Anglo-Saxon Society Research Articles

Patrick Wormald, ed., with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins, Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1983. Pp. xiv, 345; frontispiece and 8 black-and-white plates. $45.

Patrick Wormald, ed., with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins, Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1983. Pp. xiv, 345; frontispiece and 8 black-and-white plates. $45.

Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society. Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Edited by Patrick Wormald with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins. Pp. xiv + 345 + 9 plates. Basil Blackwell, 1983. £27.50.

Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society. Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Edited by Patrick Wormald with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins. Pp. xiv + 345 + 9 plates. Basil Blackwell, 1983. £27.50. - Volume 37 Issue 1

Reviews of Books

Reviews of Books Get access Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society. Studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Edited by PATRICK WORMALD with DONALD BULLOUGH and ROGER COLLINS (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. £27.50). SIMON KEYNES SIMON KEYNES Trinity CollegeCambridge Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume C, Issue CCCXCVII, October 1985, Pages 826–828, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/C.CCCXCVII.826 Published: 01 October 1985

Stigmatization as Negotiation of Moral Meaning: A Communicational Approach

Let us assume that we know that the obese, the homosexual, the paraplegic, the epileptic, the medical doctor, and the beauty queen are perceived as people who are, in a sense, different from the majority of those who make up our North American Anglo-Saxon society.

Early Developments In Barbadian Education

There are approximately 250,000 inhabitants today on the 166 square miles of the semi-tropical sugar-producing island of Barbados, the most easterly of the Caribbean islands. Ninety-five per cent of the population trace their descent from African slaves brought to the island during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and yet, in the words of Otis Starkley, whole cultural pattern is essentially English and the outward material evidences to the contrary are largely a veneer overlaying the cultural core ... every Barbadian: white, black, or colored, thinks of himself as a member of an Anglo-Saxon society. popular nickname for the island, Little England is, from this angle, quite justified.' While Starkley, writing in 1939, may have overstated the case at that time, and increased political consciousness coupled with independence for the island in 1966 have added additional dimensions to the Barbadian identity, Starkley's point is well made. Social scientists studying the island generally concur that the inhabitants maintain basically an English identity. For example, in 1972, the historian Ronald Tree noted, The culture of Barbados, unlike most of the Eastern Caribbean, derives entirely from its British connection; its laws are based on English laws; and cricket is a way of life rather than a pastime.2 roots of these phenomena lie in Barbados's status for three hundred and fifty years as a British colony with exceptionally close connections to the mother country. British administrators and white British residents of the island oversaw the gradual process by which African slaves and their progeny were transformed into black Englishmen. This paper will examine one aspect of that process, the part played by the system of education that de-

Collective Oath Compurgation in Anglo-Saxon England and African states

Social historians and historians of jurisprudence have, on occasion, drawn attention to the close resemblances between Anglo-Saxon society at the time when it is said to have been dominated by kinship relationships and the large kingdom states in Africa. The truth of the matter is not so easily come by, however, since the content of pre-medieval social relationships linking persons of different station was inadequately recorded by early writers. The faulty character of early records becomes evident in the area of jurisprudence, especially whenever attempts are made to assess the extent to which kinbased social relationships invaded the legal principles in Anglo-Saxon society in matters of dispute and settlement. This notwithstanding, it seems an instructive sociological task to reconsider comparatively with African state societies, wherever possible, certain of those legal ideas that allegedly formed the basis for judicial decision-making in early English courts before the introduction of trial by jury. The interpretation of these early ideas, set against the background of rights, duties, and obligations that obtained between persons of set status, should define more clearly than before whatever general agreement exists between these legal principles and those that obtain in African state societies. A more ambitious treatment of the subject than is attempted in this essay would extend beyond Anglo-Saxon society. But, because of the faulty character of early records, I limit this literary exercise to the period before William the Conqueror crossed the Channel.

The Extended Presence: Mexico and Its Culture in North American Writing

North American writers, since colonial days, have been subjected to a number of foreign influences, and some of these have been persistentnotably the English and the French. However, the intensity of these influences has waxed and waned according to literary period. But there is one engagement with another culture whose presence is always felt, whether perceived to be malignant or benign. Mexico is not just a neighboring country. Its cultural influences thrust sharply upward from the Southwestern border of the United States. It is an unavoidable presence, and as such it has been reflected in our literature from the earliest days of border contact. The earlier pioneer America which first reacted to this presence displayed the provincialism of a homogenous and somewhat isolated culture. This was Anglo-Saxon Protestant society on the march and getting farther and farther from its home base. The innocence of its faith in unending progress through technology and science was as yet undisturbed. To the members of such a society, backwardness in matters of mechanics and machinery was a rebuke to the glorious nineteenth century, and the writers of this society did not spare themselves in castigating the lazy and feckless Mexicans for their indifference to these matters. Typical among these writers was George Wilkins Kendall, a newspaperman who had traveled much in the borderlands. The patronizing tone which he adopted in writing of the Mexicans was characteristic of the period:

