Legal custom & Lex Castrensis?: using law and literature to navigate the North-Sea neighbourhood in the Late Viking Age
Ruiter, Keith (2021) Legal custom & Lex Castrensis?: using law and literature to navigate the North-Sea neighbourhood in the Late Viking Age. In: Britain & its Neighbours: Cultural Contacts & Exchanges in Medieval & Early Modern Europe,. Routledge, London, England, pp. 105-120. ISBN 9780429324741
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Abstract
In his Lex Castrensis, the twelfth-century Danish writer Sven Aggesen tells the story of the creation of a law that he attributes to Knútr inn ríki (Cnut the Great) as a means of governing his substantial military following of retainers, known as the hirð. As unlikely as it is for Sven to claim that he preserves the law exactly as it was in Knútr’s own time, the text’s focus on process and punishment raises an intriguing question: can evidence be seen for shifting punitive attitudes and legal exchange in the late Viking-Age period of intense contact, interaction, and accommodation between Scandinavia and the British Isles? This chapter will offer a first step in considering the possibility for the exchange of legal practices and concepts in this context, and present a newly refined picture of England and its Scandinavian neighbours – one which points to sophisticated legal interchange happening much earlier than usually thought.
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Viking, Viking Age, law, Scandinavia, England, literature, Sven Aggeson, Cnut the Great, exchange |
Subjects: | D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain D History General and Old World > DL Northern Europe. Scandinavia K Law > K Law (General) K Law > KD England and Wales |
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts, Business & Applied Social Science > Department of Arts & Humanities |
Depositing User: | Keith Ruiter |
Date Deposited: | 02 Dec 2022 14:16 |
Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2022 14:16 |
URI: | https://oars.uos.ac.uk/id/eprint/2833 |