2
From the Old Law to the New: The Mosaic Prologue to King Alfred’s Domboc
I
n the early 890s, King Alfred justified his plan to produce translations of ‘the books most necessary for all people to know’ by drawing his bishops’ attention to the fact that the Law (
æ) was first composed in Hebrew before it was turned into Greek, Latin and the languages of all Christian peoples.
1 See above, Introduction, pp. 3–4 In referring to the Law, Alfred probably had in mind the Laws of Moses contained in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Christian Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It would not be until a century later that an Old English prose translation of the Pentateuch was produced.
2 See Chapter Three. Yet, during Alfred’s own reign, translations of the legal sections of Exodus (Ex. 20–23.13) together with the ‘Apostolic Letter’ from the New Testament Book of Acts (Acts 15.23–9) were incorporated into the so-called ‘Mosaic Prologue’ to the king’s law code or
Domboc.
3 The Domboc is preserved in the mid-tenth-century manuscript Cambridge Corpus Christi College 173 fols 33–52v; Ker §39. A later copy survives in the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis, in addition to several fragments in other manuscripts. The text of the Domboc together with the Mosaic Prologue was recently edited and translated in full by Stefan Jurasinski and Lisi Oliver, The Laws of Alfred: The Domboc and the Making of English Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). All citations and translations are from this edition; section numbers marked § are those originally assigned by Liebermann and replicated in all subsequent editions. For succinct discussion of the manuscript history, see also Frantzen, King Alfred, 11–12. For an overview of scholarship on the Domboc, see Mary P. Richards, ‘The Laws of Alfred and Ine’, in Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 282–309. The Mosaic Prologue has mainly attracted attention from legal historians on account of its unusual treatment of the Decalogue and its relationship to various putative sources. In addition to the base text of the Vulgate,
4 See Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 15 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 401–2. it has been proposed that the author was influenced by works such as the
Liber ex Lege Moysi, a seventh-century Breton composition containing legal excerpts from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy,
5 The text is edited in Sven Meeder, ‘The Liber ex lege Moysi: Notes and Text’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 19 (2009), 173–218. For connections with the Domboc, see Felix Liebermann, ‘King Alfred and Mosaic Law’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society 6 (1912), 21–31; Bryan Carella, ‘The Source of the Prologue to the Laws of Alfred’, Peritia 19 (2005), 91–118; Bryan Carella, ‘Evidence for Hiberno-Latin Thought in the Prologue to the Laws of Alfred’, SP 108 (2011), 1–26; Bryan Carella, ‘Asser’s Bible and the Prologue to the Laws of Alfred’, Anglia 130 (2012), 195–206; Pratt, Political Thought, p. 230. However, Anya Adair has recently stressed the independence of the Mosaic Prologue from earlier legal works such as the Liber ex Lege Moysi, highlighting how its author displayed ‘a freedom in the omission or inclusion of the laws themselves, a willingness to intervene substantially in the biblical text on doctrinal grounds, and an interest in the legal logic that sequences and links the biblical clauses’: ‘A Troublesome Source: The Liber Ex Lege Moysi and the Mosaic Prologue to King Alfred’s Domboc’, American Notes & Queries 35 (2022), 212–17, at 215. and the
Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanorum, a late antique work which aligns excerpts from the Pentateuch with Roman law.
6 Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 418. More broadly, Patrick Wormald has highlighted affinities with the political thought of the great Carolingian theologian Hincmar of Rheims (d. 882), who traced the development of written law from the period before Moses, when humankind lived under Natural Law, through the
lex litterae (ʼlaw of the letter’)
given by God to Moses and the
lex Evangelii (‘law of the Gospel’) preached by Christ and the Apostles, up to the writings of contemporary secular lawgivers.
7 Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 423–5. See further Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 223–9; and Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 61–9. Less attention, however, has been paid to the Mosaic Prologue as a literary work in its own right or as a major Old English biblical translation.
8 Marsden describes the Mosaic Prologue as ‘the earliest surviving example of continuous biblical prose translation in Old English’ (Text of the Old Testament, p. 401). Jurasinski and Oliver similarly describe the Mosaic Prologue as ‘a lengthy translation into English of biblical material – the earliest extant since we have no trace of Bede’s rendering of the Fourth Gospel’ (The Laws of Alfred, p. xiv). For studies which focus on the Domboc and its prologue as literature, see esp. Frantzen, King Alfred, pp. 11–21; Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 214–41; and Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 416–29. As Frantzen points out, the division of the laws into 120 chapters ‘reflects a literary tradition rather than a logical necessity’ (King Alfred, p. 13), seeing as Moses was said to have lived for 120 years; for further discussion of this division, see further Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 417–18. For a recent discussion of the prologue and its literary contexts, see Irvine, Alfredian Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 143–50. This chapter will therefore concentrate on how the author confidently and at times creatively translated, adapted and interpreted various biblical sources to cater for the needs of a specific readership.
Alfred’s ‘Domboc’ and its background
The laws of English kings had been written out in vernacular prose since the conversion of Æthelberht of Kent in 597, making law, as Stefan Jurasinski and Lisi Oliver point out, ‘the most ancient of the Old English prose genres’.
9 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 3. Each English law code features some prefatory or introductory material, which usually provides an authorising frame by referring to the king in whose name the laws were issued, as well as an appeal to Christian authority. The issuing of Alfred’s
Domboc at some point in the 880s or 890s, however, marks a major development in English law. In asserting its incorporation of elements from earlier laws issued by the kings of Kent, Mercia, and Wessex, the
Domboc mirrors the new political reality of what Simon Keynes has called Alfred’s ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons,’ which united these once-independent realms under a single West Saxon ruler.
10 See Simon Keynes, ‘Alfred the Great and the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, in Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 13–46. Furthermore, the
Domboc portrays Alfred himself as a wise guardian and enforcer of Christian justice.
11 For discussion of new laws protecting the king’s authority and prohibiting rebellion in the Domboc, see below, pp. 72–4. Patrick Wormald places the Domboc’s composition after 893 (The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, Vol. 1: Legislation and its Limits [Oxford: Blackwell, 1999], pp. 281, 286), but Pratt dates it to ‘between Fulk’s letter (886) and 893 (Asser’s Life)’ (Political Thought, p. 219). Key to what David Pratt calls the
Domboc’s ‘reorientation of royal law’ is its elaborate and lengthy prologue, which positions Alfred’s laws within the long history of Judeo-Christian legislation stretching back to the moment when God issued the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.
12 Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 214–41. Patrick Wormald notes that the Mosaic Prologue ‘occupies over a fifth of the total book’, making it unparalleled in length among the prefatory materials attached to ‘any other medieval law text’ (Making of English Law, p. 418).Alfred’s personal involvement in the administration of law is described in detail by Asser in the closing chapter of the
Life of Alfred (ch. 106). Echoing the biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon (I Kings 16.3–28), Asser relates how Alfred ‘used also to sit at judicial hearings for the benefit both of his nobles and of the common people’, looking carefully into all judgements passed in his absence throughout his realm.
