THE RECTITUDINES SINGULARUM PERSONARUM: ANGLO-SAXON LANDSCAPES IN TRANSITION A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of the University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts S. Jay Lemanski August, 2005 THE RECTITUDINES SINGULARUM PERSONARUM: ANGLO-SAXON LANDSCAPES IN TRANSITION S. Jay Lemanski Thesis Approved: Accepted: _______________________________ _____________________________ Advisor Dean of the College Constance Bouchard Charles Monroe _______________________________ _____________________________ Co-Advisor Dean of the Graduate School Michael Graham George Newkome _______________________________ _____________________________ Department Chair Date Constance Bouchard ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Initial thanks must be given to Gill Cannell, librarian at the Parker Library in Cambridge, who not only provided me with a photostatic copy of the Rectitudines singularum personarum, but also a full physical description of the manuscript in which it is found. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Paul Harvey, professor emeritus at the University of Durham. When I was first considering this project, he was kind enough to look over my proposal, and offered both guidance and encouragement. Finally, I must express my debt to my advisor, Dr. Constance Bouchard, who for many months patiently listened to my thoughts regarding this text, and gave invaluable suggestions and guidance for my research and the writing of my thesis. The depth of her insights coupled with a genuinely caring encouragement are in keeping with the best pedagogical tradition. SOLI DEO GLORIA iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER Page I. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1 The Anglo-Saxon and Latin Versions of the RSP ...................................................3 Outline of Presentation ............................................................................................4 Historiography of the RSP.......................................................................................5 II. THE TEXT OF THE RECTITUDINES SINGULARUM PERSONARUM ..................14 The Manuscript ......................................................................................................14 Date........................................................................................................................15 Notes on Transcription...........................................................................................16 Notes on Translation..............................................................................................17 The Anglo-Saxon Text...........................................................................................19 Modern English Translation ..................................................................................27 Commentary...........................................................................................................35 III. THE PHYSICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON ESTATE...................59 Historiography .......................................................................................................62 The Estate of the RSP ............................................................................................75 Conclusions............................................................................................................85 IV. THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON ESTATE........................86 iv The Purpose of the RSP .........................................................................................87 The Gebur and the Lord’s Fields ...........................................................................98 Conclusions..........................................................................................................111 V. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................114 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................119 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................123 APPENDIX A. LEXICON .................................................................................124 APPENDIX B. INDEX TO THE RSP................................................................145 APPENDIX C. GLOSSARY ..............................................................................155 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Rectitudines singularum personarum (RSP) is a document, probably composed in the early eleventh century, which describes the various classes of tenants and functionaries of an Anglo-Saxon estate, their obligations and their privileges. Sometime in the twelfth century, the RSP was translated into Latin and included in a collection of legal documents from Anglo-Saxon England called the Quadripartitus. The importance of this text for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon society is amply illustrated by the fact that the RSP has been discussed in every important scholarly book on Anglo- Saxon England.1 Utilizing the information gained from the archaeological advances of the past thirty years and integrating it with the documentary evidence we have, I will demonstrate that the RSP was written during a time in which Anglo-Saxon England was going through a major transition in rural settlement patterns and in manorial management structures. I will also propose that it is against this backdrop of change and social upheaval that the RSP must be understood, and that the purpose of its composition was not simply to provide a practical guide to managing an estate, but that it was also written 1One may point to only a few examples: Frederic Seebohm, The English Village Community (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1883); Paul Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1905); Frank M. Stenton, Anglo- Saxon England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1943); and H. R. Lyon, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, 2d ed. (London and New York: Longman, 1991). vi to provide an example of what the author considered to be a socially just arrangement between tenants and lord on a manor. However, a reevaluation of the RSP’s function necessitates a new reading of the document itself with new interpretations and translations of certain portions of the text. It is, therefore one goal of this thesis to provide a new translation of this text with commentary based solely on the Anglo-Saxon version of the text. The need for a new edition of this text is suggested by the fact that it was not until the 1950s that a full English translation by David C. Douglas of the RSP became available in English Historical Documents.2 But this translation was included in an anthology of early English texts, and was intended merely to provide the reader with a broad exposure to its content, and to set it within the even broader context of other early English legal texts. For this reason, Douglas’s translation is not always consistent and on occasion fails to translate certain sections of the text. Being mindful of the difficulties involved in translating such a specialized text with a high volume of technical terminology, I hope that this translation will nevertheless provide an accurate rendering of the text’s meaning in light of contemporary research. The Anglo-Saxon and Latin Versions of the RSP 2David C. Douglas, ed., English Historical Documents, vol. 2, 1042-1189 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 813-816. vii The Anglo-Saxon Version of the RSP is currently represented by only one manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 383, a twelfth-century copy of the text. It was also during the early twelfth century that the RSP, along with many other Anglo-Saxon laws and legal texts, were translated into Latin and collected in a work called the Quadripartitus. This work is represented by 9 extant manuscripts, each of which contains a slightly different collection of Anglo-Saxon legal texts. Of these manuscripts the RSP is contained in four: M, R, T and Hk.3 While it is instructive to compare the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin versions of the RSP, it should be remembered that the Latin version was composed roughly a century after the Anglo-Saxon version. Significantly, the Latin translation also came after the Norman Conquest, and must be understood as part of an effort to redefine, or at least incorporate, pre-Conquest Anglo- Saxon law into the new legal context of post-Conquest England. Since the purpose of this study, however, is to understand the RSP purely within its Anglo-Saxon context, the discussion of this text will be based solely on the Anglo-Saxon version. Further, in order to avoid unintentionally integrating anachronistic social constructs into a pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon context, I will avoid consulting the Latin for the translation and the analysis of the text. Outline of Presentation 3Patrick Wormald, “Quadripartitus,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy, ed. George Garnett and John Hudson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 122-123. viii The first chapter of the thesis will provide a new edition of the Anglo-Saxon version of the RSP (based on an examination of a photostatic copy of the manuscript) as well as a modern English translation. This is accompanied by a commentary on the various sections of the text citing previous translations and discussions. The third chapter will review the efforts of