Black on Yellow: Afro-Americans View Chinese-Americans, 1850-1935

HISTORIANS have recently turned their attention to ethnic history. Virtually each month sees the publication of some new book or article devoted to these formerly invisible elements of our society. Ethnic history is most welcome, for it provides a needed corrective to standard American history books, which all too often glorify white Anglo-Saxon society while dismissing the cultural values of the elements of America's population. Unfortunately most ethnic history is focused on interaction between white Protestants, the dominant group, and one or more minority groups. History books neglect completely the way different minorities think about each other. Sociologists, on the other hand, have on occasion surveyed the ethnic prejudices of both white and black college students. Typically, students are asked anonymously to list traits they ascribe to various ethnic groups. Responses are tabulated and each group is ranked; the more positive the stereotype, the higher the rank. But sadly this is where most sociologists and social psychologists stop. They are well able to offer credible explanations for the current rating of a particular group, but they seem uninterested in putting these ratings into a historical perspective.1 This paper seeks to provide a historical explanation for the generally unfavorable stereotype blacks have held about the American Chinese. The time period covered starts around 1850, when blacks first came

War and Society in The Tenth Century: the Maldon Campaign

A general study of the effects of the Viking Wars on Anglo-Saxon society is much to be desired. These wars lasted from the last years of the Mercian hegemony to the last months of the life of William the Conqueror. It has been abundantly shown that the English did not catch institutions from the Vikings like a sort of social measles, but common-sense alone suggests that a three hundred years war with little more than one generation's respite must have had consequences. Such a study is far too large for a single paper. What I have sought to do, therefore, is take a single campaign, that culminating in the famous battle of Maldon, which occurred at a moment of intense crisis and to try to set this campaign in a context of the relevant political and military problems of the day, and most of what I have to say relates to the much-dismissed, little studied, but well-evidenced, reign of Æthelred II.

The Leofric Missal and tenth-century English art

One of the most crucial and problematic periods in the history of English medieval art is the tenth century. Already in the first half of the century there were signs of renewed artistic activity after the comparatively barren period of the ninth century when the Viking invasions rent the fabric of Anglo-Saxon society. But a full revival did not occur until the second half of the tenth century under the impetus of monastic reform and strong royal support. It was then that English artists created the so-called ‘Winchester Style’, which was to exercise a powerful influence in England and also on the continent for more than a century. Despite the research of many scholars, most notably Homburger and Wormald, there are still many more questions than answers about the sources and development of tenth-century English art. Among the most important works from this time are the Anglo-Saxon drawings and initial which were added to the so-called Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579). Through a consideration of their style, technique, ornament and iconography I hope to take a step towards a clearer understanding of this period of artistic renaissance.

Social idealism in Ælfric's Colloquy

Ælfric's Colloquy is, of course, first and foremost, a dialogue between a master and his pupils to give practice in the use of Latin at a conversational level. The pedagogic intention of the work is evident from the interlocutors' habit of lingering over commonly used words in various grammatical forms: for example, in a few opening lines (2–11) the deponent loqui appears as loqui, loquimur, loquamur and loqueris, together with the noun locutio, and within a little more than fifty lines (66–119) we find seven forms of the verb capere, two of them occurring four times each and one twice. Yet, equally certainly, this colloquy has more to it than just schoolboy exercises in declensions and conjugations. It has escaped the oblivion that has been the lot of its more humdrum fellows who – to use Garmonsway's personification – were assigned the rôle of literary Cinderellas, labouring ‘in obscurity in monastic classrooms to help boys learn their lessons’. It has long been acclaimed for its realism and for its ‘sociological picture of the occupational strata’ of Anglo-Saxon society; and, in our own day, Stanley B. Greenfield has called attention to its literary merits, ‘its fine organization and structure, dramatic in effect, with its pairing and contrasting, for example, of the king's bold hunter and the independent, timid fisherman…and with its lively disputation toward the end about which occupation is most essential’. In the present study I hope to demonstrate that it also draws on a background of ideas and that its longevity is partly due to this ingredient.

