Laws of Cnut (1 Cnut)
Overview
Written between 1020 and 1023, The Laws of Cnut are split into two texts. The first, 1 Cnut, deals with the “relationship between ecclesiastical governance and royal authority.” They were written as part of a broad effort to establish uniformity and order in the realm. The Laws of Cnut are written in Old English and likely based on earlier Anglo-Saxon laws, such as those of Æthelred and Edgar. According to Andrew Rabin, professor of English at the University of Louisville, the Laws of Cnut are the “most sophisticated legal texts to be produced in England since the ninth century.”
Before enacting the Laws of Cnut, Cnut had embarked for Denmark to secure the Danish throne, entrusting Earl Thorkell with governance in his absence. Upon his return, now as the ruler of England and Denmark, Cnut aimed to establish a stable legal framework to maintain order. His efforts reflected a broader agenda of consolidation and governance across his realms.
Authorship
Scholars generally agree that the laws were authored by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, renowned for his distinctive writing style and previous legal codes for kings. With Cnut’s ascension as King of England, Wulfstan served as the ideal link to the Anglo-Saxon populace, ensuring a seamless transition. Dorothy Whitelock describes Wulfstan as the “…acknowledged expert who had composed codes for Ethelred and many ecclesiastical canons; he appears to have been on cordial terms with Cnut, who employed him on other occasions…”
Image: A page of the Laws of Cnut drafted by Wulfstan. Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r. The British Library.
Laws of Cnut (1 Cnut)
This is the decree which King Cnut, king of all England and king of the Danes, decided on per the advice of his councilors, for the glory of God and his own sovereignty and the common welfare; during the Christmas season at Winchester.
1. This is foremost, then: that they always love and honor the one true God above all else, and single mindedly uphold the one Christian faith, and love King Cnut with true faithfulness.
2. And let us respect the peace and sanctity of God’s churches, and regularly attend them for the salvation and benefit of our souls.
§ 2.1 Every church is, by right, under Christ’s own protection, and every Christian has the particular obligation to show great respect for that protection; for all forms of protection, the best to be sought and the most faithfully to be respected is the protection of God, and after that the king’s.
§ 2.2 Therefore, it is most proper that the sanctuary within the walls of God’s church and the protection received from the Christian king’s hand remain always unbroken; and the person who defies either of them will forfeit life and land unless the king is willing to pardon him.
§ 2.3 From this day on, if anyone ever violate the sanctuary of God’s church by committing murder within its walls, that violation will be deemed beyond compensation, and all those who are friends of God will hunt them down, unless it so happend that he escapes from there and seeks out protection so powerful that the king therefore spares his life as long as he does full penance to God and the community.
§ 2.4 This is first; that he pays his own wergild to christ and to the king, and thereby makes himself eligible to pay compensation.
§ 2.5 And if it reaches the point where compensation may be paid and the king allows it, payment of an equal amount to the full penatly for violating the king’s protection will be given to the particular church as penance for the violation of the church’s sanctuary, and the cleansing of the church will take place in the proper manner, and compensation to both the family and lord of the victim shall be fully paid, and most importantly, prayers are to be offered faithfully to God.
3. If the sanctuary of the church is violated in another way, without the loss of life, penance will be readily performed according to the nature of the deed, whether is is violence or robbery or whatever it may be. Penance for the violation of sanctuary is to be made first to the church, according to the nature of the deed, and likewise according to the status of the church.
§ 3.1 Not all churches are considered alike in wordly status, although spiritually they all possess equal sanctity.
§ 3.2 The penalty for the violation of sanctuary at a cathedral, when the violation is deemed eligible for compensation, is to be equal to that paid for a violation of the king’s protection, five pounds under English law. In Kent for a violation of protection, five pounds to the king and three to the archbishop. At a midlevel church, one hundred twenty shillings, that is, equivalent to the penalty paid for an offense to the king. At a smaller one, where there is little divine service but there is a graveyard, sixty shillings. At a country church where there is no graveyard, thirty shillings.
