Judicial culture and social complexity: a general model from Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract

The development of so-called ‘complex societies’ is a central concern of social science, and a theme to which the discipline of archaeology has made perhaps the most significant contributions with regard to the origins and earlier development of social systems in past societies. Almost all of the features that are widely accepted as indicators of social complexity – urbanism, social hierarchy, organized religion and so on – have been characterized and placed in sequence principally through the lens of physical evidence. That other fundamental feature of complex societies – writing – provides the most accessible view of yet another key attribute: legal culture.

It is well known that legal texts are among the earliest forms of writing to survive in many regions, but in general archaeology has yet to make inroads into the study of the emergence and development of legal and judicial culture in the past. This paper focuses specifically upon judicial practice and explores the range and nature of archaeological correlates for such activity at progressive stages of societal development, from kin-based societies to large-scale polities. The case-study material is derived from Anglo-Saxon England, where an exceptional body of textual material relating to legal culture and a substantial archaeological dimension – comprising court sites, places of ordeal and confinement and execution places – facilitates a finely grained reconstruction of the emergence and development of legal culture. A general model is proposed for testing in cross-cultural and cross-chronological contexts. Notions of increasingly agglomerated administrative functions as a reflection of developing complexity are also discussed with reference to an alternative view from Anglo-Saxon England.

Keywords:

• Governance
• complexity
• Anglo-Saxon
• execution

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the helpful comments offered by two anonymous reviewers. Thanks are also due to the Leverhulme Trust who funded the ‘Landscapes of Governance’ project upon which this paper is based and Laura Sapsford for preparing Figure 1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research focuses on the archaeology and landscape history of social complexity, with a particular interest in the interdisciplinary study of governance and administration in medieval societies.