13 Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, p. 92: Studebat is quoque in iudiciis etiam propter nobelium et ignobilium suorum utilitatem. Asser compares Alfred to Solomon in his love of wisdom in Life of Alfred, ch. 75. This image of Alfred’s active involvement in adjudication is confirmed by the early tenth-century Fonthill Letter, which depicts the king washing his hands as he listens to an arbitration hearing concerning land ownership before passing judgement. If any judgement were found to be unjust in the king’s view, Alfred would admonish his judges for neglecting ‘the study and application of wisdom’, commanding them either to relinquish their office ‘or else to apply yourselves much more attentively to the pursuit of wisdom’.
14 Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, p. 93: sapientiae autem studium et operam neglexistis. […] aut sapitentiae studiis multo devotius docere ut studeatis, impero. In Asser’s account, the king’s threat to remove his judges from office appears to have had its desired effect, inspiring them to acquire the basic reading skills that they had neglected in their youth:
ita ut mirum in modum illiterati ab infantia comites pene omnes, praepositi ac ministri literatoriae arti studerent, malentes insuetam disciplinam quam laboriose discere, quam potestatum ministeria dimittere. Sed si aliquis litteralibus studiis aut pro senio vel etiam pro nimia inusitati ingenii tarditate proficere non valeret, suum, si haberet, filium, aut etiam aliquem propinquum hominem, liberum vel servum, quem ad lectionem longe ante promoverat, libros ante se die nocteque, quandocunque unquam ullam haberet licentiam, Saxonicos imperabat recitare.
15 Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, p. 94.[As a result, nearly all the ealdormen and reeves and thegns (who were illiterate from childhood) applied themselves in an amazing way to learning how to read, preferring rather to learn this unfamiliar discipline (no matter how laboriously) than to relinquish their offices of power. But if one of them – either because of his age or because of the unresponsive nature of his unpractised intelligence – was unable to make progress in learning to read, the king commanded the man’s son (if he had one) or some relative of his, or even (if he had no one else) a man of his own – whether freeman or slave – whom he had caused to be taught to read long before, to read out books in English to him by day and night, or whenever he had the opportunity.]
16 Keynes and Lapidge, p. 110 (with modifications).Asser’s reference to the reading of books in English (Saxonicos) suggests that to be literate in this context meant the ability to understand the written form of the vernacular rather than Latin – as we have seen, this accords with the limited education which Alfred recommends for the lay nobility in the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care. Asser presents the judges whom Alfred chastises as men of an older generation who had missed out on the benefits of his newly founded scholae on account of their advanced years:
Et suspirantes nimium intima mente dolebant, eo quod in iuventute sua talibus studiis non studuerant, felices arbitrantes huius temporis iuvenes, qui liberalibus artibus feliciter erudiri poterant, se vero infelices existimantes, qui nec hoc in iuventute didicerant, nec etiam in senectute, quamvis inhianter desiderarent, poterant discere. Sed hanc senum iuvenumque in discendis literis solertiam ad praefati regis notitiam explicavimus.
17 Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, pp. 94–95.[Sighing greatly from the bottom of their hearts, these men regretted that they had not applied themselves to such pursuits in their youth, and considered the youth of the present day to be fortunate, who had the luck to be instructed in the liberal arts, but counted themselves unfortunate because they had not learned such things in their youth nor even in their old age, even though they ardently wished that they had been able to do so. But I have explained this concern for learning how to read among the young and old in order to give some idea of the character of King Alfred.]
18 Keynes and Lapidge, p. 110.Alfred’s frustration with these same men’s ignorance in legal matters seems to have led to the production of the Mosaic Prologue to the
Domboc, which provides them with an accessible and succinct primer in the evolution of written Judeo-Christian law.
19 See Treschow, ‘Spirit of Mercy’, 82; Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 53–61. On the value attached to written law more generally, see Wormald, Making of English Law; and Pratt Political Thought, pp. 214–18. Felix Liebermann, whose edition remained the standard text until that of Jurasinski and Oliver, had earlier argued that Alfred’s main aim was, ‘through a Humanitätsideal, first to raise the consciousness of his judges, and ultimately the Rechskultur of the nation’: Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903–16), III, p. 36, trans. by Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 422. Hence, for example, in describing how the apostles responded to the initial lack of success of their mission, the Mosaic Prologue states that they then set down their teaching in the form of an
ærendgewrit (‘written document’), whereas the biblical source, Acts 15.22–3, simply records that the apostles and ancients wrote
per manus (‘by their hands’).
20 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 60. For the text, see Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 266–7. Through this emphasis on the written form of the apostles’ teaching, the Mosaic Prologue instructs Alfred’s judges that writing, rather than oral custom, is the proper medium for the Christian laws which they are charged with upholding.
Contents and Structure
The Mosaic Prologue opens with a translation of Exodus 20–23.13, comprising the Decalogue (MP §1–10; Ex. 20.1–23) and a long section of Old Testament laws (MP §11–48; Ex. 21–23.9).
21 These laws include: instructions on the treatment of slaves and homicides; compensation for physical injury and cursing; punishments for theft, breaking and entering, damage to property and the seduction of virgins; prohibitions against the receiving of enchanters, magicians and witches, bestiality and idolatry, the harming of widows and orphans, the abusive lending of property, blasphemy, the eating of unclean meat, bribery, the mistreatment of foreigners and the invocation of heathen gods. The second section is an abbreviated paraphrase of the Apostolic Letter (MP §49.2–49.5; Acts 15.23–9), which explains how the Old Law’s emphasis on retributive justice was modified in the New Law preached by Christ and the Apostles through the new doctrine of mercy (OE
mildheortnesse).
22 See Michael Treschow, ‘The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy’, Florilegium 13 (1994), 79–110. The Mosaic Prologue concludes with a paraphrase of the Golden Rule, that is the principle that one should treat others as one would expect to be treated by them (§49.5). There follows a ‘second prologue’ (MP §49.7–8) which explains the
Domboc’s
relationship to preceding English law codes, before the long list of Alfred’s laws themselves begins.
Hearing the Voice of the Lord
The most immediately striking stylistic feature of the opening of the prologue is the author’s decision to render the past simple
verb in the opening clause of the Vulgate (Ex. 20.1:
Locutusque est Dominus cunctos sermones hos, ‘And the Lord
spoke all these words’) in the past continuous tense (
Dryhten wæs sprecende ðas word to Moyse and þus cwæð, ‘The Lord
was speaking these words to Moses and said as follows’).
