made, looking at whether the influence behind legislation was by consent and conversation amongst the political nation, how it was promulgated at court and councils and then how it reached the various shire and hundred courts. I then expected its limits to be gone into, with legislation and customary law compared (where possible) and a discussion on just how much impact a king legislating in Exeter would have upon the inhabitants of a given Hundred. There's certainly a book in this topic, but this isn't it.
Wormald's book is mostly about the manuscripts that have recorded Anglo-Saxon laws and the construction of the laws themselves. Context only intrudes when it has something to say about the above and any mention about how law and society affected each other is almost incidental. As a result this really is a book for those with a specific interest in the manuscripts recording law, rather than Anglo-Saxon law itself.
The (paraphrased, as otherwise I'd be here all day) chapters include:
1, Preliminaries
Historiography,
The background and origin of Early English Legislation
Æthelberht to Alfred
2, The Making and meaning of written law, Alfred to Stephen
The impact of Legislation
Some lawsuits
The manuscripts
Legislation as legal text
Legislation as literature,
Conclusion
There are probably 80 sub chapters, so this is definitely a big book and it's also one that you wouldn't care to drop on your toes. There are some nice clear tables, but it is not the easiest of reads. I found the prose to be a bit lumpy and hard work in places. It also feels more dated than you'd expect given the publication date. The Latin and Old English is largely untranslated, with Wormald assuming any reader would be au fait with both, and Whitelock and Stenton are referenced often. They're outstanding scholars, but later experts have added much to the subject beyond what they may have researched.
The section on manuscripts does what it says on the tin and is an account of the manuscripts and their transmission; individually interesting, but en-mass repetitive. The detective work concerning which Thored might have been involved with one MS was interesting, but beyond that, the law of diminishing returns kicked in extremely quickly and I found myself skipping the rest as it really was a case of rinse and repeat. Naturally, for anyone fascinated by a particular MS, this chapter is gold dust, but it is probably best being dipped into, rather than being attempted to read in total.
Examining the permutations of possible different meanings of various words in the original language can't be easy. However, then seeing in what other context these words were used in order to construe them more closely to their intended usage, whilst being aware of later additions and amendments (not all as distinctive in their prose as Wulfstan), really does suggest that anyone other than an expert in more than one field would struggle to get the most out of these manuscripts.
The sections dealing with the various codes (Legislation as Legal Text) was, to me, easily the standout part of this book. I found a few interesting snippets here. However, having said that, there were few bits that related the laws to society.
This book is better as a reference work than as something to attempt to read from cover to cover. For anyone who is studying Anglo-Saxon law, this book is very useful for particular manuscripts. For the general student of Anglo-Saxon England, Rabin's work is much more accessible and I'd recommend reading that, instead.
This book was a miss-purchase. Given the title, I was hoping for a work that examined how English law was made, looking at whether the influence behind legislation was by consent and conversation amongst the political nation, how it was promulgated at court and councils and then how it reached the various shire and hundred courts. I then expected its limits to be gone into, with legislation and customary law compared (where possible) and a discussion on just how much impact a king legislating in Exeter would have upon the inhabitants of a given Hundred. There's certainly a book in this topic, but this isn't it.
Wormald's book is mostly about the manuscripts that have recorded Anglo-Saxon laws and the construction of the laws themselves. Context only intrudes when it has something to say about the above and any mention about how law and society affected each other is almost incidental. As a result this really is a book for those with a specific interest in the manuscripts recording law, rather than Anglo-Saxon law itself.
The (paraphrased, as otherwise I'd be here all day) chapters include:
1, Preliminaries
Historiography,
The background and origin of Early English Legislation
Æthelberht to Alfred
2, The Making and meaning of written law, Alfred to Stephen
The impact of Legislation
Some lawsuits
The manuscripts
Legislation as legal text
Legislation as literature,
Conclusion
There are probably 80 sub chapters, so this is definitely a big book and it's also one that you wouldn't care to drop on your toes. There are some nice clear tables, but it is not the easiest of reads. I found the prose to be a bit lumpy and hard work in places. It also feels more dated than you'd expect given the publication date. The Latin and Old English is largely untranslated, with Wormald assuming any reader would be au fait with both, and Whitelock and Stenton are referenced often. They're outstanding scholars, but later experts have added much to the subject beyond what they may have researched.
The section on manuscripts does what it says on the tin and is an account of the manuscripts and their transmission; individually interesting, but en-mass repetitive. The detective work concerning which Thored might have been involved with one MS was interesting, but beyond that, the law of diminishing returns kicked in extremely quickly and I found myself skipping the rest as it really was a case of rinse and repeat. Naturally, for anyone fascinated by a particular MS, this chapter is gold dust, but it is probably best being dipped into, rather than being attempted to read in total.
Examining the permutations of possible different meanings of various words in the original language can't be easy. However, then seeing in what other context these words were used in order to construe them more closely to their intended usage, whilst being aware of later additions and amendments (not all as distinctive in their prose as Wulfstan), really does suggest that anyone other than an expert in more than one field would struggle to get the most out of these manuscripts.
The sections dealing with the various codes (Legislation as Legal Text) was, to me, easily the standout part of this book. I found a few interesting snippets here. However, having said that, there were few bits that related the laws to society.
This book is better as a reference work than as something to attempt to read from cover to cover. For anyone who is studying Anglo-Saxon law, this book is very useful for particular manuscripts. For the general student of Anglo-Saxon England, Rabin's work is much more accessible and I'd recommend reading that, instead.
July 4, 2008
This is now the standard work on Anglo-Saxon law. I was trying to build up specific knowledge, so I read most of the latter part of the book--it's thick academic prose, but the learning here is immense and he has numerous tables and charts that will help specialists needing more information about specific texts or manuscripts. Anyone working in the area of legal studies in the A-S period should consider this the necessary first stop.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews