(1) John Selden published his “History of Tithes” in 1618. I have already
proved that the Church Grith law was not in Sir Robert Cotton’s library
in 1632. It was therefore impossible for Selden to have seen it in the
“Worcester manuscript.” The “Worcester (Cottonian) manuscript” is a very
vague and loose way to express the Worcester (Cottonian) volume Nero, A.
1. The fact is that Selden had never seen or heard of the Church Grith
law, otherwise he would unquestionably have referred to such a law in
his “History of Tithes.” In dealing with Egbert’s Excerptions, Selden
has quoted largely in his “History of Tithes” from this very volume,
which contained the Excerptions, and which volume in his time had no
particular name. In his marginal quotation he merely informs his readers
that they were taken from a “MS. in the Biblioth. Cottoniana.” We have
lost the advantage of his valuable opinion on the Church Grith law, by
its absence from the volume from which he had made large quotations on
other subjects. I agree with Lord Selborne that Mr. Selden was well
acquainted with the contents of the volume; but I totally disagree with
his lordship’s inference as regards Selden’s silence on the Grith Law,
because that law was not in the volume for him to see or read; nor was it
in the library.
(2) Sir Henry Spelman published his first volume of the “Concilia” in
1639. In this volume he gives only two of King Ethelred’s laws out of
the nine given by Thorpe. As a matter of fact, he, like Selden, had never
seen or heard of the Church Grith law. Spelman was one of Sir Robert’s
most intimate friends, and had access to every manuscript and book in his
library. Lord Selborne assumes without any authority that the so-called
Worcester volume in Cotton’s Library, open to the inspection of Selden
and Spelman, contained _all_ the manuscripts which it now contains. If
Lord Selborne had only taken the trouble of reading the original list
of manuscripts on the first page of the volume, he would see at once
that the Church Mund and Church Grith are not in the list of manuscripts
contained then in that volume. Therefore Selden and Spelman could not
have seen them. The original list, and no more, is in the catalogue of
1632.
(3) William Lambarde, the Kent antiquarian, published his collection of
Anglo-Saxon Laws in 1568, in which the Church Grith law does not appear,
from which Lord Selborne again _infers_ that Lambarde did not regard
it as having the character or the authority of a law. Let us apply his
Lordship’s canon of criticism to other omissions made by Lambarde in his
collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, and then see to what conclusions such
inferences lead.
He omitted the Laws of the Kentish Kings, the Laws of William the
Conqueror and of Henry I. Then are we to infer that Lambarde saw these
“documents,” but would not notice them in his collection because “he did
not regard them as having the character or authority of laws”?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account