The Fonthill Letter, Ealdorman Ordlaf and Anglo-Saxon law in practice

Abstract

I provide below a new edition and parallel translation of the so-called ‘Fonthill Letter’ drawn from the forthcoming edition of the Charters of Christ Church Canterbury which Dr Susan Kelly and I are editing for the British Academy series ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’. The document will be numbered no. 104 in our edition, which is scheduled for publication in three volumes in 2010.41 B. Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicum AEvi Saxonici (London, 1865), 169−74; J. Earle, Handbook to the Latin Charters and other Saxonic Documents (Oxford, 1888), 162−5; A.J. Wyatt, Anglo-Saxon Reader (Cambridge, 1919), 112−15, 245−7.