23 This opening verse is omitted in the Liber ex lege Moysi, which begins instead with Ex 20.2: Ego sum dominus deus tuus, qui eduxit te de terra aegypti, de domo seruitutis. By contrast, the Old English Heptateuch follows the grammar of the Vulgate here in using the past indicative:
God spræc þus (‘God spoke thus’).
24 On the prose Exodus, see pp. 177–81. Indeed, the passive continuous form of the Old English verb
sprecan (‘to speak, say’) is used only once to translate the past indicative Latin form
locutus est in the Old English Heptateuch, in the account of how the Lord instructed Moses to go and die on Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 32.48):
Vulgate: locutusque est Dominus ad Mosen in eadem die dicens
[And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying]
OE Heptateuch: Drihten wæs ða sprecende to Moyse, ðus cweðende
25 Richard Marsden, ed., The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric’s ‘Libellus de veteri testament et novo’, 2 vols, EETS o.s. 330 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), I, p. 175. Volume II of this edition, containing commentary and glossary, remains unpublished at the time of writing.[The Lord was speaking then to Moses, saying thus.] (Emphases added)
The collocation of the noun
Dryhten with the verb phrase
wæs sprecende occurs once elsewhere in Alfredian prose for locutus est and once for the gerund loquens,
26 Romanum Psalter: Deus deorum Dominus locutus est > Prose Psalm 49.1: Dryhtna Dryhten wæs sprecende (‘The Lord of lords was speaking’) (O’Neill, ed. and trans., Old English Psalms, pp. 182–3; O’Neill translates wæs sprecende as ‘said’). Cf. Cura Pastoralis III.34: Ecce de caelo dominus loquens persecutoris sui facta corripuit, nec tamen ilico quae essent facienda monstrauit > Pastoral Care 58: Loca nu, hu Dryhten wæs sprecende of hefonum to his ehtere, and hine ðreade for his ærgedonan weorcum (‘See, now, how the Lord was speaking from heaven to his persecutor and upbraided him for his previous accusations’ (Fulk, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, pp. 494–95). while Ælfric uses the construction once to translate the imperfect form
loquebatur and once in a passage with no direct Latin source.
27 CH I.35 (pp. 630–1): Loquebatur Iesus cum discipulis suis in parabolis, dicens, et reliqua. Drihten wæs sprecende on sumere tide to his apostolum mid bigspellum, þus cweþende (‘Jesus was speaking to his disciples in parables, saying, etc. The Lord was speaking at a certain time to his apostles in parables, saying’); CH I.40 (pp. 734–5): Se godspellere lucas awrat on þysum dægiþerlicum godspelle þæt ure drihten wæs sprecende þysum wordum to his leorningcnihtum (‘The Evangelist Luke wrote in this day’s gospel that our Lord was speaking in these words to his disciples’). All citations from the Catholic Homilies are from CH I and CH II, with some modifications of punctuation and orthography. The rarity of the construction suggests that the use of the past continuous translation here was a deliberate stylistic choice designed to place the reader
in medias res on Mount Sinai where the law was first delivered by God to Moses.
28 Treschow notes that this grammatical choice ‘adds dramatic immediacy to the narrative’ (‘Spirit of Mercy’, 82). Stefan Jurasinski (personal communication) notes that the Sermon on the Mount, a text that is typically read in conjunction with the Ten Commandments, opens with a series of present participles: Mt. 5. 1–2: videns autem turbas ascendit in montem et cum sedisset accesserunt ad eum discipuli eius et aperiens os suum docebat eos dicens (‘And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set down, his disciples came unto him. And opening his mouth he taught them, saying’). The opening words of the Mosaic Prologue might therefore be said to be preparing the reader for the Christological interpretation of Mosaic Law that appears in the prologue more generally from the outset. For the use of Mt. 5 in the Mosaic Prologue §49, see below. The translation of this passage in the Wessex Gospels renders each of these present continuous verbs in the past simple: Soðlice þa se Hælend geseh þa menigu, he astah on þone munt; and þa he sæt, þa genealæhton his leorningcnihtas to him. And he ontynde his muð and lærde hi, and cwæð (‘Truly when the Saviour saw the multitude, he went up onto that mountain; and when he sat, then his disciples drew to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, and said’). A similar stylistic choice is made in the opening section of the prose preface to another Alfredian text, the Soliloquies, the sole twelfth-century copy of which begins with a woodsman already engaged in the act of gathering building materials: Gaderode me þonne kigclas and stuþansceaftas and lohsceaftas (‘Then for myself I gathered sturdy sticks and supporting beams and wall posts’): Leslie Lockett, ed. and trans., Augustine’s ‘Soliloquies’ in Old English and in Latin, DOML 76 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022), pp. 182–3.The likelihood that the use of the past continuous was a conscious artistic decision increases when we consider that the same construction appears, with some variation, in a passage for which there is no known Latin source which rounds off the Mosaic Prologue’s summary of Exodus:
§49 Þis sindan ða domas þe se ælmihtega God self sprecende wæs to Moyse and him bebead to healdanne
[These are the judgments that the almighty God himself
was speaking to Moses and bade him keep.]
29 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 162–3 (translation modified). (Emphases added).
The additions of the epithet se ælmihtega (‘the almighty’) and the reflexive personal pronoun self (‘himself’) underline God’s real physical presence on Mount Sinai, reminding Alfred’s judges of the sacred origin of Christian law.
The foregrounding of God’s voice in the opening sentence of the Mosaic Prologue is sustained in the translation of Ex. 20.7, presented here as the second commandment due to the omission of Ex. 20.4–6.
30 See below, p. 63–4. Here the translator substitutes the accusative Latin clause
nomen Domini Dei tui/
sui (‘the name of the Lord your/his God’) for the Old English genitive phrase
minne noman (‘my name’), as well as translating Dominus (‘the Lord’) as me, thereby reminding the reader or listener that it is the Lord himself who is speaking these words:
Ex. 20.7. Non assumes nomen Domini Dei tui in vanum, nec enim habebit insontem Dominus eum qui assumpserit nomen Domini Dei sui frustra
[You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain.]
§2. Ne minne noman ne cig ðu on idelnesse; forðon þe ðu ne bist unscyldig wið me, gif ðu on idelnesse cigst minne noman.
[You will not invoke my name idly: for you will not be guiltless with me, if you take my name idly.] (Emphases added).
An interest in the literary possibilities of voice, and what David Lawton – writing about the later medieval period – has described as ‘revoicing’, provides a further link between the Mosaic Prologue and the wider corpus of Alfredian texts.
31 David Lawton, Voice in Later Medieval English Literature: Public Interiorities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). In works such as the
Prose Psalms,
Dialogues,
Pastoral Care,
Boethius,
Soliloquies, and
Orosius as well as their respective prefaces and epilogues, the voices of various biblical and patristic authorities are ventriloquised, reinforcing and at times merging with an ‘Alfredian’ voice of contemporary royal and episcopal authority.
