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Bruce R. O'Brien, God's Peace and King's Peace (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). xv + 305 pp. ISBN 0-8122-3461-8. L41.00. Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, I: Legislation and its Limits (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999). xviii + 574 pp. ISBN 0-631-13496-4. L75.00.
These two books share many themes. They mark a shift from studies which take law as only one element within the maintenance of social order and the settlement of disputes, and instead emphasize the analysis of legal mentalities through examination of legal texts. They integrate the close study of manuscripts into broader interpretation of legal history. Both are extremely stimulating: Bruce O'Brien's the more readable, Patrick Wormald's the more secure. The core of O'Brien's argument is that the legal chapters of the early to mid-twelfth-century Leges Edwardi Confessoris `are in many ways rather straightforward reflections of the aspirations of the English clergy in the early twelfth century toward peace and co-operation with the king' (p. 4). He takes the Leges Edwardi to be a practical text, probably emanating from an episcopal household or diocesan official (p. 49). The effect of these arguments is to put the Leges Edwardi back at the centre of interpretation of twelfth-century law, a position from which they have been excluded by the accusations of weakness levelled against other sets of...