The Anglo-Saxon house: a new review

The past two decades have witnessed an almost complete revision of ideas about the character of Anglo-Saxon settlements. The advances have come in the main from a series of archaeological excavations in which techniques commonly used in prehistoric archaeology have been applied to sites of the period in the light of results from contemporary settlements on the continent. The excavations have in effect produced entire new categories of evidence about the domestic accommodation, service buildings and general planning of settlements of all levels of Anglo-Saxon society, in most of England and in all parts of the Anglo-Saxon period. In 1950 almost no domestic buildings were known other than the sunken huts found first by Leeds at Sutton Courtenay and subsequently by others in various parts of the country. Leeds‘s conclusions, accepted albeit with reluctance by scholars, were that ‘the bulk of the people, we can now be assured, were content with something that hardly deserves a better title than hovel, only varying in its greater or lesser simplicity’. Such buildings stood in stark and suspect contrast to the relatively sophisticated stone churches from the earliest days of Christianity found in various parts of the country. Such buildings stood in stark and suspect contrast to the relatively sophisticated stone churches from the earliest days of Christianity found in various parts of the country. Radford, moreover, in a seminal paper in the first volume ofMedieval Archaeologydemonstrated that they stood in some considerable contrast to the settlements and to the standards of domestic accommodation enjoyed by the ancestors and contemporaries of the Anglo-Saxons on the continent.

Who Rules Here? Random Reflections on the National Origins of Those Set in Authority over Us

There is a viewpoint in this country, held by a great many people, that the Irish arrived here 125 years ago as the only people fit to rule. There is a great deal to this theory, but an Anglo-Saxon society has not fully realized it yet. However, here in Chicago the stage of sophistication does seem to be advancing. Senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern are candidates for the presidential nomination. Mayor Richard J. Daley is the single most important power at the Democratic Convention. And through the darkness and doom that must always be a part of it, there is the name of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is from Massachusetts.

Judges in Politics: England

HER MAJESTY'S JUDGES ARE BY NATURE CONSERVATIVE BECAUSE their function is to apply existing law, to uphold a system not to subvert it. But they are not by nature reactionary, do not have any necessary opposition to new ideas, must indeed seek to fit political novelties expressed in statutory terms into the existing order. But, by their background and more importantly by their training, they are cautious, have seen it before, and in interpreting Acts of Parliament still work on the basis of certain assumptions which are also widely shared by those in the street below their windows, along the embankment at Westminster, and by the man in the passing Clapham omnibus. These assumptions are that Parliament does not intend to enact anydung so radical as to upset the constitution, or to deprive private persons of life, liberty or property by inadvertence but only by express words, and that Parliament generally enacts within what the judges regard as the fundamental political and economic structure of contemporary Anglo-Saxon society.

English feudalism and the structure of Anglo-Saxon society

English feudalism and the structure of Anglo-Saxon society

Kinship in Anglo-Saxon Society: II

Kinship in Anglo-Saxon Society: II

Kinship in Anglo-Saxon Society--I

tN THE FIRST PART ofthis paper,l the structural consequences | of the bilateral reckoning of kinship association were mentioned. It is s evident that Ego-centred bilateral kin groups cannot persist as continuing units in the structure of social relatonships. When a focal relaeve dies, the group loses its identity, although its former members still find themselves within the orbit of kin groups, overlapping, but not, except in the case of the consanpneal groups centred on siblings, exactly coinciding with the first. Anthropologists recognize that this system is in contrast urith unilineal descent systems, in which groups are formed that persist over the generaiions and may exercise coxporate rights over persons and things. One would not expect that a bilateral lfin group of the type we have been discussing would, as a whole, own anything (except its interest in Ego), since there can be no continuity of possession. A priori, then, we could predict the absence of clear evidence in Anglo-Saxon records of the pre-eleventh century showing that a kin group could be a landowner. Nevertheless, despite lack of evidence from la^vs and other sources (noted by Liebermann2), the theory has been put forward3 that some form of communal tenure existed. The basic assumptions of Anglo-Saxon kinship reckoning make this unlikely. When wills mention land as being unalienable from a kin group (as in the will of WolEgeat of Donington4), they do not imply that land held by a group as a whole shall pass to another group as a whole, but that land held by an individual is to go to another individual with the proviso that the latter shall give it to some third individual within a certain range of kin. This by no means implies communal ownership. If a kin group as a whole was not an heir, who, out of a set of recognized relatives, was likely to succeed to an estate? Certain commonly accepted notions about the prevalence of certain forms of tenure are of little help to us, since they are not precise enough. Gavelkind, considered to be a traditional form of land tenure in Kent, appears first to have referred to tenure by the payment of fixed services. Later this tenure system was taken to include partible inheritance. rn I205, a form of the word gavelkind was so used in the Rotuli Chartarum I60/I. From he sixteenth century onwards gavelkind was often used to denote

Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The Place of Women in Anglo-Saxon Society

Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The Place of Women in Anglo-Saxon Society