32 The question of voice in Alfredian literature has yet to be explored extensively: studies include Mary Kate Hurley, ‘Alfredian Temporalities: Time and Translation in the Old English Orosius’, JEGP 112 (2013), 405–32; Amy Faulkner, ‘Royal Authority in the Biblical Quotations of the Old English Pastoral Care’; Tatyana Solomonik-Pankrashova, ‘Giving Voice to the Psalms in the Alfredian Metre 4 of Boethius’, Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art 115 (2023), 140–9. See also Mark Atherton, ‘Quoting and Requoting: How the Use of Sources Affects Stylistic Choice in Old English Prose’, Studia Neophilologica 72 (2000), 6–17. In the Mosaic Prologue, however, it is the voices of Moses and the Lord (
Dryhten) himself that are revoiced, lending supreme authority to Alfred’s laws. As we shall see below, this process of biblical revoicing is taken to new heights in the second prologue, where the voice of Christ temporarily merges with that of Alfred.
Omissions and Substitutions
So often does the Mosaic Prologue diverge from its various scriptural sources that the work’s most recent editors describe it as ‘a remarkably
unfaithful translation of the laws of Moses […] and the Apostolic “Council of Jerusalem”’ (emphasis mine).
33 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 9. Wormald places the translation style somewhere between the freedom of the Boethius and Soliloquies and the more faithful approach to sources taken in the Prose Psalms and Pastoral Care (Making of English Law, p. 419). The translator’s highly selective, domesticating approach to the scriptural source is evident in the rendering of the Decalogue which opens the work (MP §1–10; Ex. 20.1–17, with an extra verse included from Ex. 20.23):
Dryhten wæs sprecende ðas word to Moyse and þus cwæð:
Ic eom Dryhten ðin God. Ic ðe utgelædde of Egipta londe and of hiora ðeowdome.
§1 Ne lufa ðu oðre fremde godas ofer me.
§2 Ne minne noman ne cig ðu on idelnesse; forðon þe ðu ne bist unscyldig wið me, gif ðu on idelnesse cigst minne noman.
§3 Gemyne þæt ðu gehalgige þone ræstedæg; wyrceað eow VI dagas and on þam siofoðan restað eow: forðam on VI dagum Crist geworhte heofonas and eorðan, sæs and ealle gesceafta þe on him sint, and hine gereste on þone siofoðan dæg, and forðon Dryhten hine gehalgode.
§4 Ara ðinum fæder and þinre medder, ða þe Dryhten sealde, þæt ðu sie þy leng libbende on eorþan.
§5 Ne sleah ðu.
§6 Ne lige ðu dearnenga.
§7 Ne stala ðu.
§8 Ne sæge ðu lease gewitnesse.
§9 Ne wilna ðu þines nehstan ierfes mid unryhte.
§10 Ne wyrc ðe gyldne godas oððe sylfrene.
[The Lord was speaking these words to Moses and said as follows:
I am the Lord your God. I led you out from the land of the Egyptians and from slavery to them.
§1 You will not love other strange gods in place of me.
§2 You will not invoke my name idly: for you will not be guiltless with me, if you take my name idly.
§3 Remember to keep holy the day of rest; you will work six days and on the seventh you shall rest; because Christ made the heavens and the earth in six days, the seas and all the creatures that are in them, and he rested on the seventh day, and therefore the Lord made it holy.
§4 Honour your father and mother, they whom the Lord gave you, so that you may live long on the earth.
§5 Do not kill.
§6 Do not fornicate.
§7 Do not steal.
§8 Do not give deceitful testimony.
§9 Do not wrongfully covet the possessions of your neighbour.
§10 Do not make for yourself gods of gold or silver
.]
34 Text and translation cited with modifications from The Laws of Alfred, ed. Jurasinksi and Oliver, pp. 224–31; I have silently emended the Tironian sign to ‘and’. The omission of the commandment on not making graven images (Ex. 20.4–6) and insertion of the prohibition against making golden or silver idols (Ex. 20.23) at the end of the Decalogue effectively creates a new tenth commandment. While this might appear a radical rewriting of Scripture, scholars have noted that the omission of the second commandment follows Western ecclesiastical custom after the iconoclasm controversy with Byzantium of the eighth century had subsided, while the inclusion of the prohibition against idols might reflect an attempt to suppress pagan practices reintroduced to Britain by the Vikings.
35 Liebermann, ‘King Alfred and Mosaic Law’, 25–6; Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 225 n. 11. Elsewhere, the translator streamlines the Vulgate source, omitting details deemed irrelevant to the lives of the
Domboc’s readers. Hence, for example, the commandment against coveting one’s neighbour’s possessions (Ex. 20.17; MP §9) is substantially abbreviated:
36 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 231 n. 17, comment that the omission of the reference to coveting one’s neighbour’s wife is probably due ‘to the influence of patristic tradition’, in which this prohibition was considered part of the same commandment as coveting one’s neighbour’s property. Liebermann notes that all eight references to the donkey or ass (Lat. asino) in the sections of Exodus translated in the prologue are omitted, doubtless reflecting the low standing this animal had in the English economy at the time (‘King Alfred and Mosaic Law’, 31); see further Treschow, ‘Spirit of Mercy’, 98.
20.17 Non concupisces domum proximi tui, nec desiderabis uxorem eius, non servum, non ancillam, non bovem, non asinum, nec omnia quae illius sunt. [You shall not covet your neighbour’s house: neither shall you desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his.] | §9 Ne wilna ðu þines nehstan ierfes mid unryhte. [Do not wrongfully covet the possessions of your neighbour.] |
Similarly, the prohibition against working on the Sabbath is curtailed through the omission of the instruction:
non facies omne opus in eo, tu, et filius tuus et filia tua, servus tuus et ancilla tua, iumentum tuum, et advena qui est intra portas tuas (‘you shall do no work on it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your beast, nor the stranger that is within your gates’) (Ex. 20.10).
37 Jurasinski and Oliver note that Ælfric also omits this list in his sermon for Mid-Lent, suggesting that ‘one or both instances may be attributable to the uncertain (and disputed) nature of Sunday observance in pre-Conquest England’ (The Laws of Alfred, p. 227 n. 13). More telling, however, is the replacement of Latin
Dominus with Old English
Crist in the reference to the Creator of the world in the fourth commandment on observing the sabbath (Ex. 20.11; MP §3). As Treschow notes, this small but significant translation choice anticipates the movement from the justice of the Old Mosaic Law to the mercy of the New Law of Christ that is the subject of the later sections of the prologue (§49–49.8).
