Recounts how the work of nineteenth-century legal historians influenced the editing of Old English texts, most notably Beowulf, in ways that are still preserved in our editions. This situation has been a major contributor to the archaizing of Beowulf.
Recounts how the work of nineteenth-century legal historians influenced the editing of Old English texts, most notably Beowulf, in ways that are still...
The Canons are one of the earliest handbooks of penance to appear in any West European vernacular. The material shows the Anglo-Saxons addressing matters ranging from baptism and the ordination of priests to the conduct of the married and sexual norms. Less a translation of the judgements attributed to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 690), than an adaptation of these materials, the work is of major importance for specialists in Old English and historians of medieval Europe generally, affording an early view of what pastoral care in early England may have looked like which is more...
The Canons are one of the earliest handbooks of penance to appear in any West European vernacular. The material shows the Anglo-Saxons addressing matt...
Some of the earliest examples of medieval canon law are penitentials - texts enumerating the sins a confessor might encounter among laypeople or other clergy and suggesting means of reconciliation. Often they gave advice on matters of secular law as well, offering judgments on the proper way to contract a marriage or on the treatment of slaves. This book argues that their importance to more general legal-historical questions, long suspected by historians but rarely explored, is most evident in an important (and often misunderstood) subgroup of the penitentials: composed in Old English. Though...
Some of the earliest examples of medieval canon law are penitentials - texts enumerating the sins a confessor might encounter among laypeople or other...