Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

264 10. law in the western kingdoms
the Formulae and the Edictum Theodorici) will give us provisional guidance.
There are four main types:
1 Manuals of instruction written in the vernacular by judges for aspirant
judges. This category is characteristic of Ireland.
2 Collections of decrees written in the vernacular, without any overt subdivisions
marked by ‘titles’ – i.e. headings that group together a series of
decrees. This type is found in Kent, and later elsewhere in England.
3 Collections of decrees written in Latin and with titles, but with numerous
vernacular glosses, and also vernacular terms given Latin inflexions.
This type is exemplified by the Pactus Legis Salicae.
4 Collections of decrees written in Latin with titles, with some vernacular
terms but without vernacular glosses. This category is exemplified by the
Liber Constitutionum of the Burgundians, promulgated in 517 by king
Sigismund.
As can easily be seen, these types are largely progressive – for example, in
the amount of vernacular allowed into the text; and they also show variation
from north to south. They suggest, as we shall see, that the influence
of Roman models declined as one moved away from the Mediterranean. I
shall follow this suggestion by organizing my account of the different Laws
geographically, beginning in the north and proceeding southwards towards
the Mediterranean. One reason why this is the best approach is that the date
of some crucial texts is debatable. For that reason a chronological approach
will tend to make too many assumptions.
In order to understand a law from the inside, it is necessary to grasp the
central ideas used by legislator, judge and litigant alike. It is here, rather than
in the details of any given rule, that it may be possible to make the connection
between lawbook and law as it functioned in society. A good place to
begin is with the construction of the individual decree in the Frankish sphere
of influence. That will make it possible both to analyse the structure of texts
and also to gain some notion of the way the law was used in court. Here it is
particularly appropriate to proceed from north to south: since Æthelberht’s
Law and those of his seventh-century successors as kings of Kent were in
the vernacular, they offer a better insight into the terms used in court and
council than can be gained by analysing only Latin texts. 19 Bede also offers
an interesting account of Æthelberht’s Law, while the Law of Hlothhere and
Eadric (673–85) has a prologue which exhibits the legislators’ stance towards
their predecessors. Bede represents Æthelberht’s law-making as a royal activity
on behalf of his people, the Cantware, by whom the laws were observed,
Bede says, up to the time at which he was writing. 20 The laws themselves are
19 For the inclusion of Æthelberth’s Kent within the Frankish sphere, see Wood (1983) and (1992).
20 Bede, HE ii.5.
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