For a helpful overview of overlaps between secular and ecclesiastical law and justice in Anglo-Saxon England, see chapter 1 of Helmholz, Richard, Oxford History of the Laws of England, vol. In the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, royal law required bishops and ealdormen to preside together over shire courts, enabling secular and ecclesiastical judgments to be issued at a single gathering: III Edgar 5.2 II Cnut 18.1. Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.ĥ The participation of ecclesiastical advisors in the compilation of royal lawcodes is acknowledged in the epilogue of II Æthelstan and the prologues of Wihtred Ine I, III, and VI Æthelstan I, II, and III Edmund V and VI Æthelred. The seventh-century laws of Æthelberht and Wihtred are cited from the edition of Oliver, Lisi, The Beginnings of English Law ( Toronto, 2002) CrossRef Google Scholar, with Liebermann's enumeration in brackets. ( Halle, 1903–16) Google Scholar, following Liebermann's editorial titles and enumeration. Anglo-Saxon laws from the ninth century onward are cited from Liebermann, F., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography ( London, 1968) Google Scholar. , eds., Dictionary of Old English: A to I Online ( Toronto, 2018) Google Scholar, Handbook = Fowler, Roger, “ A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor,” Anglia 83 ( 1965): 1– 34 CrossRef Google Scholar S = catalogue number in Sawyer, P. 1998) Google Scholar DOE = Cameron, A., Amos, A. ![]() Northcote, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth ( Oxford, 1898, repr. Although laymen and clergy collaborated in the dispensation of law and justice throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, the written evidence for unconsecrated burial shows that this penalty fell either under the authority of secular or of ecclesiastical agents, demonstrating a clearer separation between these spheres than is usually recognized in pre-Conquest England.ġ The following abbreviations will be employed: Bosworth-Toller = Toller, T. Second, this article contends that written prescriptions for unconsecrated burial differentiated secular from ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Where excommunication was imposed upon living sinners, to coerce them to penance, unconsecrated burial was prescribed for the unrepentant or criminal dead, whose actions placed them beyond earthly help. First, this article demonstrates that through the mid-eleventh century, unconsecrated burial was a penalty distinct from ecclesiastical excommunication. The following analysis of the textual evidence yields two interrelated arguments. This suggests that it originated as a temporal punishment but later came to be used as an ecclesiastical sentence. ![]() In tenth-century laws and charters, unconsecrated burial was imposed exclusively by secular authorities it was only prescribed by ecclesiastical authorities from ca. ![]() However, a reassessment of legislative, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical sources reveals that this was not so. The exclusion of sinners and criminals from Christian cemeteries has typically been interpreted by scholars as a form of excommunication or an attempt to facilitate damnation. ![]() This article investigates the ideologies which underpinned unconsecrated burial in late Anglo-Saxon legal and religious texts.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |