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- Title
Law codes and legal norms in later Anglo-Saxon England Law codes and legal norms in later Anglo-Saxon England.
- Authors
Roach, Levi
- Abstract
This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on long-standing debates about the role of the written word in later Anglo- Saxon legal culture. Using the law codes of King Æthelstan's reign as a 'case study', it argues that many of the unusual features of early English law are not so much products of orality, as of a fundamentally different approach to legal norms than is prevalent in the modern Western world. It thus seeks to move beyond recent literacy-orality debates, suggesting that it is more profitable to investigate the attitudes shown towards legal norms (both written and oral) within Anglo- Saxon society.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; ATHELSTAN, King of England, 895-939; ANGLO-Saxon law; TRANSMISSION of texts; HISTORY of the codification of laws; TITHES; CATTLE stealing; ANGLO-Saxon Period, Great Britain, 449-1066; BRITISH history sources
- Publication
Historical Research, 2013, Vol 86, Issue 233, p465
- ISSN
0950-3471
- Publication type
Case Study
- DOI
10.1111/1468-2281.12001