Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Anglo-Saxonism: The Remembrance and Re-Imagining of the Anglo-Saxon Past
- 2 Remembering Alfred in the Twelfth Century
- 3 The Romance of the Anglo-Saxon Past
- 4 The Romance of English Identity
- 5 In his time were gode lawes: Romance and the English Legal Past
- 6 Literary Terrains and Textual Landscapes: The Importance of the Anglo-Saxon Past in Late-Medieval Winchester
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - In his time were gode lawes: Romance and the English Legal Past
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Anglo-Saxonism: The Remembrance and Re-Imagining of the Anglo-Saxon Past
- 2 Remembering Alfred in the Twelfth Century
- 3 The Romance of the Anglo-Saxon Past
- 4 The Romance of English Identity
- 5 In his time were gode lawes: Romance and the English Legal Past
- 6 Literary Terrains and Textual Landscapes: The Importance of the Anglo-Saxon Past in Late-Medieval Winchester
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘The law occupies a crucial role in the mythology and ideology of a people.’
DURING the great rebellion of 1381 the tenants of St Alban's Abbey, led by one Walter Grindcobbe, petitioned the abbot to deliver to them charters held by the abbey that related the liberties of the vill. The abbot produced these charters, but as Stephen Justice has suggested, they seem to have lacked the confirmation of the freedoms that the rebels desired. These deficient charters were then burned, and the rebels demanded that the abbot produce one particular ‘ancient charter … with capital letters, one of gold and one of azure’. This charter, Thomas Walsingham tells us, was believed to confirm a series of liberties and privileges that had been granted to the townsfolk in the time of King Offa for their services in building the monastery. These privileges, they claimed, had once been enjoyed by the town, but had been slowly eroded over time by the abbot and the monks. The abbot, faced with pressure to produce the rumoured Anglo-Saxon charter, repeatedly denied its existence. Despite these denials the rebels would not accept that the charter did not exist, and eventually the abbot was forced to write out a new charter confirming King Offa's privileges.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance , pp. 93 - 133Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005