38 Treschow, ‘Spirit of Mercy’, 90–91. We saw in the previous chapter how the Introductions to the
Prose Psalms establish how each psalm was sung first by David or Hezekiah and then by Christ. The following chapters will highlight how the difficulty of explaining the complex relationship between the Old and New Testaments to the laity was to become a recurring concern for Ælfric in his own biblical translations, ultimately pushing him away from word-for-word translation and towards homiletic exegesis. With the Alfredian
Prose Psalms and Mosaic Prologue, the practical necessity of providing the laity with basic biblical education in the vernacular outweighs any such theological scruples.
Following the translation of the Decalogue, the Alfredian author omits all of Exodus 20.19–26, except for a single verse, Ex. 20.23, which as we have seen was promoted into the preceding version of the Decalogue as a new ‘tenth commandment’ in place of the second commandment against making graven images (Ex. 20.4). The excised verses describe the fear of the Israelites as Moses returns from the mountain and God’s instruction to Moses to speak to them. By skipping over this narrative section, the translator keeps the focus squarely on the written laws themselves.
39 Wormald notes that the Mosaic Prologue is far more selective in its approach to Exodus than proposed sources such as the Liber ex Lege Moysi, which are more comprehensive in their listing of the laws of the Pentateuch, including, for example, a long list of curses from Deuteronomy (Making of English Law, p. 421). It is in this selective treatment of the Vulgate source, as well as the occasional reframing of biblical material to reflect contemporary concerns, that the creativity and freedom of the author of the Mosaic Prologue is most evident.
40 As we shall see in Chapter Four of this volume, the translators of the Heptateuch similarly abbreviated large and small sections of their Latin sources whenever they deemed material to be otiose.The translation of Exodus 21–23.9 (§11–48) that follows sticks fairly closely to the biblical source, though the author frequently makes small but cumulatively significant alterations in order to bring Mosaic law into line with contemporary English practice.
41 See Treschow, ‘Spirit of Mercy’, 91–102. This section contains injunctions against theft, idolatry, murder, the mistreatment of foreigners, extortionate lending of money to the poor, the eating of unclean meat and many other offences. Certain injunctions are excised as they would have had no relevance to contemporary readers, such as God’s instruction to Moses to tell the Israelites to give him their first-born sons (Ex. 22.28). Some details of the Old Law which the translator considered extraneous are omitted, such as the statement that a man shall go out with his raiment in Ex. 21.4, while others are updated to make them meaningful and intelligible – if not directly applicable – to contemporary readers. Hence, for example, the Hebrew slave (
servum Hebraeum) of Ex. 21.2 is now cast as a Christian slave (
Cristenne þeow) in §11, just as the shekels (
siclos) of Ex. 21.32 are now shillings (
scil) (MP §21).
42 Pratt, Political Thought, p. 231: ‘There can be no question of the Mosaic excerpts actually applying to Alfred’s kingdom. The effect was rather to supply a convincing impression of what law would look like without the benefits of Christian augmentation.’ Through these and many other small alterations, as well as the translator’s highly selective, functional equivalence approach to Exodus more generally, the Mosaic Prologue comprehensively ‘domesticates’ the Latin biblical source, making the unfamiliar terminology of the Old Testament intelligible and meaningful to Alfred’s judges.
Occasionally in the course of this long section, the translator saw fit to expand on the biblical source to clarify the full meaning of a law. For example, the biblical prohibition against sorcerers (Ex. 22.18:
Maleficos non patieris vivere,
‘Wizards you shall not suffer to live’) is emended in MP §30 to read:
Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan and scinlæcan and wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban (‘Those women who are accustomed to receive enchanters
and magicians and witches – do not permit them to live’). This expansion may have resulted from confusion with the preceding verse (Ex. 22.17), which contains the phrase
quam virgines accipere (‘which virgins are wont to receive’),
43 As suggested by M. H. Turk, ed. The Legal Code of Ælfred the Great (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1893), p. 37. or it may reflect contemporary concerns about the involvement of women in witchcraft as expressed in penitentials.
44 Liebermann, ‘King Alfred and Mosaic Law’, 26. See further Jurasinski and Oliver, Laws of Alfred, p. 253 n. 60. Another expansion occurs in the translator’s treatment of the opening clause of the law concerning ‘an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’:
Ex. 21.24–5: oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, manum pro manu, pedem pro pede, adiustonem pro adiustone, vulnus pro vulnere, livorem pro livore
[Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.]
MP §19: Gif hwa oðrum his eage oðdo, selle his agen fore: toð fore teð, honda wið honda, fet fore fet, bærning for bærninge, wund wið wunde, læl wið læle.
[If someone should put out another’s eye, let him give his own for it: tooth for tooth, hand for hand, feet for feet, burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise].
45 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 242–3.The Gif X […] selle Y construction used here appears frequently elsewhere in English laws, explaining the circumstances resulting in this particular injury.
Contemporary notions of sacral kingship are hinted at in the remarkable translation of Ex. 22.28,
Diis non detrahes, et principi populi tui non maledices (‘You shall not speak ill of the gods, and the prince of your people you shall not curse’), as
Ne tæl ðu ðinne Dryhten, ne ðone hlaford þæs folces ne werge þu (‘Do not blaspheme your Lord, nor may you curse the lord of the people’) (MP §38). Jurasinski and Oliver state that
hlaford here ‘should be taken to mean “king”’.
46 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 257 n. 64. The king’s special status as the Lord’s anointed (Latin:
christus) is foregrounded in other Alfredian texts such as the
Prose Psalms as well as the earliest English Coronation
ordines, while the genealogy provided for Alfred’s father, Æthelwulf, in the long Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 853, stretches back to Christ.
47 For example, Ps. 2.1: And ic eam, þeah, cincg geset fram Gode ofer his ðone halgan munt Syon, to þam þæt ic lære his willan and his æ (cf. Romanum: ego autem constitutus sum rex ab eo super Sion montem sanctum eius praedicans praeceptum Domini); Ps. 17.51: Gemycla nu and gemonigfealda þa hælo þæs cynges ðe ðu gesettest ofer folcum, and do mildheortnesse þinum gesmyredan Davide and his cynne on ecnesse (cf. Romanum: magnificans salutare regis ipsius et faciens misericordiam christo suo David et semini eius usque in saeculum). See further Stanton, Culture of Translation, p. 125. On Coronation Ordines, see Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 72–8, 232. On the West Saxon genealogy, see Daniel Anlezark, ‘Sceaf, Japheth and the Origins of the Anglo-Saxons’, ASE 31 (2006), 13–46. On this genealogy’s claim that Noah had a fourth son named Sceaf, see Chapter Five, p. 219. As we shall see below, in the second prologue to the
Domboc the words of Christ are manipulated in support of the argument that the king’s life was sacrosanct.
