Law and Language in the Middle Ages investigates the encounter between law and legal practice from the linguistic perspective. The essays explore how legal language expresses and advances power relations, along with the ways in which the language of law legitimates power. The wide geographical and chronological scope showcases how power, legitimacy and language interact, moving the discussion beyond traditional issues of identity or the formation of nation-states and their institutions. What emerges are different strategies reflective of the diverse and pluralistic political, legal, and cultural worlds of the Middle Ages. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

part 1 Translation and Interpretation of Law

1 Why Laws Were Translated in Medieval England: Access, Authority, and Authenticity , Bruce O’Brien 

2 Translating Justinian: Transmitting and Transforming Roman Law in the Middle Ages , Ada Maria Kuskowski 

3 Leges Iutorum: The Medieval Latin Translation of the Law of Jutland, Michael H. Gelting 

4 The Languages and Registers of Law in Medieval Ireland and Wales, Paul Russell 

part 2 The Languages of Legal Practice and Documentary Culture

5 Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Legal Documents: The Case of Denmark, Anders Leegaard Knudsen 

6 Between the Language of Law and the Language of Justice: The Use of Formulas in Portuguese Dispute Texts (Tenth and Eleventh Centuries) , André Evangelista Marques 

7 The Dangers of Using Latin Texts for the Study of Customary Law: The Example of Flemish Feudal Law during the High Middle Ages, Dirk Heirbaut 

8 Sources of Legal Language: The Development of Warranty Clauses in Western France, ca.1030–ca.1240, Matthew McHaffie 

part 3 Methodology, Interaction, and Language

9 Law and Language in the Leges Barbarorum: A Database Project on the Vernacular Vocabulary in Medieval Manuscripts, Anette Kremer and Vincenz Schwab 

10 ‘And since We are No Lawyers, We Will Void the Lawsuit with Battle Axes’! Voiding a Lawsuit in Old Icelandic Procedural Law, Werner Schäfke 

11 Biblical Analogues for Early Anglo-Saxon Law, Carole Hough 

Index