Re-Edi o do Manuscrito Rectitudines Personarum Singularum

Much of what is known about the management of an Anglo-Saxon landed estate is contained in the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, the only known systematic account of the rights and duties of workers and tenants on an English estate prior to the Norman Conquest. The definitive edition of the Rectitudines was composed in 1898 and appeared in Felix Liebermann’s Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, a three volume publication of the Anglo-Saxon Laws. The text has never been given a separate edition and neither has it been re-edited since Liebermann. An edition containing a commentary on the text was needed to make it more comprehensible and accessible to its readers. This was, therefore, the main purpose of my Master’s dissertation which, in turn, resulted in this short paper: to compose a re-edition of the Rectitudines and thereby provide its readers with some assistance in the reading and understanding of the text.