4. It properly befits all Christians to always zealously ensure the peace and sanctity of holy places, of those in orders, and of consecrated houses of God, and to respect all persons in orders accordings to their ranks.
§ 4.1 Let it be understood by those who can: great and wondrous are the things which a priest can do for the benefit of the people if he rightly pleases his Lord.
§ 4.2 Great is the exorcising and wondrous is the sanctifying by which demons are cast out and brought to flight, just as often as he baptizes anyone or consecrates the Eucharist; and holy angels hover about the place and watch over those deeds, and through the power of God they assist the priests just as often as they serve Christ properly.
§ 4.3 And as the angels always do, just as long as the priests zealously, from the depths of their hearts, call upon Christ and fervently intercede for the needs of the people, and therefore, with the fear of God recognize different categories of holy orders with discernment.
5. And if it happens that a priest who lives according to a rule is accused and charged with wickedness, and he knows that he is innocent, let him celebrate Mass if he dares, and clear himself on his own tthrough the sacrament in the case of a simple accusation. And if in a threefold accusation, if he dares, he will clear himself through the sacrament and the oaths of two fellow clerics of his rank.
§ 5.1 If a simple charge is brought against a deacon who lives according to a rule, he is to take two clerics of his rank and clear himself with them. If a threefold charge is brought against him, he is to take six clerics of his rank and, himself being the seventh, clear himself of the charges.
§ 5.2 If a secular clergyman, who does not live according to a rule, is accused of wrongdoing, he may clear himself as does a deacon who lives according to a rule. And if an accusation is brought against a friendless cleric who serves at the altar, who has no support for his oath, he will undergo the ordeal of consecrated bread, and endure the will of God, unless he is able to clear himself by the sacrament. If a member of the clergy is charged with feuding, and he is accused of either murder or is complicity in murder, he will clear himself with the help of his kinsmen, who will either share in the feud or make payment for it. And if he has no kinsmen, he will clear himself with the help of other clergy, or fast to prepare for the ordeal of consecrated bread, and endure the decision of God. Monks who belong to a monastery are prohibited to either claim or make payment relating to the feud for they have renounced the rights of kindred when accepting the monastic rule.
§ 5.3 If anywhere a priest is guilty of bearing flase witness or perjury or being an aide or accomplice to thieves, he is to be banished from holy orders and deprived of companionship, friendship, and entitlements unless he deeply repents to God and the entire community as the bishop directs, and ceases all wrongdoing there afterwards.
§ 5.4 And if he wishes to exonerate himself, he will do so in the manner appropriate of the offense, either with the threefold or simple proof, according to the deed.
6. And we desire, than men of every rank faithfully submit to that rule most appropriate to them. Indeed, God’s servants, bishops and abbots, male and female monastics, priests and nuns, are to submit to their duty and live according to their rule, and frequently call on Christ by day and night, and fervently intercede for all Christian people.
§ 6.1 And we implore and instruct that all these servants of God, expecially priests, obey God and embrace celibacy to protect themselves against the wrath of God and the burning fire that rages in hell.
§ 6.2 The know full well that they are not to rightyfully engage in sexual relations with a woman. Let him who will renounces marraige and practices celibacy have God’s favor, and also, as a privilege in this world, be deemed worthy of a thane’s rights.
§ 6.3 And for fear of God, every Christian must diligently avoid unlawful intercourse and rightly observe divine law.
7. And we instruct, pray, and decree in God’s name that no Christian man take a wife within six degrees of kinship in his own family, nor the widow of one so closely related, nor a close relative of his first wife.
§ 7.1 Nor may a Christian man every marry his godmother, a consecrated nun, or a divorced woman.
§ 7.2 Nor may he commmit adultery anywhere.
§ 7.3 Nor may he have more than one wife, and she be his wedded wife, and let him be with her alone, as long as she lives, if he desires to rightfully obey the lawsof God and protect his soul against the burning of hell.
8. And let God’s dues be paid lawfully and willingly every year.
§ 8.1 That is, plow dues by fifteen nights after Easter, and the tithe of young animals by Pentecost, and the tithe of fruits of the earth by the Feast of All Saints.
