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Full Description
Alfred the Great's domboc ('book of laws') is the longest and most ambitious legal text of the Anglo-Saxon period. Alfred places his own laws, dealing with everything from sanctuary to feuding to the theft of bees, between a lengthy translation of legal passages from the Bible and the legislation of the West-Saxon King Ine (r. 688-726), which rival his own in length and scope. This book is the first critical edition of the domboc published in over a century, as well as a new translation. Five introductory chapters offer fresh insights into the laws of Alfred and Ine, considering their backgrounds, their relationship to early medieval legal culture, their manuscript evidence and their reception in later centuries. Rather than a haphazard accumulation of ordinances, the domboc is shown to issue from deep reflection on the nature of law itself, whose effects would permanently alter the development of early English legislation.
Contents
List of Figures; List of Tables; Acknowledgments; Preface; Part I.: 1. The emergence of written law in early England; 2. Legal erudition in seventh- and ninth-century Wessex; 3. Reshaping tradition: oaths, ordeals, and the 'innovations' of the domboc; 4. The transmission of the domboc: old English manuscripts and other early witnesses; 5. Reception, editorial history, and interpretative legacies; Part II. Editions: 6. Rubrics in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MSS 173 and 383; 7. Alfred's prologue; 8. The laws of Alfred; 9. The laws of Ine; Appendix I: handlist of prior editions; Bibliography; Index.
