Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law
Kinship, Blood Feud, Wergild, and Communal Liability in Early Medieval EnglandBy Frederic Seebohm
Length14h 28m
About this audiobook
Frederic Seebohm's *Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law* is a comparative inquiry into the customary institutions underlying early English society and jurisprudence. Drawing on Anglo-Saxon laws, charters, place-names, and related Germanic evidence, Seebohm examines kinship, wergeld, landholding, the hundred, the tithing, and local assemblies as interconnected expressions of tribal organization. His prose is methodical and documentary, yet animated by a larger historical argument: Anglo-Saxon law should be understood not as an abstract system imposed from above, but as the gradual transformation of communal practices into territorial and administrative institutions. The work belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of constitutional and social history, while anticipating later anthropological interest in customary law and collective identity; its conclusions are sometimes debated, but its evidentiary ambition remains substantial. A prominent English historian of rural society and medieval institutions, Seebohm brought to this study the same concern with continuity, social structure, and documentary reconstruction that shaped his earlier work on the English village community. Writing amid Victorian debates over the origins of the manor, private property, and English constitutional liberty, he sought to challenge simplistic accounts of feudal development by tracing institutional change back to Germanic tribal custom. His method reflects both careful legal reading and the comparative historical scholarship of his age. This book will reward readers interested in Anglo-Saxon England, legal history, medieval institutions, and the origins of English local government. It is especially valuable for those who wish to see how laws functioned within social relationships rather than merely as formal texts. Read critically, it offers a rich, influential, and intellectually revealing account of the customary foundations of English law.
Audiobook details
GenrePolitics and Government
Length14 hrs 28 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 30, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law
2III. THE FRANKISH CURRENCY.
3IV. THE NORMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON CURRENCY.
4V. THE MINAS WHICH SURVIVED IN USE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE ROMAN POUND.
5VI. THE USE OF GOLD TORQUES AND ARMLETS, &C., INSTEAD OF COINS.
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6I. THE UNIT OF CYMRIC TRIBAL SOCIETY.
7II. THE CONSTITUTION AND WORKING OF THE GWELY.
8III. THE LIABILITY OF THE WIDER KINDRED FOR GALANAS IN CASE OF HOMICIDE.
9IV. THE FISCAL UNIT FOR THE PURPOSE OF FOOD-RENTS TO THE CHIEFTAINS.
10V. THE METHOD OF PAYMENT OF GALANAS BETWEEN KINDREDS.
11VI. THE AMOUNT OF THE CYMRIC GALANAS.
12VII. THE METHODS OF TREATMENT OF STRANGERS OR NON-TRIBESMEN.
13CHAPTER III. THE EVIDENCE OF BEOWULF ON TRIBAL CUSTOM REGULATING FEUDS &c.
14I. THE ERIC FINE OF THE BREHON LAWS.
15II. THE HONOUR-PRICE (ENECLANN).
16III. THE GRADATIONS IN RANK UNDER THE BREHON LAWS.
17IV. THE CURRENCY IN WHICH THE BREHON FINES WERE PAID.
18V. THE IRISH COIRP-DIRE AND HONOUR-PRICE TRACED FURTHER BACK THAN THE BREHON LAWS.
19VI. THE BRETON OR GALLIC WERGELD OF THE SO-CALLED ‘CANONES WALLICI.’
20VII. THE WERGELD OF ANCIENT GALLIC CUSTOM. THE EVIDENCE OF CÆSAR.
21I. THE BURGUNDIAN WERGELDS.
22II. THE WERGELDS OF THE LEX WISIGOTHORUM.
23I. THE WERGELDS OF THE LEX SALICA.
24II. THE DIVISION OF CLASSES AS SHOWN BY THE AMOUNT OF THE WERGELD.
25III. TRIBAL RULES OF SUCCESSION IN ‘TERRA SALICA.’
26IV. THE WERGELDS AND DIVISION OF CLASSES IN THE ‘LEX RIPUARIORUM.’
27V. THE ALAMANNIC AND BAVARIAN LAWS.
28I. THE EFFECT UPON WERGELDS OF THE NOVA MONETA.
29II. THE LEX FRISIONUM.
30III. THE LEX SAXONUM.
31IV. LEX ANGLIORUM ET WERINORUM, HOC EST THURINGORUM.
32V. THE SO-CALLED LEX CHAMAVORUM.
33VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS.
34I. THE MONETARY SYSTEM OF SCANDINAVIA.
35II. THE WERGELDS OF THE GULATHING AND FROSTATHING LAWS.
36III. THE GRADATIONS OF SOCIAL RANK DISCLOSED BY THE WERGELDS ETC.
37IV. THE CLASSES OF FREE MEN AND THEIR RELATION TO LAND.
38V. THE LEX SCANIA ANTIQUA.
39VI. SCANIAN AND LOMBARDIC CUSTOM COMPARED.
40I. TRACES OF TRIBAL CUSTOM IN THE LAWS OF THE EARLY KINGS.
41II. THE ‘REGIAM MAJESTATEM.’
42III. LEGES INTER BRETTOS ET SCOTOS.
43IV. RECOGNITION OF THE FOURTH AND NINTH DEGREES OF KINDRED IN SCOTLAND.
44I. ANGLO-SAXON CUSTOM AS APPLIED TO NORMANS.
45II. NORMAN VIEW OF WESSEX CUSTOM.
46I. THE ‘DE INSTITUTIS LUNDONIE’—OF CNUT (?)
47II. FRAGMENT ‘OF “GRITH” AND OF “MUND.”’
48III. THE ‘FRITH’ BETWEEN ETHELRED II. AND OLAF TRYGGVASON, A.D. 993.
49I. THE COMPACT BETWEEN KING ALFRED AND GUTHRUM, A.D. 886.
50II. THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE IN PAYMENT OF WERGELD.
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