From the Old Law to the New
The transition from the justice of the Old Law to the mercy of the New heralded by the birth of Christ occurs in MP §49, a section which has no known direct source:
§49. Þis sindan ða domas þe se ælmihtega God self sprecende wæs to Moyse and him bebead to healdanne; and siððan se ancenneda Dryhtnes sunu, ure God, þæt is hælend Crist, on middangeard cwom, he cwæð ðæt he ne come no ðas bebodu to brecanne ne to forbeodanne, ac mid eallum godum to ecanne; and mildheortnesse and eaðmodnesse he lærde.
[These are the judgments that almighty God was speaking himself to Moses and bade him keep;
and after the only begotten son of the Lord our God, that is the saviour Christ, came into the world, he declared, that he did not come in any way to break or forbid these commandments, but rather
to increase them with all good [laws]; and he taught mercy and humility.] (Emphasis added).
48 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 262–3.As noted above, this passage echoes the opening of the Mosaic Prologue in its use of the past continuous form of the verb
sprecan to describe how God – now referred to more empathically as
se ælmihtega God self rather than simply
Dryhten – was ‘speaking’ to Moses on Mount Sinai. Having reintroduced the figure of God the Father as the ultimate source of Christian law, the translator now adopts a more homiletic style to explain the mystery of Christ’s nature in simple terms (
Dryhtnes sunu, ure God, þæt is hælend Crist). This exegetical mode is suitable for an audience who were relatively unfamiliar with – or needed regular reminders of – the basic tenets of Christian doctrine.
49 Treschow comments that this passage ‘has a credal tone that invites the readers’ assent’ (‘Spirit of Mercy’, 86). Again, there is an emphasis on speech: just as God the Father ‘
was speaking’ to Moses on Mount Sinai, so Christ
ʼdeclaredʼ that He had not come to overthrow the Old Law.
The author probably had in mind here the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.17:
nolite putare quoniam veni solvere legem, aut prophetas. Non veni solver, sed adimplere (‘Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil’).
50 Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 425, notes that Hincmar similarly emphasises mercy as the key element that distinguishes the New Law of Christ from the Old Law of Moses. Pratt comments that the statement that Christ ne come no ðas bebodu to brecanne ne to forbeodanne ac mid eallum godum to ecanne (‘did not come in any way to break or forbid these commandments, but rather to increase them’) is ‘a loose adaptation’ of Mt. 5.17, a verse which Hincmar cites in a similar context (Political Thought, p. 227). However, as Jurasinski and Oliver observe, the verb
eacan (‘to increase’) which here translates
adimplere (‘to fulfil’) is used in earlier law codes to describe the process whereby a king supplements, rather than fulfils, the laws of his predecessors. Indeed, as Treschow notes, it is chiefly through the new emphasis on mercy that Christ is shown to ‘increase’ the Old Law.
51 Treschow, ‘Spirit of Mercy’, 87–7. The Mosaic Prologue thus teaches Alfred’s judges that the Old Law was not simply overturned by the New but rather that it was extended or improved upon through Christ’s teaching of mercy. It is for this reason that Alfred wanted his lawmakers to learn about both the laws of Moses and Christ, so they could see for themselves the transformative impact of the Incarnation on salvation history. Whereas the passages discussed above, which are closely modelled on the biblical sources, generally lack stylistic flourishes, the author’s more creative treatment of this pivotal moment in legal history is marked by a move into a heightened prose style evident in consistent and selective use of alliteration (
on middangeard cwom, he cwæð ðæt he ne come no ðas bebodu to brecanne ne to forbeodanne) as well as doublets (
mildheortnesse and eaðmodnesse) and balanced phrasing and homeoteleuton (
to healdanne […]
to brecanne ne to forbeodanne […]
to ecanne). The author of the Mosaic Prologue reserves this sophisticated literary prose style for especially significant moments in biblical legal history.
The next section of the prologue comprises a highly condensed paraphrase of Acts 15.23–9, the ‘Apostolic Letter’.
52 Jurasinski and Oliver note that while in the scriptural account the Apostolic Letter is concerned with the clarification of moral and ritual obligations to the newly converted Christian communities of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, the Mosaic Prologue ‘instead presents the letter as a response to the earlier failure of spoken admonitions’, an alteration which complements the overall ‘effort throughout the Prologue to diminish the importance of the oral over the written in matters of law’ (The Laws of Alfred, p. 265 n. 72). This paraphrase is itself prefaced by another bridging passage which again has no direct biblical source, summarising how the apostles began their evangelising work after Christ’s passion:
§49.1. Ða æfter his ðrowunge, ærþam þe his apostolas tofarene wæron geond ealle eorðan to læranne, and þa giet ða hie ætgædere wæron, monega hæðena ðeoda hie to Gode gecerdon. Þa hie ealle ætsomne wæron, hie sendan ærendwrecan to Antiohhia and to Syrie, Cristes æ to læranne.
[Then after his passion, before his apostles went through all the world to teach, and were still together, they turned many heathen peoples to God. When they all were assembled, they sent messengers to Antioch and to Syria, to teach the law of Christ.]
53 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 263–4.Again, a sense of literary style is on display in this seemingly original passage. Notably the use of parallelism (his apostolas tofarene wæron […] hie ætgædere wæron […] hie to Gode gecerdon […] hie ealle ætsomne wæron; ealle eorðan to læranne […] Cristes æ to læranne) underscores the dedication of the apostles as a group to the dissemination of Christ’s law.
At the end of the paraphrase of the Apostolic Letter (Acts 15.29), the author inserts a highly idiosyncratic version of the Golden Rule:
§49.5 […] and þæt ge willen, þæt oðre men eow ne don, ne doð ge ðæt oþrum monnum.
[“[…] and what you wish that other men not do to you, do not to other men.”]
The Alfredian author’s negative version of the Golden Rule differs from the two iterations of this precept in the Gospels:
Lk. 6.31: et prout vultis ut faciant vobis homines et vos facite illis similiter
[And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner.]
Mt. 7.12: omnia ergo quaecumque vultis ut faciant vobis homines et vos facite eis haec. Est enim lex et prophetae.
[All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.]
Liebermann identified a closer match for the Mosaic Prologue’s negative rendering of the Golden Rule (
ne deme […]
nolde) in Tobit 4.16,
quod ab alio odis fieri tibi, vide ne alteri tu aliquando facias (‘What you would hate to have done to you by another, see you never do to another’),
54 Liebermann, Gesetze, III, p. 48. Cf. Jurasinksi and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 269 n. 77, for further references. while Wormald notes that the negative version of the Golden Rule occurs in some Old Latin readings of the Bible, including the late ninth-century Book of Armagh, in which it also comes at the end of the Apostolic Letter.
55 Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 423. It appears, then, that the Alfredian author is not so much translating as freely adapting various biblical sources in this passage for a specific, educational purpose.
