Language, Law, and Landscape in the Anglo-Saxon World

Abstract

Legal assemblies in the pre-Roman Germanic world derived their power from ritual actions and patron deities. This legitimacy persisted throughout the period of state formation and formed a basis for popular negotiation with the expanding rule of chieftains and kings. In Anglo-Saxon England the significant landscapes of meeting, which included stones, trees, and hills, continued to have symbolic value after Christianization. Through analysis of place-names and early administrative boundaries, it is possible to reconstruct pre-state territories and their central assemblies, and to trace their history into later periods as archaic places of memory.

Keywords:

• Anglo-Saxon
• assembly
• law
• paganism
• territory

Notes

1. Research into early medieval assembly sites in England is currently being undertaken by Landscapes of Governance, an interdisciplinary project of University College London: see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/assembly. I am extremely grateful to John Baker and Stuart Brookes at Landscapes of Governance for their hospitality and conversation.

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Notes on contributors

Jeremy Harte

Jeremy Harte is an independent researcher into the folklore of landscape and intersections of the mundane with the supernatural. He has also published in the fields of onomastics, archaeology, and local history, and is curator of Bourne Hall Museum at Ewell in Surrey. His books include Explore Fairy Traditions (2004) and English Holy Wells (2008) (both Wymeswold: Heart of Albion).