Note III. p. . The Laws of Cnut

Cnut’s code will be found in Thorpe’s Laws and Institutes (i. 358) and in Schmid’s Gesetze der Angelsachsen (250). The exact date is uncertain. The heading itself tells us only that the laws were enacted by the authority of the Witan (“mid his witena geþeahte,” “venerando ejus sapientum consilio”) in a midwinter Gemót at Winchester. Kemble (ii. 259) refers them to some Gemót between 1016 and 1020. Lappenberg (467, ii. 202 Thorpe) argues, from the fact that Cnut in the heading calls himself King of the Norwegians, and also from the mention of Peter’s pence (c. 9. about “Romfeoh.” Cf. in the letter “denarii quos Romæ ad sanctum Petrum debemus”), that they must be later than the pilgrimage to Rome and the conquest of Norway, that is later than 1028. Schmid in his Preface (lv.), on the ground that Cnut never uses his Danish or Norwegian titles in his English charters, looks on them as an interpolation here. The Norwegian title is absent in one manuscript, and Schmid also quotes a text which contains the words, “And þæt was gewordon sóna swá Cnut cyngc, mid his witena geþeaht, frið and freóndscipe betweox Denum and Englum fullice gefæstnode and heora ǽrran saca getwǽmde.” He therefore holds that the midwinter Gemót spoken of in the heading was one which immediately followed the Oxford Gemót of 1018 (see p. ). I follow Lappenberg in placing the laws late in Cnut’s reign, because they seem to me to breathe the spirit of that part of his life, the same spirit which we find expressed in the Roman letter. It strikes me that the scribe quoted by Schmid confounded these laws with the renewal of Eadgar’s Law, from which they are evidently distinct.

The hunting code to which I have referred in p. seems to me to carry its own confutation with it. What can be made of such a division of society as we find there? (Thorpe, i. 426; Schmid, 318). First we hear (c. 2) of “mediocres homines, quos Angli ‘les þegenes’ (or ‘læs-þegnas,’ see Schmid’s note) nuncupant, Dani vero ‘yoongmen vocant;’” then (c. 3) of “liberales quos Dani (sic) ‘ealdermen’ appellant;” then (c. 4) of “minuti homines quos ‘tineman’ Angli dicunt;” lastly (c. 12) of “liberalis homo, i. e. þegen.” Schmid (lvi.) seems by no means clear of its genuineness. Kemble however (ii. 80) seems to have no doubt, and he conjectures that the clause (c. 30) in which the right of every freeman to hunt on his own ground is asserted as strongly as it is in the undoubted laws was forced upon Cnut by the Witan. This is going rather far in the way of conjecture.

After reading Cnut’s laws, and comparing them with the testimonies already quoted from Florence and William of Malmesbury (see p. , cf. 441), the following declamation of John of Wallingford (Gale, 549) seems strange indeed; “Successitque ei [Eadmundo] ex prædictæ concordiæ conditione Cnuto Danus et hostis potius Anglorum quam regnator, immutavitque statim statuta et leges scriptas patriæ, et consuetudines, et populum, qui sub omni honore et libertate tempore suorum regum exstiterat, sub gravi jugo coëgit, nihilque de Ælfredi boni regis et justi, qui ab undique bonas consuetudines collegerat et scripserat, audire noluit statutis. Sed et omnia quæ vel ipse vel successores legitime sanxerant, ad suam studuit reducere voluntatem. Sicque factum, ut prædia et possessiones et antiqua præclarorum virorum tenementa suæ adscriberet ditioni. Porro quot et quanta sub pallio ejus protectionis facta fuerint injusta, non est scriptura quæ possit explicare.”