The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. Frederic William Maitland

he tells us many things that are of great value. He had a good many books at his command. He took much from the code of Cnut and [p.78] from some of the older dooms, but unless (this is not impossible) he himself was the author or projector of the Quadripartitus, he seems to have been dependent on the first book of that work for his text of these Old English laws. His object being to state the laga Eadwardi as amended by the Conqueror and Henry I., he naturally made great use of this English matter; but he dipped at times into other springs. He had found a source of “general jurisprudence” in Isidore’s Origines. Ecclesiastical causes were no longer subject to native English law; the Conqueror had handed them over to the canones, and for the canones of the catholic church our author had to look to foreign books, in particular to that compiled by Burchard of Worms. He took a few passages from the venerable Lex Salica, from the Lex Ribuaria, from the Frankish capitularies; we may safely say that, had these ancient authorities been regarded by the Normans in England as practicable written law he would have taken more. He took one little sentence out of an epitome of the West Goths’ version of the Theodosian Code.⁶¹ But the most interesting parts of his work are those which we can trace to no remoter fount. If they paint English law as a wonderful confusion, they may yet be painting it correctly, and before we use hard words of him who wrote them, we should remember that he was engaged on an utterly new task, new in England, new in Europe: he was writing a legal textbook, a text-book of law that was neither Roman nor Canon law. To have thought that a law-book ought to be written was no small exploit in the year 1118.⁶²

The Consiliatio and Instituta Cnuti.The writer of the Leges Henrici is in some sort the champion of [p.79] West Saxon, or rather of Wessex law. Wessex is in his opinion the head of the realm, and in doubtful cases Wessex law should prevail.⁶³ Other attempts to state the old law were made elsewhere. In the early years of the twelfth century two Latin translations of Cnut’s dooms, besides that contained in the Quadripartitus, were made, and in each case by one who tried to be more than a translator; he borrowed from other Anglo-Saxon documents, some of which have not come down to us, and endeavoured to make his work a practicable law-book. One of the most remarkable features of all these books is that their authors seem to be, at least by adoption and education, men of the dominant, not men of the subject race; if not Frenchmen by birth, they are Frenchmen by speech.⁶⁴ At a later date, some forest laws were concocted for Cnut, but to describe these we must use a harsh term; to all seeming they are the work of a forger, who was inventing a justification for the oppressive claims of those mighty hunters, the Norman kings.⁶⁵

Les Leis Williame. Then we have another document which professes to give us the old laws, the laws which King Edward held and which King William granted to the people of England. We have it both in French and in Latin, and to distinguish it from its fellows it has been called the bilingual code. We shall call it the Leis Williame. Its history is obscure and has been made the more obscure by contact with the forgeries of the false Ingulf. The Latin text is a translation of the French text, though not an exact translation of any version of the French text that has come down to modern times; but the French text may have been made from a Latin or from an English original. That we have here no authoritative code but mere private work will scarcely be disputed. It falls somewhat easily into three parts. The first seems to consist of certain rules of the Old English law as they were understood [p.80] under the Norman kings together with some of the Norman novelties. It is an intelligent and to all seeming a trustworthy statement. It harmonizes well with the ancient dooms, but is not made up of extracts from them. Its author may have been specially familiar with the Danelaw. The last part of the document is a pretty close translation of certain parts of the code of Cnut. Then between these two parts there come a few articles which betray the influence of Roman law. If the whole document comes from one man, we cannot well suppose him to have done his work after the early years of the twelfth century; his statement of the old law seems too good to be of later date. We must further suppose that, having come to the end of the English rules that were known to him as living law, he taxed his memory for other rules and succeeded in remembering some half-dozen large maxims which had caught his eye in some Roman book, and that finally, being weary of trying to remember and to define, he took up the code of Cnut and translated part of it. The first section of his work is far from valueless; it is one more proof that attempts were being made to state the laga Eadwardi in a rational form. As to the middle section, it shows us how men were helplessly looking about for some general principles of jurisprudence which would deliver them from their practical and intellectual difficulties.⁶⁶

Leges Edwardi Confessoris. Lastly, we have a book written in Latin which expressly purports [p.81] to give us the law of Edward as it was stated to the Conqueror in the fourth year of his reign by juries representing the various parts of England.⁶⁷ However, the purest form in which we have it speaks of what was done in the reign of William Rufus,⁶⁸ and probably was compiled in the last years of Henry I.⁶⁹ It is private work of a bad and untrustworthy kind. It has about it something of the political pamphlet and is adorned with pious legends. The author, perhaps a secular clerk of French parentage, writes in the interest of the churches, and, it is to be feared, tells lies for them.⁷⁰ He professes to hate the Danes of the past and the Danelaw. According to him, William, being himself of Scandinavian race, was on the point of imposing the Danelaw upon the whole country, but at length was induced by the suppliant jurors to confirm the law of Edward. This, it is explained, was really the law of Edgar, but, from Edgar’s death until the accession of the Confessor, law had slumbered in England—thus does this romancer strive to blacken the memory of Cnut, the great lawgiver. Little, if any, use is made of the Anglo-Saxon dooms; loose, oral tradition is the author’s best warrant. Unfortunately, however, the patriotic and ecclesiastical leanings of his book made it the most popular of all the old law-books.⁷¹ In the thirteenth century it was venerable; even Bracton quoted from it.⁷² A second and more polished edition of it was soon made by its author’s or another’s hand; also there is a French version. And then men added to it other pious legends about the good old days when sheriffs were elective and the like. It has gone on doing its bad work down to our own time. It should only be used with extreme caution, for its statements, when not supported by other evidence, [p.82] will hardly tell us more than that some man of the twelfth century, probably some man of Henry I.’s day, would have liked those statements to be true.⁷³

Character of the law disclosed by the Leges.The picture that these law-books set before us is that of an ancient system which has received a rude shock from without while within it was rapidly decaying. The men who would state the existing law are compelled to take the old English dooms as the basis for their work, even though they can hardly understand the Old English language. The old dooms are written law; they have not been abrogated; they have been confirmed; other written law there is none or next to none; Normandy has none; northern France has none, or none that is not effete. At a pinch a man may find something useful in the new science of the canonists, in the aged Lex Salica, in vague rumours of Roman law which come from afar. Any rule that looks authoritative and reasonable is welcome; we may say that it is law because it ought to be law. But in the main we must make the best of the dooms of Cnut and the older dooms. And the difficulty of making much that is good of them is not caused merely by the collision of two races, or by any preference of the Normans for laws that are not English. No doubt in the local courts confusion had been confounded by the influx of conquering Frenchmen; but there were causes enough of confusion which would have done their work even had there been no ethnical conflict to aid them. Everywhere in western Europe new principles of social and political order were emerging; new classes were being formed; the old laws, the only written laws, were becoming obsolete; the state was taking a new shape. If from the northern France or from the Germany of the first years of the twelfth century we could have a law-book, [p.83] it would not be very simple or elegant