§ 8.2 And if anyone refuses to pay his tithes in the manner that we have decreed, that is the one-tenth yield of every acre that is plowed, then the king’s reeve and the reeves of the bishop and landlord and the priest of the church are to go and take a one-tenth portion for the church to which it belongs without consent. and assign to him the next tenth, and the remaining eight-tenths are to be divided in two and half given to the landlord and the bishop the other half, whether he is a king’s man or a thane’s.
9. And the dues to Rome are to be paid by St. Peter’s Feast Day.
§ 9.1 And anyone who withholds it past the day will give the money and thirty pence more to the bishop, and one hundred twenty shillings to the king.
10. And Church dues are to be paid by the Feast of Saint Martin.
§ 10.1 And anyone who withholds it past that day will give the money to the bishop, and pay eleven times more, and one hundred twenty shillings to the king.
11. Yet if there is a thane who has a church possessing a graveyard on land he hold by charter, he is to give one-third of his own tithes to his church.
§ 11.1 If anyone has a church without a graveyard, then let him give to the priest whatever he chooses out of the next one-tenth share after that paid as tithe.
§ 11.2 And all Church dues from every free household are to go to the old minster.
12. And dues for the lighting of the church are to be paid three times a year, a half-penny worth of wax for every hide on the eve of Easter, and again on the Feast of All-Saints, and again at the Feast of the Purification of Saint Mary.
13. And it is most proper that dues for the souls of the dead be paid while the grave it still open.
§ 13.1 And if any body is buried other than in its proper parish, let dues be paid to the minster to which it belonged.
14. And all God’s dues are to be willingly given, as it is required.
§ 14.1 And let feasts and fasts be properly observed.
§ 14.2 And let every Sunday holy day be observed from noon on Saturday until dawn on Monday, and every other feast day as it is commanded.
15. And we strictly forbid the transaction of business on Sundays and all public meetings, unless out of great necessity.
§ 15.1 And hunting and wordly business are to be strictly abstained from on that holy day.
16. And let every appointed fast be observed with all diligence, whether is is the Ember Fast, Lent Fast, or any other fast. Let a fast be observed on all of the feasts of Saint Mary, as well as on the feasts of all of apostles, except for the Feasts of Saint Philip and Saint James because of Easter, and a fast is to be held every Friday unless there is a feast.
§ 16.1 And no one needs to fast between Easter and Pentecost unless it has been designated as a penance or if he desires to fast. From Christmas until the eighth day of Epiphany, that is, seven days after the Twelfth Night.
17. And we forbid ordeals and oaths on feasts day, Ember Days, Lent days, and regularly appointed fast days, from Advent until the eighth day after Twelfth Night, and from Septuagesima until fifteen days after Easter.
§ 17.1 And the witan has decided that the Feast of Saint Edward shall be celebrated all over England on the fifteenth before the kalends of April (the nineteenth of March) and the Feast of Saint Dunstan on the fourteenth day before the kalends of June, that is, the thirteenth day of May.
§ 17.2 And at holy times, just as it is right, let there to be peace and friendship between all Christians, and every dispute is to be settled.
§ 17.3 And if anyone owes a debt or compensation to another because of a secular matters, they are to pay promptly before or after the feast.
18. And we implore, for God’s love, that all Christians fulley understand what is expected of him. For we all reach a point when we wish more than anything in the world that we had readily carried our the will of God as long as we could. But then we will receive a fitting reward for that which we previously accomplished during our lifetime. Woe to those who have before earned the torment of hell!
§ 18.1 But let us diligently turn from sin, and willingly confess our sins to our confessors, and cease our wrongdoings and fervently repent.
§ 18.2 And let each of us treat others as we wish to be treated; that is a just rule and most pleasing to God; and the person who follows this rule will be very happy.
§ 18.3 For Almighty God has created us all and afterwards paid a high price for us, namely, his own life which he gave for us all.
