Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Dedication
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on the references
- Introduction
- 1 Anglo-Saxon written wills: the nature of the evidence
- 2 The process of will-making
- 3 Politics, power and the bequest of land
- 4 Lay bequest of land: pious gifts and family strategy
- 5 The bequest of movable wealth
- 6 Wills, commemoration and lay piety
- Conclusion: Why make a written will in Anglo-Saxon England?
- 1 The corpus of Anglo-Saxon wills
- 2 The evidence for wills and will-making in the Liber Eliensis and Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis
- 3 The bequest of movable wealth
- 4 Local churches mentioned in wills
- 5 Note on unpublished material by Patrick Wormald
- Bibliography
- Index
- York Medieval Press: Publications
5 - Note on unpublished material by Patrick Wormald
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Dedication
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on the references
- Introduction
- 1 Anglo-Saxon written wills: the nature of the evidence
- 2 The process of will-making
- 3 Politics, power and the bequest of land
- 4 Lay bequest of land: pious gifts and family strategy
- 5 The bequest of movable wealth
- 6 Wills, commemoration and lay piety
- Conclusion: Why make a written will in Anglo-Saxon England?
- 1 The corpus of Anglo-Saxon wills
- 2 The evidence for wills and will-making in the Liber Eliensis and Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis
- 3 The bequest of movable wealth
- 4 Local churches mentioned in wills
- 5 Note on unpublished material by Patrick Wormald
- Bibliography
- Index
- York Medieval Press: Publications
Summary
The untimely death of Patrick Wormald prevented the completion of his important work The Making of English Law, of which only Volume One was published. Volume Two would have brought to fruition his views on Anglo-Saxon wills.
Wormald's thoughts on land tenure and inheritance evolved over many years and were explored in a number of his published works, most notably in the present context Bede and the Conversion of England: the Charter Evidence, Jarrow Lecture (1984); ‘Charters, law and the settlement of disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’ (1986); and ‘On þa wæpnedhealfe: kingship and royal property from Æthelwulf to Edward the Elder’ (2001). In addition, among the series of Wormald's unpublished lecture notes which contain material preparatory to the second volume of The Making of English Law there is an outline of his provisional ideas on inheritance and tenurial issues. These notes have been deposited with the remainder of his papers in the archives of King's College, London, and may be obtained there or by contacting Dr Stephen Baxter.
For the purposes of this book I have restricted my references to Wormald's published works without attempting to engage with or expound on these unpublished notes. However, I am grateful to Dr Baxter for making this material available to me, and for drawing my attention to the key aspects of Wormald's research relevant to the study of wills which are summarised here.
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- Information
- Wills and Will-Making in Anglo-Saxon England , pp. 302 - 304Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011