Law-code of King Alfred the Great
Authors
Dammery, Richard John Edward
Date
1991-07-12Awarding Institution
University of Cambridge
Author Affiliation
Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
Qualification
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Type
Thesis
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Dammery, R. J. E. (1991). Law-code of King Alfred the Great (Doctoral thesis). https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.15910
Description
The law-code of King Alfred the Great (871 -99) is one of the
largest and most ambitious legislative enactments to survive from
Anglo-Saxon England. It came to be known as sea domboc (the law
or judgement book), and was cited using that appellation in the lawcodes
of Alfred's tenth-century successors. This dissertation consists
of a study (volume one), together with an edition and critical
apparatus (volume two). Matters pertaining to the substantive law
are reserved as the subject of on-going research.
In volume one, the textual history of the law-code is examined.
First, each of the extant manuscripts is described in detail, including
three transcripts of varying importance made by the sixteenth -
century antiquary Laurence Nowell. These transcripts, two of which
are discussed for the first time in this dissertation, appear to have
been known to, and used by, William Lambarde, who prepared the
editio princeps of the Anglo-Saxon laws. Having assessed the physical
evidence of the manuscripts, the textual transmission is
reconsidered, and a new stemma is provided. Finally, the law-code is
divided into its four component parts (a table of rubrics, biblical
introduction, Alfred's law-code, and Ine's law-code), and each is
examined separately. Although this division is suggested by the code
itself, close analysis · reveals that these four parts do not form a
particularly coherent whole. The rubrics, which give the composite
code (Al[red-Ine) its artificial sense of unity, frequently ignore
important provisions or miss the central point of a law entirely; and
. the 'appendix', which purports to have been issued two centuries
before Alfred's code by King Ine of Wessex (688-726), contradicts
Alfred's own law on several occasions. As a necessary preliminary to
any analysis of the substantive law, the status of this appendix is
examined, for one must decide whether it may be used as good
evidence of seventh-century law, or whether there are signs of
Alfredian alteration. Furthermore, given the existence of these
contradictions, one must question whether Alfred ever intended
Ine's code to be read as an integral part of his own law-book.