Page:Laws of the Earliest English Kings.djvu/19

Rh latter of whom was, according to Birch, Cart. Sax. 42, a son of Sebbe, king of Essex. The time was evidently one of great disturbance in the south east of England. The Mercian power seems to have temporarily broken down, and the kings of Essex, Wessex, Sussex, and Kent were all struggling for the master. Wihtred succeeded in the autumn of 690 (cf. Hist. Eccl. v. 23), thought Swefheard continued to reign along with him at least until 692, and perhaps a year or two later (cf. Cart. Sax. 86, if any reliance can be placed on this document). The laws appear to have been issued in the autumn of 695, probably on September 6 (cf. Liebermann, III. p. 24). Peace was made with Ine, king of Wessex, in the preceding year, according to the Saxon Chronicle (ann. 694); and it is worth noting that one of Wihtred's laws (28) is practically identical with one of Ine's (20)―which points to communication between the two courts.

The Kentish laws are preserved only in the Textus Roffensis (H), which was written more than four centuries after the promulgation of Wihtred's Laws, and at least five centuries after the time of Æthelberht. There is no Latin version in existence, in the Quadripartitus or elsewhere, though translations of some passages occur in the 'Laws of Henry I.'

Owing to the lateness of the MS the language of the laws has been much modernised. But this process has not been carried out consistently; the text presents a mixture of forms of various periods from the seventh to the twelth century. Many archaic words occur, some of which are unknown elsewhere in English (e.g. læt), while others are found only in poetry or with specialised meanings (e.g. dryhten, in other prose works applied only to God, or eorl, in other prose works used only as a translation of the Scandinavian term jarl). The construction of the sentences too, especially in Æthenberht's Laws, is of a primitive character.

The Laws of Æthenberht are of special interest as being the earliest documents written in the English language. Some poems indeed, such as Beowulf, may have a longer history behind them, but it is highly improbable that they were committed to writing till a much later period. No other Teutonic language possesses any original records of equal antiquity, apart from short inscriptions. The remains of Gothic literature are indeed much older, but they consist entirely of translations, while the laws of the Continental Teutonic peoples, though they begin more than a century before Æthenberht's reign, are written in Latin down to comparatively late times.

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