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Kinship in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

H. R. Loyn
H. R. Loyn
Affiliation:
University College, Cardiff
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Extract

There is a great text in the Welsh laws that tells us that a man who killed another, and who wished to make proper amends, paid one-ninth of his victim's blood-price to the offended kindred. His mother and father paid another ninth, and his brothers and sisters a further ninth again. The remaining two-thirds was to be found by the kindred to the seventh degree – some recensions say the ninth – and two-thirds of that in turn was to come from the paternal kin, one-third from the maternal. The blood-feud group in other words was ego-centred, differed from individual to individual, and was elaborate in structure. Descendants of the great-grandparents of great-grandparents on both sides would be involved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 3 , December 1974 , pp. 197 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 197 note 1 Llyfr lorwerth, ed. Wiliam, Aled Rhys (Cardiff, 1960), par. 106Google Scholar. Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda: Llyfr Blegywryd, ed. Williams, S. J. and Powell, J. Enoch (Cardiff, 1942), p. 32Google Scholar; The Laws of Hywel Dda (The Book of Blegywryd), trans. Melville, Richards (Liverpool, 1954), pp. 45–6Google Scholar. I am grateful to my colleague, Morfydd Owen, for help with these references and for much valuable discussion of problems connected with the Welsh laws.

page 197 note 2 Larson, L. M., The Earliest Norwegian Laws (New York, 1935), esp. pp. 153–8Google Scholar, ‘Laws 225–35 of the Gulathing’. Also Phillpotts, B., Kindred and Clan (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

page 198 note 1 In a paper delivered to the Welsh Laws Seminar of the Board of Celtic Studies at Cardiff in the summer of 1971. Charles-Edwards, T. has since written an acute paper on ‘Kinship, Status and the Origins of the Hide’, Past and Present 56 (1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in which he stresses the essential social distinction between the paternal and maternal kindreds of the laws and the more compact descentgroups, agnatic and patrilocal, which he calls ‘lineages’.

page 198 note 2 Lorraine, Lancaster, ‘Kinship in Anglo-Saxon Society’ pts 1 and 11, Brit. Jnl of Sociology 9 (1958), 234–48 and 359–77Google Scholar. Also Bullough, D. A., ‘Early Medieval Social Groupings: the Terminology of Kinship’, Past and Present 45 (1969), 3–18, esp. 14–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 198 note 3 Charles-Edwards, T., ‘Some Celtic Kinship Terms’, Bull. of the Board of Celtic Stud' 24 (1970–1972), 105–22.Google Scholar

page 198 note 4 Beowulf 84 (aþumswerian); also 1164 and Widsith 46.

page 199 note 1 VI Ath. 8. a and III Ath. 6; Liebermann, F., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 Vols. (Halle, 1903–1916) 1, 178 and 170Google Scholar (this collection referred to hereafter as Liebermann). References to individual law-codes are given in the form of standard abbreviations. Cf. also VI Ath. 12. 2; Liebermann 1, 183, where the possibility that a kin will not redeem a man or stand surety for him is explored.

page 199 note 2 II Cnut 20. 1; Liebermann 1, 322–4. Athelstan's concern appears notably in his Grately decrees, II Ath. 3; Liebermann 1, 152.

page 199 note 3 II Cnut 31, 37, 77 and 77. 1; Liebermann 1, 334, 338 and 364.

page 200 note 1 Beowuif 260ff.

page 200 note 2 Ibid. 372.

page 200 note 3 Ibid. 407–8.

page 200 note 4 Bede, , Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1896) 1. 7Google Scholar. The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Miller, T., Early, Eng. Text Soc. o.s. 95 (London, 1890), p. 36.Google Scholar

page 200 note 5 The Battle of Maldon, especially Ælfwine (210ff.), Leofsunu (244ff.) and Byrhtwald (311ff.).

page 200 note 6 Sisam, K., ‘Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 39 (1953), 287–346, esp, 320–2.Google Scholar

page 201 note 1 William of Malmesbury, , De Gestis Regain Anglorum, Rolls Series (1887–1889) 1, 84Google Scholar, ch. 86: ‘quinto genu Pendae adnepos’.

page 201 note 2 Alf 41; Liebermann 1, 74.

page 201 note 3 The Will of Æthelgifu, trans. and examined by Whitelock, D., with Ker, N. and Rennell, Lord for the Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar, esp. ch. III (by D. Whitelock) and ch. VII (by Lord Rennell).

