Anglo-Saxon law

Anglo-Saxon law, the body of legal principles that prevailed in England from the 6th century until the Norman Conquest (1066). In conjunction with Scandinavian law and the so-called barbarian laws (leges barbarorum) of continental Europe, it made up the body of law called Germanic law. Anglo-Saxon law was written in the vernacular and was relatively free of the Roman influence found in continental laws that were written in Latin. Roman influence on Anglo-Saxon law was indirect and exerted primarily through the church. There was a definite Scandinavian influence upon Anglo-Saxon law as a result of the Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries. Only with the Norman Conquest did Roman law, as embodied in Frankish law, make its influence felt on the laws of England.

Anglo-Saxon law was made up of three components: the laws and collections promulgated by the king, authoritative statements of custom such as those found in the Norman-instituted Domesday Book, and private compilations of legal rules and enactments. The primary emphasis was on criminal law rather than on private law, although certain material dealt with problems of public administration, public order, and ecclesiastical matters.

Before the 10th century, the codes often merely presented lists of compositions—money paid to an injured party or his family—but by the 10th century a new penal system had evolved based on outlawry (declaring a criminal an outlaw), confiscation, and corporal and capital punishment. By this time there also had been an increased development of the law relating to administrative and police functions.

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The Anglo-Saxon legal system rested on the fundamental opposition between folkright and privilege. Folkright is the aggregate of rules, whether formulated or not, that can be appealed to as an expression of the juridical consciousness of the people at large or of the communities of which it is composed. It is tribal in origin and is differentiated on highly localized bases. Thus, there was a folkright of East and West Saxons, Mercians, Northumbrians, Danes, and Welshmen, and these main folkright divisions persisted even after the tribal kingdoms disappeared in the 8th and 9th centuries. The responsibility for the formulation and application of the folkright rested, in the 10th and 11th centuries, with the local shire moots (assemblies); the national council of the realm, or witan, only occasionally used folkright ideas. The older laws of real property, succession, contracts, and compositions were mainly regulated by folkright; the law had to be declared and applied by the people themselves in their communities.

Folkright could, however, be broken or modified by special enactment or grant, and the foundation of such privileges was royal power, especially once England became a single kingdom in the 10th century. In this manner a privileged land tenure was created; the rules pertaining to the succession of kinsmen were replaced by concessions of testamentary power and confirmations of grants and wills, and special privileges as to levying fines were conferred. In time, the rights originating in the royal grants of privilege came to outweigh folkright in many respects and were the starting point for the feudal system.

Before the 10th century an individual’s actions were considered not as exertions of his own will but as acts of his kinship group. Personal protection and revenge, oaths, marriage, wardship, and succession were all regulated by the law of kinship. What began as a natural alliance later became a means of enforcing responsibility and keeping lawless individuals in order. As the associations proved insufficient, other collective bodies, such as guilds and townships, assumed these functions. In the period before the Norman Conquest, much regulation was formalized by the king’s legislation in order to protect the individual. In the area of property, for example, witnesses were required at cattle sales, not to validate the sale but as protection against later claims on the cattle. Some ordinances required the presence of witnesses for all sales outside the town gate, and others simply prohibited sales except in town, again for the buyer’s protection.

The preservation of peace was an important feature of Anglo-Saxon law. Peace was thought of as the rule of an authority within a specific region. Because the ultimate authority was the king, there was a gradual evolution of stringent rules and regulations against violating the king’s peace.

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