A similarly creative approach to scriptural translation appears to have produced the passage that follows, which seemingly takes its inspiration from Luke 6.37, Nolite judicare, et non judicabimini (‘Judge not, and you shall not be judged’):
§49.6 Of ðissum anum dome mon mæg geðencean, þæt he æghwelcne on ryht gedemeð; ne ðearf he nanra domboca oþerra. Geðence he, þæt he nanum men ne deme þæt he nolde ðæt he him demde, gif he ðone dom ofer hine sohte.
[§49.6 From this one judgment one may reason in such a way that he judge each man rightly; he requires no other book of laws. Let him think that he judge no man in a manner that he would not be judged by him, if he sought judgement over him.]
In this stylised passage, the Alfredian author underlines the Mosaic Prologue’s central theme of just (
on ryht) judgement through extensive polyptoton and alliteration (
dom,
gedemeð,
domboca,
deme,
demde,
dom).
56 As Treschow notes, the use of the word deman in this passage ‘indicates that the Golden Rule, and so the whole prologue, is addressed to magistrates in particular’ (‘Spirit of Mercy’, 81). As we have seen above, it was probably Alfred’s concern with the justness of legal judgements issued in his own kingdom that provided the impetus for the composition of the
Domboc and its elaborate biblical prologue.
57 See above, pp. 56–8.From the Apostles to the ‘Angelcynn’
Echoing the Prose Preface to the
Pastoral Care,
the Mosaic Prologue then briefly summarises the development of Church synods in the post-Apostolic era among the various Christian peoples, including the English:
58 On the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care, see above, pp. 3–4, 34–5.§49.7: Siððan ðæt þa gelamp, þæt monega ðeoda Cristes geleafan onfengon, þa wurdon monega seonoðas geond ealne middangeard gegaderode, and eac swa geond Angelcyn, siððan hie Cristes geleafan onfengon, halegra biscepa and eac oðerra geðungenra witena; hie ða gesetton, for ðære mildheortnesse þe Crist lærde, æt mæstra hwelcre misdæde þætte ða weoruldhlafordas moston mid hiora leafan buton synne æt þam forman gylte þære fiohbote onfon, þe hie ða gesettan; […]
[After it happened that many peoples received the faith of Christ, then many synods were gathered through all the world, and also among the English, after they received the faith of Christ, of holy bishops and also of other distinguished counsellors; they then established, because of the mercy that Christ taught, that worldly lords might with their leave [and] without sin receive the monetary payment that they [the bishops] established at the first offence for most of those misdeeds; […].]
While this passage has no direct biblical source, Wormald notes that it closely resembles and may have been directly inspired by Archbishop Fulk of Rheims’ Letter to Alfred written
c. 886, which lamented the poor state to which the English Church had fallen since the Augustinian mission and similarly traced the history of Christian law from the time of the Apostles to the early synods of the Church.
59 Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 425–6. See further Pratt, Political Thought, p. 223. For the text, see Councils and Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church I, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, 2 vols (Oxford, 1981), I, no. 4, pp. 6–12. The letter is also translated in Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 183–4. For discussion of the letter and its background, see Janet L. Nelson, ‘“… sicut olim gens Francorum … nunc gens Anglorum”: Fulk’s Letter to Alfred Revisited’, in Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the Occasion of Her Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Jane Roberts and Janet L. Nelson, with Malcolm Godden (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 135–44. The reference to
weoruldhlafordas (‘worldly lords’) receiving monetary payment for misdeeds positions Alfred’s judges operating at a local level – the primary audience of the
Domboc – within the long history of Judeo-Christian law, reminding them of their duty to exercise mercy (
mildheortnesse) in the manner exemplified by Christ.
The closing words of the Mosaic Prologue refine the claim that these worldly lords were initially merciful toward most offenders, culminating in the work’s most striking ‘revoicing’ of Scripture:
§49.7 […] buton æt hlafordsearwe hie nane mildheortnesse ne dorston gecweðan, forþam ðe God ælmihtig þam nane ne gedemde þe hine oferhogdon, ne Crist Godes sunu þam nane ne gedemde þe hine to deaðe sealde, and he bebead þone hlaford lufian swa hine.
[[…] but for betrayal of one’s lord they dared not proclaim any mercy, for God almighty judged none for those who despised him, nor did Christ, God’s son, grant any [mercy] to those who gave him to death, and he laid down [that one should] love one’s lord just as oneself.]
60 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 270–1.In order to enshrine the sanctity of the life of an earthly lord (
hlaford) in English law, the Mosaic Prologue here flatly contradicts Luke 23.34,
Iesus autem dicebat: ‘Pater, dimitte illis, non enim sciunt quid faciunt’ (‘And Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”’), while conflating Christ’s first and second great commandments, Mt. 22.37,
Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et in tota anima tua, et in tota mente tua (‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind’) and Mt. 22.39,
Diliges proximum tuum, sicut teipsum (‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’). This exceptionally bold rewriting of the Gospels effectively places new words in Christ’s mouth in order to buttress the authority of earthly lords such as Alfred himself.
61 Wormald notes that this statement ‘spectacularly distort[s]’ Christ’s second commandment (Making of English Law, p. 423). Jurasinski and Oliver suggest that the author ‘probably alludes here’ to Psalm 68.22,
Et dederunt in escam meam fel, et in siti mea potaverunt me aceto (‘And they gave me gall for food, and in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink’), noting that Peter quotes the same verse from Ps. 68.25,
Effunde super eos iram tuam, et furor irae tuae comprehendat eos (‘Pour out your indignation upon them, and let the heat of your wrath take hold of them’) in reference to the traitor Judas (Acts 1.20):
62 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, p. 271 n. 80. Pratt points to parallels with Exodus 22.20 (qui immolat diis occidetur praeter Domino soli, ‘He who sacrifices to gods, shall be put to death, save only to the Lord’) (Political Thought, p. 233).Scriptum est enim in libro Psalmorum: ‘Fiat commoratio eorum deserta, et non sit qui inhabitet in ea: et episcopatum eius accipiat alter.’
[For it is written in the book of Psalms: ‘Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell therein. And his bishopric let another take.’]
Another possible biblical inspiration which emphasises the authority of the Lord God rather than an earthly lord is Leviticus 19.18: non quaeres ultionem, nec memor eris iniuriae civium tuorum. Diliges amicum tuum sicut temet ipsum. Ego Dominus (‘Seek not revenge, nor be mindful of the injury of your citizens. You shall love your friend as yourself. I am the Lord’). An even closer match is found in the Second Epistle of James, in which the observance of God’s law is explicitly connected to royal authority and mercy is shown to balance judgement:
2.8 Si tamen legem perficitis regalem, secundum Scripturas, ‘Diliges proximum tuum sicut te ipsum’, bene facitis. 9 Si autem personas accipitis, peccatum operamini redarguti a lege quasi transgressores. 10 Quicumque autem totam legem servaverit offendat autem in uno factus est omnium reus. 11 Qui enim dixit: ‘Non moechaberis’, dixit et: ‘Non occides’. Quod si non moechaberis, occides autem, factus es transgressor legis. 12 Sic loquimini et sic facite sicut per legem libertatis incipientes iudicari. 13 Iudicium enim sine misericordia illi qui non fecit misericordiam. Superexultat autem misericordia iudicio.