19. And let every Christian man do what is required of him: diligently tend to his Christian faith and prepare himself to receive the sacrament at least three times a year if he desires to understand his responsibilities, jsut as he should.
§ 19.1 And all our friends must order their words and deeds properly, and carefully uphold their oath and pleadge.
§ 19.2 And let every injustice be banished from this land, as far as it can be.
§ 19.3 And God’s law is to be willingly embraced in word and deed, then God will show mercy more readily to us all.
20. Let us also diligently do, as we will teach: let us always be faithful and true to our lord, and with all our might, uphold his sovereignty and carry out his will.
§ 20.1 For all that we do in loyalty to our lord, we do for our own great benefit; for God truly is faithful to him who is faithful to his lord.
§ 20.2 And likewise, the prinicipal obligation of every lord is to treat his people justly.
21. And we most diligently instruct all Christian men that they love God with the depths of their hearts and ardently hold to the true Christian faith and earnestly obey their spiritual teachers and often meditate on God’s doctrine and laws for their own benefit.
22. And we instruct that all Christians to learn so he knows and understands the true faith and learn the Paternoster and Creed.
§ 22.1 For the first of these every Christian shall pray to God, and testify to the true faith with the second.
§ 22.2 Christ himself first spoke the Paternoster and taught the prayer to his disciples.
§ 22.3 And in that divine prayer there are seven prayers, and he who recites them in his soul pleads with God himself concerning all things which may be to a person’s benefit, both in this life and the one to come.
§ 22.4 But how then can any man ever pray inwardly to God unless he has true love for and faith in God in his soul?
§ 22.5 For after his death, he cannot be in the company of other Christians or rest in hallowed ground, nor can he receive the holy sacrament in this life.
§ 22.6 He is not a good Christian if he does not learn, nor can he lawfully sponsor another man at baptism, nor at confirmation, until he learns it so that he knows it well.
23. And we instruct that everyone is to guard themselves zealously against mortal sins and wicked deeds at all times; and they are to carefully make penance by the councel of their confessor if they fall into sin by the temptation of the devil.
24. And we instruct that every person guard against foul lust, illicit intercourse, and against every kind of adultery.
25. And also diligently instruct that every man constantly holds the fear of God in his mind, and to live in fear both day and night, and to dread the Day of Judgement, and tremble at the prospect of hell, and to always expect their to day to be near.
26. Bishops are messengers and teachers of God’s laws, and they are to earnestly preach and set an example of spiritual duty, heed them who will.
§ 26.1 For a weak shepherd is found when he does not defend with a shout his flock that is in his care, if a predator comes to prey upon it.
§ 26.2 There is no predator as evil as the devil himself; he is only concerned with one thing, how he can injure the souls of men.
§ 26.3 Therefore, the shepherds must be ever watchful and diligently cry out to shield the people against the predator: these are the bishops and the priests, who are to oversee and defend their spiritual flocks with wise instruction, so the madly voracious werewolf does not wound too greatly nor consume too many of their spiritual flock.
§ 26.4 And he who does not heed the messengers of God will have to answer to God himself. May the name of God be blessed forever, and praise and honor and glory be to him eternally. Amen.
Related Topics
Further Research & Sources
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Translated by J. A. Giles, edited by William Smith, Project Gutenberg, 2005, – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/657
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Edited and Translated by Michael Swanton. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996.
Attenborough, F.L. The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. University Press, 1922. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=q-sJAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.RA1-PA122&num=15
Bosworth, Joseph. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com.
Crossley-Holland, Kevin. The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009, 24-31.
Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Morris, Marc. The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, 400-1066. New York, NY. Pegasus Books, Ltd. 2021, 48-49.
Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. English Historical Documents. Volume 1: c.500-1042. Routledge, 1996.
Wulfstan. Old English Legal Writings. Edited and translated by Andrew Rabin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.
Yorke, Barbara. “The Writing of History in Anglo-Saxon England.” Anglo-Saxon England, vol. 23, 1994.
Photos:
A page of the Laws of Cnut drafted by Wulfstan. Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r. The British Library. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/law/