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This dissertation summarizes the evidence for the use of canon law collections in England during the Christian Anglo-Saxon period, that is ca 600-1066. The method is text-historical, the focus being firstly on the scientific description of the primary evidence, and secondly on the evaluation of that evidence to determine which canon law collections were in circulation in Anglo-Saxon England, and exactly when, where and (in some cases) to whom they may have been available. An attempt is also made (in Chapter 2) to find a place for future discussion of canon law collections within the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies, a field traditionally resistant to this particular aspect of early medieval legal culture. This dissertation has been envisioned as primarily descriptive. Here and there, however, attempts are made to venture beyond mere description of the evidence and explore the broader significance of canon law collections to Anglo-Saxon legal culture as a whole; however, given the still nascent state of the study of Anglo-Saxon canon law, such explorations are very often speculative and can only be considered preliminary to a more detailed investigation into the social, political and institutional significance of the evidence that is herein presented. This is simply to say that the goals of the present study are more humble than might be hoped. A solid foundation, rather than a consummate edifice of historical analysis, is sought after. Indeed, it bears advertising up front that not only has the definitive treatment of Anglo-Saxon canon law yet to be written; in all likelihood, it will still be many years before it is even prudent to attempt such a thing. The appendices contain a number of transcriptions of canon law collections from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including the first ever transcriptions of the Collectio Sanblasiana and Collectio Turonensis, as well as transcriptions of Book 4 of the Collectio quadripartita and of the Collectio Wigorniensis (or 'Excerptiones pseudo-Ecgberhti') in four of its five redactions. The appendices also contain a review of the complex historiography surrounding the latter two collections, as well as case studies of three texts that appear to have been crucial to the development of canon law in the Anglo-Saxon church, namely the Libellus responsionum, the Constitutum Silvestri, and Ecgberht of York's Dialogus. While the appendixed material is intended primarily as support for the broader arguments developed in the dissertation proper, it is also hoped that scholars will find some of that material useful in its own right, and that it will serve to promote further discussion of the importance of canon law collections, especially Continental canon law collections, within the context of Anglo-Saxon history.

This dissertation summarizes the evidence for the use of canon law collections in England during the Christian Anglo-Saxon period, that is ca 600-1066. The method is text-historical, the focus being firstly on the scientific description of the primary evidence, and secondly on the evaluation of that evidence to determine which canon law collections were in circulation in Anglo-Saxon England, and exactly when, where and (in some cases) to whom they may have been available. An attempt is also made (in Chapter 2) to find a place for future discussion of canon law collections within the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies, a field traditionally resistant to this particular aspect of early medieval legal culture. This dissertation has been envisioned as primarily descriptive. Here and there, however, attempts are made to venture beyond mere description of the evidence and explore the broader significance of canon law collections to Anglo-Saxon legal culture as a whole; however, given the still nascent state of the study of Anglo-Saxon canon law, such explorations are very often speculative and can only be considered preliminary to a more detailed investigation into the social, political and institutional significance of the evidence that is herein presented. This is simply to say that the goals of the present study are more humble than might be hoped. A solid foundation, rather than a consummate edifice of historical analysis, is sought after. Indeed, it bears advertising up front that not only has the definitive treatment of Anglo-Saxon canon law yet to be written; in all likelihood, it will still be many years before it is even prudent to attempt such a thing. The appendices contain a number of transcriptions of canon law collections from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including the first ever transcriptions of the Collectio Sanblasiana and Collectio Turonensis, as well as transcriptions of Book 4 of the Collectio quadripartita and of the Collectio Wigorniensis (or 'Excerptiones pseudo-Ecgberhti') in four of its five redactions. The appendices also contain a review of the complex historiography surrounding the latter two collections, as well as case studies of three texts that appear to have been crucial to the development of canon law in the Anglo-Saxon church, namely the Libellus responsionum, the Constitutum Silvestri, and Ecgberht of York's Dialogus. While the appendixed material is intended primarily as support for the broader arguments developed in the dissertation proper, it is also hoped that scholars will find some of that material useful in its own right, and that it will serve to promote further discussion of the importance of canon law collections, especially Continental canon law collections, within the context of Anglo-Saxon history.

