Editing Anglo-Saxons (section)

=== Law ===
{{Main|Anglo-Saxon law}}
[[File:Law of Æthelberht.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|right|The initial page of [[Rochester Cathedral#Library|Rochester Cathedral Library]], MS A.3.5, the {{Lang|la|[[Textus Roffensis]]}}, which contains the only surviving copy of King [[Æthelberht of Kent]]'s laws.]]
The most noticeable feature of the Anglo-Saxon legal system is the apparent prevalence of legislation in the form of law codes. The early Anglo-Saxons were organised in various small kingdoms often corresponding to later shires or counties. The kings of these small kingdoms issued written laws, one of the earliest of which is attributed to Ethelbert, king of Kent, ca.560–616.<ref>Simpson, A.W.B. 'The Laws of Ethelbert' in Arnold et al. (1981) 3.</ref> The Anglo-Saxon law codes follow a pattern found in mainland Europe where other groups of the former Roman Empire encountered government dependent upon written sources of law and hastened to display the claims of their own native traditions by reducing them to writing. These legal systems should not be thought of as operating like modern legislation, rather they are educational and political tools designed to demonstrate standards of good conduct rather than act as criteria for subsequent legal judgment.<ref>Baker, J.H. An Introduction to English Legal History. (London: Butterworths, 1990) 3rd edition, {{ISBN|978-0-406-53101-8}}, Chapters 1–2.</ref>

Although not themselves sources of law, Anglo-Saxon charters are a most valuable historical source for tracing the actual legal practices of the various Anglo-Saxon communities. A charter was a written document from a king or other authority confirming a grant either of land or some other valuable right. Their prevalence in the Anglo-Saxon state is a sign of sophistication. They were frequently appealed to and relied upon in litigation. Making grants and confirming those made by others was a major way in which Anglo-Saxon kings demonstrated their authority.<ref>Milsom, S.F.C. Historical Foundations of the Common Law. (London: Butterworths, 1981) 2nd edition, {{ISBN|978-0-406-62503-8}} (limp), 1–23.</ref>

The royal council or witan played a central but limited role in the Anglo-Saxon period. The main feature of the system was its high degree of decentralisation. The interference by the king through his granting of charters and the activity of his witan in litigation are exceptions rather than the rule in Anglo-Saxon times.<ref>Robertson, Agnes Jane, ed. Anglo-Saxon Charters. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, 2009.</ref> The most important court in the later Anglo-Saxon period was the shire court. Many shires (such as Kent and Sussex) were in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon settlement the centre of small independent kingdoms. As the kings first of Mercia and then of Wessex slowly extended their authority over the whole of England, they left the shire courts with overall responsibility for the administration of law.<ref>Milsom, S.F.C. Historical Foundations of the Common Law. (London: Butterworths, 1981) 2nd edition, {{ISBN|978-0-406-62503-8}} (limp), 1–23</ref> The shire met in one or more traditional places, earlier in the open air and then later in a moot or meeting hall. The meeting of the shire court was presided over by an officer, the shire reeve or sheriff, whose appointment came in later Anglo-Saxon times into the hands of the king but had in earlier times been elective. The sheriff was not the judge of the court, merely its president. The judges of the court were all those who had the right and duty of attending the court, the suitors. These were originally all free male inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but over time suit of court became an obligation attached to particular holdings of land. The sessions of a shire court resembled more closely those of a modern local administrative body than a modern court. It could and did act judicially, but this was not its prime function. In the shire court, charters and writs would be read out for all to hear.<ref>Pollock, F. and Maitland, F.M. A History of English Law. Two volumes. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898 reprinted 1968) 2nd edition, {{ISBN|978-0-521-07061-4}} and {{ISBN|978-0-521-09515-0}}, Volume I, Chapter 1.</ref>

Below the level of the shire, each county was divided into areas known as [[Hundred (county division)|hundreds]] (or wapentakes in the north of England). These were originally groups of families rather than geographical areas. The hundred court was a smaller version of the shire court, presided over by the hundred bailiff, formerly a sheriff's appointment, but over the years many hundreds fell into the private hands of a local large landowner. Little is known about hundred court business, which was likely a mix of the administrative and judicial, but they remained in some areas an important forum for the settlement of local disputes well into the post-Conquest period.<ref>Reynolds, Andrew. "Judicial culture and social complexity: a general model from Anglo-Saxon England." World Archaeology ahead-of-print (2014): 1–15.</ref>

The Anglo-Saxon system put an emphasis upon compromise and arbitration: litigating parties were enjoined to settle their differences if possible. If they persisted in bringing a case for decision before a shire court, then it could be determined there. The suitors of the court would pronounce a judgment which fixed how the case would be decided: legal problems were considered to be too complex and difficult for mere human decision, and so proof or demonstration of the right would depend upon some irrational, non-human criterion. The normal methods of proof were oath-helping or the ordeal.<ref name="Hyams, P 1981">Hyams, P. 'Trial by ordeal: the key to proof in the early common law' in Arnold, M.S. et al.. (eds) On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in honor of S.E. Thorne. (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1981) {{ISBN|978-0-8078-1434-5}}, p. 90.</ref> Oath-helping involved the party undergoing proof swearing to the truth of his claim or denial and having that oath reinforced by five or more others, chosen either by the party or by the court. The number of helpers required and the form of their oath differed from place to place and upon the nature of the dispute.<ref>Leeson, Peter T. "Ordeals." Journal of Law and Economics 55.3 (2012): 691–714.</ref> If either the party or any of the helpers failed in the oath, either refusing to take it or sometimes even making an error in the required formula, the proof failed and the case was adjudged to the other side. As "wager of law", it remained a way of determining cases in the common law until its abolition in the 19th century.<ref>Higham, Nicholas, and Martin J. Ryan. The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale University Press, 2013.</ref>

The ordeal offered an alternative for those unable or unwilling to swear an oath. The two most common methods were the ordeal by hot iron and by cold water. The former consisted in carrying a red-hot iron for five paces: the wound was immediately bound up, and if on unbinding, it was found to be festering, the case was lost. In the ordeal by water, the victim, usually an accused person, was cast bound into water: if he sunk he was innocent, if he floated he was guilty. Although for perhaps understandable reasons, the ordeals became associated with trials in criminal matters. They were in essence tests of the truth of a claim or denial of a party and appropriate for trying any
legal issue. The allocation of a mode of proof and who should bear it was the substance of the shire court's judgment.<ref name="Hyams, P 1981" />