Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England

Brian W Schneider editor Professor Gale R Owen-Crocker editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published:21st Nov '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England cover

The relationship between Anglo-Saxon kingship, law, and the functioning of power is explored via a number of different angles. The essays collected here focus on how Anglo-Saxon royal authority was expressed and disseminated, through laws, delegation, relationships between monarch and Church, and between monarchs at times of multiple kingships and changing power ratios. Specific topics include the importance of kings in consolidating the English "nation"; the development of witnesses as agents of the king's authority; the posthumous power of monarchs; how ceremonial occasions wereused for propaganda reinforcing heirarchic, but mutually beneficial, kingships; the implications of Ine's lawcode; and the language of legislation when English kings were ruling previously independent territories, and the delegation of local rule. The volume also includes a groundbreaking article by Simon Keynes on Anglo-Saxon charters, looking at the origins of written records, the issuing of royal diplomas and the process, circumstances, performance and function of production of records. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Ann Williams, Alexander R. Rumble, Carole Hough, Andrew Rabin, Barbara Yorke, Ryan Lavelle, Alaric Trousdale

This book has much to offer and is of great interest for the various ways in which Anglo-Saxon kings were able to articulate their power and authority throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and in different parts of the country. * PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY *
Overall, the value of this book lies in its desire to grapple with the practical workings of Anglo-Saxon kingship, together with its speculative imagination, which, guided by expert knowledge, presents exciting possibilities. * HISTORY *

ISBN: 9781843838777

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 556g

318 pages