At its recently concluded annual meeting the American Society for Legal History awarded its Sutherland Prize for best article on the legal history of Britain and/or the British Empire to Jake Stattel “Legal culture in the Danelaw: a study of III Aethelred,” Anglo/Saxon England 49 (2022): 163-203. Here is the citation:
--Dan ErnstIn 997 AD King Aethelred announced two law codes: one for his English kingdoms (the Woodstock code) and one for the area known as the Danelaw (the Wantage Code). While broadly similar, the two codes also contain important differences. These differences are the subject of Stattel’s erudite and impressive essay. Historians have usually understood these provisions as markers of the uneasy integration of Danish lands into the English kingdoms. Some see the differences as Athelred’s attempt to confirm English dominion over Danelaw territories; some see it as a necessary concession to the authority of Anglo-Scandinavian elites within the kingdom. Stattel provides a fresh approach. Reframing the question to explore what these codes reveal about legal culture rather than about the political reach of the Anglo-Saxons, Stattel sketches out some of the distinctive legal assumptions of society within the Danelaw regions. These differences, he shows us, were not minor matters of procedure but rather divergent ideas about best practice.
Jake Stattel
Focusing on collective liability, access to legal recourse, and methods of proof, Stattel makes visible the distinctiveness of Anglo-Scandinavian communities long after their submission to Anglo-Saxon monarchs. He uses an array of tools, textual and material, to trace a system in which the Danelaw was both a part of and apart from the dominant society. His sources range from language to archeology to scientific insights, from charters and chronicles to bones and isotopes. Stattel persuasively argues that the Danelaw is best understood within the context of Scandinavian traditions. In the Danelaw regions, smaller communities allowed for higher standards of mutual responsibility, more stringent requirements for invoking formal law, and a preference for fact-finding over oath-taking. These practices suggest the continued influence of the Anglo-Scandinavian elites upon the broader legal structures and in some cases, they offer early examples of what would become standard English processes. Stattel’s arguments are clearly presented and thoughtfully constructed. Moreover, he shows us that for law as for other aspects of society, balancing written and material evidence rather than favoring one over the other pays off. This essay goes far beyond a close reading of one early law code; it has important implications for how we understand law’s ability both to reinforce power and to coopt diversity.