page 201 note 4 Select Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. Harmer, F. E. (Cambridge, 1914), no. 15, pp. 25–7Google Scholar. Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters (London, 1968), no. 1446.Google Scholar

page 201 note 5 Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), LXIII, pp. 128–30.Google Scholar

page 203 note 1 II Em; Liebermann 1, 586–90. The kin is permitted to desert (forlele) an offender and refuse to pay for him, p. 186. The tone of Edmund's statements is so much firmer and more systematic than, for example, earlier Frankish royal laws that at times struck ‘glancing blows’ against the feud: cf. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., ‘The Blood-Feud of the Franks’, The Long-Haired Kings (London, 1962), pp. 121–47, esp. 130ff.Google Scholar

page 203 note 2 Hn. 70. 2 (in Wessex) and 70. 5b; Liebermann 1, 587–8. Leges Henrici Primi, ed. Downer, L. J. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 218 and 220.Google Scholar

page 204 note 1 Wer.; Liebermann 1, 392–4.

page 204 note 2 Ibid. p. 392.

page 204 note 3 Leis Willelme 9; Liebermann 1, 498.

page 205 note 1 Liebermann 11 (Glossär), p. 654, s.v. Sippe, 19.

page 205 note 2 Donaldson, G., Scotland, James V to James VII (Edinburgh and London, 1965), pp. 12–15Google Scholar, and Smout, T. C., A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (London, 1969), pp. 38–42Google Scholar: both stress the importance of the surname (sometimes carrying with it ‘pretence of blood’) and of tenurial ties.

page 205 note 3 Af. 27, 27.1 and 28; Liebermann 1, 66.

page 205 note 4 VIII Eth. 23ff. and I Cnut. 2b and c; Liebermann 1, 266 and 286. Also VIII Eth. Liebermann 1, 267 – the king acts as ‘mæeg’ and ‘mundbora, buton he elles oðerne hæbbe’.

page 205 note 5 VIII Eth. 25 and I Cnut 5.2d; Liebermann 1, 266 and 286 ‘gæð of his mægðlage þonne he gebyhð to regollage’.

page 205 note 6 II Ath. 2; Liebermann 1, 150.

page 206 note 1 Pollock, F. and Maitland, F. W., History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1968) 11, 389.Google Scholar

page 206 note 2 Wif 8; Lieberrnann 1, 442. Also English Historical Documents I, ed Whitelock, D. (London, 1955), p. 431.Google Scholar

page 206 note 3 Wif 9; Liebermann 1, 444.

page 206 note 4 Wif 1; Liebermann 1, 442 ‘hit swa hire 7 freondan gelicige’.

page 206 note 5 Domesday Books, 1 280 b.

page 207 note 1 II Cnut 70 and 70. 1; Liebermann 1, 356.

page 207 note 2 II Cnut 73a; Liebermann, 360. Cf. V Atr 21. 1 and VI 26. 1 (Liebermann, 1, 242 and 254), Ine 38 (Liebermann 1, 104–6); also Hlothære and Eadric 6 (Liebermann 1, 10), where the child and his property were to be protected by the father's kindred, though the child himself was to go with his mother.

page 208 note 1 History of English Law 1, 221 n. (1st ed. p. 200).

page 208 note 2 Hn. 4.4; Liebermann 1, 548: ‘omne autem ius aut naturale cognatorum est aut morale extraneorum aut legale ciuium’. Leges Henries Primi, ed. Downer, p. 82. Leyser, K. J., ‘The German Aristocracy from the Ninth Century to the Early Twelfth Century’, Past and Present 41 (1968), 25–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides an invaluable guide to the German situation. The key development appears to have been from large family groups, conscious of nobility by descent from a great ancestor, into more closely-knit families by the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth (ibid. pp. 32–3). Attention should also be drawn to the seminal article on this theme by Génicot, L., ‘La Noblesse au Moyen Age dans l'Ancienne “Francie”’, Annales 17 (1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The lesser landowners of the eastern counties in late-tenth-century England already appear to have the attributes of closely-knit family groups.

page 208 note 3 Hn. 6. 2 and 2a; Liebermann 1, 552. Leges Henrici Primi, p. 96.

page 208 note 4 Hn. 10–13; Liebermann 1, 555–9. Leges Henrici Primi, pp. 108–18, a section based on the laws of Cnut with some additions from earlier codes. Bullough, D. A., ‘Anglo-Saxon Institutions and Early English Society’, Annali della Fondazione Italiana per la Storia Amministrativa 2 (Milan, 1968), 647–59Google Scholar, in a paper directly prompted by his reappraisal of Chadwick's work, makes many acute observations relevant to this theme (esp. p. 658) that the absence of the notion that all non-royal land was held of a superior was a social fact to the advantage of the monarchy. The monarchy, with church support, was indeed well poised to move into all manner of indeterminate areas in late Anglo-Saxon England.