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines some projects of moral regulation, implemented by the agents of the church and king in the late Anglo-Saxon period, which sought to modify and govern marital conduct. Theories of moral regulation are analysed in the Introduction, which also examines Germanic marriage practices, as far as they can be recovered, and the Anglo-Saxon church’s inherited attitudes towards marriage. Manuscripts and texts are examined firstly as projects of moral regulation, and secondly as projects which attempted to alter marital behaviour. In Chapter 1, moral regulation is situated within the context of the Benedictine reform through the examination of one manuscript – Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201 – as a case-study in the cooperative efforts of the church and king to regulate society. In particular, the legislative and penitential texts which are compiled in MS 201 bear witness to the tendency in late Anglo-Saxon England for legislation to be moralised, and for morality to be legislated. MS 201 also includes the unique copy of the Old English translation of Apollonius of Tyre, and the marital morality inscribed therein perhaps accounts for its inclusion in this predominantly Wulfstanian manuscript. In Chapter 2 the riddles recorded in the Exeter Book are interpreted as literary exercises in regulation. This chapter establishes the possible moral and regulatory agenda of the Exeter Book riddles by offering a new interpretation of, and solution to, one riddle. It also analyses the marriages made manifest in some of the so-called ‘double entendre’ riddles, which regulate the moral relationship following Pauline exegesis: emphasis in these riddles is on the sanctity of marriage, wifely obedience, and the payment of the conjugal debt. Conversely, Ælfric, in his Lives of Saints, idealises marriage as characterised by the absence of all sexual relations. In his Life of St Agnes (examined in Chapter 3), and in his Lives of married saints (SS Julian and Basilissa, SS Cecilia and Valerian, and SS Chrysanthus and Daria, examined in Chapter 4), Ælfric makes non-sexual, companionable, and loving marriage morally paradigmatic. Whilst both marriage and morality have been studied by modern critics, neither topic has inspired extended, specific study (with a few, notable, exceptions), and the nexus between these two topics has been hitherto unacknowledged. Although new, and often profound, insight is gained into Anglo-Saxon texts by considering them in the context of moral regulation, the morality they propose, as well as the regulatory process used to impose that morality, varies across context, text, genre, and author. This conclusion is also true for marital morality, Anglo-Saxon perceptions of which differed in each of the texts chosen for evaluation. This thesis does not claim to be comprehensive; nor does it attempt to synthesise attitudes towards marriage and morality, since a synthesis does not do justice to the richness or complexity with which this topic was treated. It is hoped that this thesis will provide insight into not only individual Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards marriage but also processes of regulation and social control, and, indeed, into the intersection between attitudes and processes.

Thesis--Halle-Wittenburg. / Vita.

abstract: Since scholars first turned their attention to the subject some eighty years ago, one major area of contention in the study of Anglo-Saxon wills has been the function of the written will within Anglo-Saxon culture. Verbal agreements, formalized through oral ceremonies and symbolic actions, were recognized as legally binding; however, many of these agreements were also recorded in writing. Many scholars argue that the written document was superfluous;oral ceremonies were written down only in the case of memory failure and the documents themselves had no real performative function. Others see the existence of the written will to be evidence of a shift toward a more textually-dependent culture, reliant on the written as a way of managing society. It is unlikely, however, that the Anglo-Saxons themselves viewed the oral and written in such a binary manner. Rather, the two forms were intermingled, lending potency and performative power to one another. The present study concentrates on two Anglo-Saxon wills in order to demonstrate the ways in which the verbal and written work together in specific texts. By having such a singular focus, a more nuanced understanding of how the oral and written interanimate each other in ninth-century England can be attained. The vernacular will of Alfred, King of the West Saxons from 871-899, and the Latin will of Æðelric, son of Æðelmund (804), are particularly deserving of close attention. While they contain several features that indicate the authority of the voiced statement, they also demonstrate an exceptionally strong sense of the importance of the written. These two wills suggest a dynamic period in which the worlds of the oral ceremony and written word were still intermingled but clearly moving toward a valuing of the written as dispositive. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2010

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