Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law

This is the first book-length study of the four penitentials composed in Old English.

List of contents

1. The Old English penitentials and their reception; 2. Legal change, vernacular penitentials, and the chronology of Old English prose; 3. The law of the estate: bishops, masters, and slaves; 4. The law of the household: marriage and sexuality; 5. Caring for the body: law, penitentials, and English 'sick-maintenance'; 6. Caring for the mind: pollution and mental liability; Conclusion: vernacular penitentials and secular lawmaking.

About the author

Stefan Jurasinski is Associate Professor of English at the College at Brockport, State University of New York. His work has appeared in Law and History Review, the Journal of Legal History, the Review of English Studies, and other periodicals. He is the co-editor of The Old English Canons of Theodore (with R. D. Fulk, 2012), which won the Publication Prize of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists for the best edition of the 2012–13 biennium. He was an American Council of Learned Societies fellow for the 2014–15 academic year.

Summary

This is the first book-length study of the four penitentials composed in Old English. This book argues that they are also important to our understanding of how written law developed in early England. This book considers their backgrounds and shows how they illuminate obscure passages in better-known Old English texts.

Product details

• Authors: Stefan Jurasinski, Stefan (State University College Jurasinski, Jurasinski Stefan
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2015
• EAN: 9781107083417
• ISBN: 978-1-107-08341-7
• No. of pages: 247
• Series: Studies in Legal History; Studies in Legal History
• Subjects: Education and learning > Adult education/adult education classes; Humanities, art, music > History; Social sciences, law, business > Law > General, dictionaries; England, British & Irish history, Legal History, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500, c 500 to c 1000 CE