c1000-1066 Law Enforcement in Anglo Saxon England | Crime & Punishment | GCSE History Revision

It’s c1000 and the way crimes are viewed is, unsurprisingly, based on Anglo-Saxon ideas about both justice and how society should be organised. The most notable of these beliefs are: that the role of the community in policing the behaviour of others is very important, that God is the final judge of guilt or innocence and that the status and position of different groups should be clear in the law.
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PATREON: / alonglongtimeago
Revision Notes:
How crimes were viewed was based on Anglo-Saxon ideas about justice and how society should be organised
They believed:
The role of the local community in policing the behaviour of others was very important
That god was the final judge of innocence or guilt
The status and position of different groups should be clear in law
The role of the community in enforcing the law
They believed it was the victim’s responsibility to seek justice
But also that the community should play a part in delivering justice
Being loyal to your community was seen as a duty
By the 10th cent English shires were divided into smaller areas called hundreds
Each hundred was divided into 10 tithings
All the men (aged 12+) in a tithing were responsible for the behaviour of all the others
One man from each hundred and one man from each tithing had to meet regularly with the king’s shire reeve (sheriff)
Their role was to prevent crime, particularly cattle theft, in their communities
When chasing a cattle thief a ‘hundredsman’ was entitled to take two ‘tithingmen’ with him
These developments made the community increasingly important in Saxon law enforcement
The community as a whole was also responsible for tracking down those suspected of crimes
Anyone who witnessed a crime could raise a ‘hue and cry’ (a shout for help)
Everyone who heard was expected to help chase and capture the suspects
Taking Oaths
Saxon justice relied heavily on religion when deciding guilt
Oaths were an important way of proving innocence
Hearings took place in public and the accused could swear their innocence under oath
They could also call upon others in the community to support their claims as ‘oath helpers'
In most cases the accused walked free
Whilst it may seem ineffective, in small, tight-knit communities it would be very hard for a criminal to get away with a repeat offence
If they were a repeat offender or had been caught red-handed, they weren’t given the option of swearing an oath of innocence
Trial by Ordeal
In cases where there wasn’t enough evidence to prove a person was guilty, the church had an important role
The accused could be tried by the church authorities in a ‘trial by ordeal'
It was a test of guilt in the eyes of god
Inc trial by hot iron, hot water or cold water
Trial by hot iron/water: heat used to burn one of the accused’s hands which was then bandaged, if healed well then god judged them to be innocent
Cold water: accused thrown into water with their arms tied - if u floated u were guilty, sank innocent and were hauled up again
This was because the water ‘accepted’ the innocent person as pure, whilst the guilty had been ‘rejected’ by it
Christian thinking also had an influence on Saxon ideas about some punishments
For some crimes, inc petty theft, the church advised maiming
The belief was that, unlike execution, this type of punishment gave the criminal time to seek forgiveness from God
FULL NOTES: quizlet.com/_5...
IMAGE ATTRIBUTIONS
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"West Stow Anglo-Saxon village" by Midnightblueowl, licensed under CC-BY 3.0
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Attribution: User:Mashkawat.ahsan
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Attribution: Jeff Tomlinson
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Attribution: Jo Turner
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Attribution: Ron Strutt
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Attribution: Keith Evans
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Attribution: User: (WT-shared) Nick at wts wikivoyage
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Attribution: Peter Jordan
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*The information for this video was sourced from the Pearson Crime & Punishment GCSE history textbook & it is based around the specification for the the Pearson Edexcel 9-1 GCSE History

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🚨CORRECTIONS 🚨: ✔︎ None so far! :) Spotted a mistake in the video? If you think you’ve spotted a mistake, leave a polite comment saying what you think is wrong and linking a legitimate source. I’ll check and if you’re right then I’ll add the correction to this pinned comment. :) ✘ I do not engage with corrections comments which are written rudely ✘ If you leave an essay full of corrections, I won’t check it because I have other, better things to do

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Awww pleased you think the videos are life saving! And I'm so pleased your mock went well!!!!! :)

[@rydm0541]

what a coincidence that we’re studying this right now. finally, i have a funny, pocket vid for revision on this!

[@ruebenm3127]

Just wanted to thank you, as your videos are a big help with revision. Ive been using your videos to make sure I still know some stuff about Anglo Saxon England. Because we've moved onto conflict and tension in Korea 1950-53.

[@Alonglongtimeago]

Pleased you find the videos helpful!! :)

[@MythologywithMike]

3:10 That's the test they'd do to see if someone's a witch

[@Alonglongtimeago]

Indeed

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"She turned me into a newt!!"

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Great video. Thank you for making/posting it.

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I absolutely love your videos it's a fun and engaging way to learn and revise. By any chance could you do a video only focusing on the roles of the church through time please.

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Thanks for these amazing videos!! My year 10 class always messes about and don’t do the work so I never understand much but these videos have made me learn so much. There is one thing I’ve needed help with and it’s about the life of Thomas Cromwell and his relation to Oliver Cromwell... If you can could you make a video of that please?

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Only just found this but wow! I learned more from this than my actual teacher in class. Thank you.

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Pleased you like the video!! :)

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There are a few other people like you out there! :)

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I’m starting out in my GCSE, and well, although I do learn stuff in class this helps out a lot in revision. it also helps if I wanna learn other things haha

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Nice historical survey of law. Fascinating.

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I’m bingeing all your crime and punishment video at 2am I’ll see if this was a good idea later 😅

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was it

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I NEEDED THIS

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Good luck for the university! That a big change in live :D

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Thank you! It certainly is rather different to living at home, but I'm starting to settle in a bit now :)

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@@nicolash2103 Yep, I have most of my stuff online too with like 1 or 2 things/week in person

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Did you ever end up making the final video in the Discovery of India playlist? Would be nice to complete it with the British Colonization :p

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I did but I took it down again a while ago as I wasn't happy with the quality of the history in it :(

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Interesting subject!

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I did this last year! This was definitely my favorite topic - definitely not because reading fantasy gave me a lot of it already.

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If reading fantasy gave you more knowledge then more power to you!

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Hi I was wondering how you did the animation

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It's a mixture of keyframes in final cut pro x and motion 5 :)

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Wonderful

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WTF why didn't we have this for GCSE? Our curriculum was mostly history of medicine. I didn't even take it, despite history being my favourite subject. Waaaay more interesting.

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Are you gonna do a video on how to answer 8 mark questions?

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At some point :)

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hey @A long, long time ago... dyou go to southhampton uni?

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Nope, I'm from Soton but staying at home for uni didn't appeal :)

[@blitz64290]

Didn’t know that they had electricity pylons in the background when doing trial by cold water

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Still more just than what we have today.

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POV you can see hayling island in a KZbin video

[@kieranhuggins6802]

It's a shame people don't take the same responsibility for their communities today that the Anglo Saxons did! Great channel keep up the good work. 👍😀

[@Alonglongtimeago]

I mean it is rather more difficult when you take into consideration the fact the population now is like 30 times the size... pleased you like the video though!

[@joshygoldiem_j2799]

Scary to believe that these superstitious people were Christian instead of Heathenists