(Old) English, Anglo-Saxon Legal Texts in the Later 11th to Mid-12th Centuries

Abstract

Manuscripts containing English language copies of Anglo-Saxon laws and related texts continued to be produced and used well into the mid-12th century. Interpretations of the underling manuscript contexts prevalent in the scholarship have tended to prioritise the Conquest as the defining feature underlying their production and use. Such interpretations assume that the collation of a wide range of Anglo-Saxon legal texts into a single manuscript context was a direct result of Norman rulers struggling to understand their newly acquired realm. This article reassesses the impact of the Conquest on the manuscript contexts of Anglo-Saxon law, by reviewing the extant scholarship on the surviving manuscripts, the role of the vernacular in the 12th century, and on legal history relating to Anglo-Saxon law in the period. Case studies of the scribal augmenting and updating of a turn of the 12th century manuscript collection of the laws are examined. Through these case studies, I illustrate the extent of scribal agency in the subtle adaption of the materiality and mise-en-page of the laws in their manuscript contexts. I argued for a manuscript-led approach to the study of Anglo-Saxon laws and related texts produced and used in the later 11th and first half of the 12th centuries.