Frederick Levi Attenborough (1887-1973) studied at Cambridge and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College between 1920 and 1925. He later became the Principal of University College, Leicester. In 1922 Cambridge University Press published his edition of the early Anglo-Saxon laws, with a facing-page modern English translation. A few years earlier, Felix Lieberman had published his monumental three-volume Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, which is still the definitive specialist edition of the laws (as Attenborough rightly predicted), and which is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Attenborough explains that his work is for social and legal historians who do not read German, or do not require the full critical apparatus and contextual material provided by Lieberman. Attenborough's book covers the laws from Aethelbert to Aethelstan; in 1925 Cambridge published a continuation by Agnes Robertson, The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, which is also available
This edition of the laws promulgated by successive Anglo-Saxon rulers over a period of five centuries was published in three volumes between 1903 and 1916 by the German historian Felix Lieberman (1851-1925), and is still regarded as authoritative. This unique body of early medieval legal writing, unparalleled in other Germanic languages, provides valuable source material for scholars of Old English and of legal history, and Lieberman's thorough engagement with the manuscripts has never been surpassed. Volume 3 provides introductions to each set of laws presented in Volume 1, and detailed line-by-line explanatory notes that complement the dictionary and glossary of terms found in Volume 2. Frederick Attenborough's The Laws of the Early English Kings (1922), providing a modern English translation of early Anglo-Saxon laws, is also reissued in this series
This edition of the laws promulgated by successive Anglo-Saxon rulers over a period of five centuries was published in three volumes between 1903 and 1916 by the German historian Felix Lieberman (1851-1925), and is still regarded as authoritative. This unique body of early medieval legal writing, unparalleled in other Germanic languages, provides valuable source material for scholars of Old English and of legal history, and Lieberman's thorough engagement with the manuscripts has never been surpassed. Volume 2 contains a dictionary of the Old English, Latin and French words found in the texts in Volume 1. The dictionary is presented in one alphabetical sequence, and is followed by a German glossary of legal terms listing references in the texts, other medieval works and later scholarship. Frederick Attenborough's The Laws of the Early English Kings (1922), providing a modern English translation of early Anglo-Saxon laws, is also reissued in this series
This edition of the laws promulgated by successive Anglo-Saxon rulers over a period of five centuries was published in three volumes between 1903 and 1916 by the German historian Felix Lieberman (1851-1925), and is still regarded as authoritative. This unique body of early medieval legal writing, unparalleled in other Germanic languages, provides valuable source material for scholars of Old English and of legal history, and Lieberman's thorough engagement with the manuscripts has never been surpassed. His preface explains that owing to factors such as the extreme variability of Old English orthography, and the existence of both Latin and Old English versions of the same material, a traditional edition using just one base manuscript with a critical apparatus would have been too unwieldy. Volume 1 introduces the manuscripts, and gives several parallel versions of each text in Old English and Latin with a facing translation into modern German. Frederick Attenborough's The Laws of the Early English Kings (1922) is also reissued in this series
Das legislative Wirken Konstantins des Großen auf dem Gebiet des Privatrechts steht in dem Ruf, mit der bis zu Diokletian fortgeführten Tradition des klassischen römischen Rechts zu brechen. Der Vergleich der Rechtssetzung beider Kaiser leidet freilich unter einer erheblichen Asymmetrie der Überlieferung, weil von Diokletian vorwiegend Reskripte, von Konstantin dagegen nur allgemeine Gesetze erhalten sind. Während jene die gesamte Privatrechtsordnung abbilden, sind diese auf punktuelle Neuerungen beschränkt und vermitteln keinen Überblick über das zu Konstantins Zeit geltende Recht. Lässt es sich daher auch nicht in seiner Gesamtheit rekonstruieren, kann man in den Konstitutionen Konstantins doch gewisse übergreifende Züge ausmachen. Hervorstechend sind einerseits das Bemühen um die Verwirklichung der rechtsgeschäftlichen Absicht als Erscheinungsform einer dogmatisch konsequenten Rechtsfortbildung, die ungeachtet ihrer rhetorischen Verbrämung in Konstantins Gesetzgebung vorherrscht. Andererseits stoßen wir auf das gegenläufige Streben nach Rechtssicherheit als dominierendes Element unter den politisch motivierten Entscheidungen. Konstantin wird dabei nicht zugunsten der beteiligten Privatrechtssubjekte, sondern allein im öffentlichen Interesse an Vermeidung und Beschleunigung von Rechtsstreitigkeiten tätig. / »Utilitas Constantiniana. Private Law Legislation at the Beginning of the Fourth Century« -- The legislative work of Constantine the Great in the area of private law has the repute of breaking with the tradition of classical Roman law continued up to Diocletian. The comparison of the legislation of both emperors suffers, though, from the asymmetry of the transmission, because only regular laws with selective innovations by Constantine have been preserved. Nevertheless, one can identify overarching traits: on the one hand, the effort to realise the intention behind legal transactions as part of a dogmatically consistent further development of the law, on the other hand, the opposing striving for legal certainty as the dominant element among the politically motivated decisions.
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