[2.8 If then you fulfil the royal law, according to the Scriptures, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, you do well. 9 But if you have respect to persons, you commit sin, being reproved by the law as transgressors. 10 And whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all. 11 For he that said: ‘You shall not commit adultery’, said also: ‘You shall not kill.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but shall kill, you are become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak you and so do, as being to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment without mercy to him that has not done mercy. And mercy exalts itself above judgment.]
The author of the Mosaic Prologue may have drawn on some or perhaps all of these biblical passages, and others besides, in composing this injunction against hlafordsearwe (‘betrayal of one’s lord’).
The political motivation behind this pseudo-biblical defence of earthly lordship is made clear in Alfred’s law code itself, which contains the following injunction:
V.4: Gif hwa ymb cyninges feorh sierwe, ðurh hine oððe ðurh wreccena feormunge oððe his manna, sie he his feores scyldig and ealles þæs ðe he age.
[If someone plots against the king’s life, either by his own actions, or by the harbouring of those who have been banished or of his men, let him be liable for his life and all that he owns.]
63 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 292–93. For discussion of hlafordsearwe (lord-treachery) in the Domboc, see Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 232–8.No such injunction against treason had featured in the laws issued by earlier English kings, though it does form part of the statutes issued by the Papal Legates to English kings in 786:
64 Wormald has suggested that the legates’ statutes may in fact be the laws of Offa of Mercia which Alfred refers to as a source for his Domboc (Making of English Law, pp. 107, 280–1). See further Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 220–1, 232–8; Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 276–9.XII. […] In necem regis nemo communicare audeat, quia christus Domini est: et si quis tali sceleri adhæserit, si Episcopus est, aut ullus ex Sacerdotali gradu, ex ipso detrudatur, et a sancta hæreditate dejiciatur.
65 Epistolae Karolini Aevi II, ed. Dümmler, 19–29, at 21–4 (no. 3).[12. […] Let no one dare to conspire to kill a king, for he is the Lord’s anointed, and if anyone take part in such a crime, if he be a bishop or anyone of the priestly order, let him be expelled from it and cast out from the holy heritage.]
66 English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042, English Historical Documents 1, 2nd edn, ed. and trans. Dorothy Whitelock (London: Routledge, 1979), no. 191, p. 771.The Mosaic Prologue’s positioning of Alfred in a chain of legal authority stretching from God to Moses, and from Christ to the Apostles, and its designation of the crime of hlafordsearwe (‘plotting against a lord’) as a breach of Cristes æ (‘Christ’s law’) punishable by death, forcefully reminds all of Alfred’s subjects of the divine source of his earthly authority.
The Second Prologue
Following the conclusion of the Mosaic Prologue, the
Domboc proper begins with its own prologue (the ‘Second Prologue’), in which the figure of Alfred is finally introduced as the agent of Christ’s laws.
67 Pratt identifies this passage as ‘the operative moment’ in the Domboc as a whole, in which ‘Alfred’s own modest judgement’ is foregrounded (Political Thought, p. 218). Speaking in the first person, Alfred presents himself as a diligent compiler, who took personal responsibility for gathering, correcting and updating the legal writings of his royal forebears, Æthelberht of Kent (
r.
c. 589–616), Ine of Wessex (
r. 688–726) and Offa of Mercia (
r. 757–796):
68 The sense that Alfred is updating Ine’s laws is underlined by their inclusion after the copy of the Domboc in MS CCC 173.Ic ða Ælfred cyning þas togædere gegaderode and awritan het, monege þara þe ure foregengan heoldon, ða ðe me licodon; and manege þara þe me ne licodon ic awearp mid minra witena geðeahte, and on oðre wisan bebead to healdanne.
Forðam ic ne dorste geðristlæcan þara minra awuht fela on gewrit settan, forðam me wæs uncuð, hwæt þæs ðam lician wolde ðe æfter us wæren. Ac ða ðe ic gemette awðer oððe on Ines dæge, mines mæges, oððe on Offan Mercna cyninges, oððe on Æþelbryhtes þe ærest fulluhte onfeng on Angelcynne, þa ðe me ryhtoste ðuhton, ic þa heron gegaderode, and þa oðre forlet.
Ic ða Ælfred Westseaxna cyning eallum minum witum þas geeowde, and hie ða cwædon, þæt him þæt licode eallum to healdanne.
[Then I, Alfred the king, gathered these [rulings] together and commanded to be written many of them which our ancestors held – those that pleased me. And many of them that did not please me I discarded with the consent of my counsellors, and directed them to be held in a different manner.
Thus I did not dare presume to set many of mine in writing, because it was not known to me, what would please those who came after us. But those that I found either from the time of Ine, my kinsman, or of Offa, king of the Mercians, or of Æthelberht who first in England received baptism, those which seemed most just to me, I gathered herein, and left out the others.
I, Alfred, king of the West Saxons, then presented these (rulings) to all my counsellors, and they then said, that it pleased them all to hold (them).] (Emphases added).
69 Jurasinski and Oliver, The Laws of Alfred, pp. 280–3. This description of Alfred judiciously selecting elements from the laws of his predecessors and discarding others with the advice of his counsellors complements the portrait of the king collaborating with his circle of scholars presented in the Prose Preface to the
Pastoral Care.
70 See above, pp. 3–4, 34–5. While the Mosaic Prologue had begun with the Lord speaking in the third person to Moses (
Dryhten wæs sprecende to Moyse;
God self sprecende wæs to Moyse), before proceeding to summarise the core teachings of Christ and the Apostles (
Dryhtnes sunu, ure God, þæt is hælend Crist, […]
, he cwæð;
Crist lærde, […]
forþam ðe God ælmihtig þam nane ne gedemde þe hine oferhogdon, ne Crist Godes sunu þam nane ne gedemde), the
Domboc now presents Alfred, as the mouthpiece of God’s laws, speaking directly to his judges in the first person (
Ic ða Ælfred cyning;
Ic ða Ælfred Westseaxna cyning). The emphasis on written law (
awritan het) and the presentation of Alfred as an extender or increaser of law aligns the earthly ruler with Christ, who as we have seen is said to have extended the laws of Moses. Presented with such a comprehensive and accessible summary of Judeo-Christian law in their own tongue, Alfred’s judges could be left in no doubt of their sacred duty to apply themselves to wisdom and administer the law with justice and mercy.