The Asega-bôk, English: "Book of the Judges", was part of the
legal code
A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
. The oldest known manuscript version, the ''First Riustring Manuscript'' (now in
Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to:
Places
*Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
*Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany
**Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony
*Olde ...
) is, besides the oldest extant text in Frisian, one of the oldest remaining continental codes of Germanic law.
History and background
A codex containing a copy of the code, the First Riustring Manuscript, survives in the archives at
Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to:
Places
*Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
*Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany
**Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony
*Olde ...
(24, 1, Ab. 1). While
Joseph Bosworth
Joseph Bosworth (1788 – 27 May 1876) was an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary.
Biography
Born in Derbyshire in 1788, Bosworth was educated at Repton School as a 'Poor Scholar' b ...
believed it to have been written somewhere between 1212 and 1250 A.D., twentieth-century scholars date it ca. 1300, although some of the materials that it incorporates date to 1050. That version is the oldest surviving work written in
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
, and one of the oldest surviving continental Germanic law codes (the Gulating law, possibly ca. 1150, may be older). The first modern scholarly edition was published in 1961 by Wybren Jan Buma in Dutch; a year later Buma, in cooperation with Germanic law scholar
Gutalagen
''Gutalagen'' is an early Sweden, Swedish (or Gutnish) law book from Gotland that officially was in use until 1595, but in practice until 1645. The law book originated in about 1220 and, apart from laws, it also contains the Gutasaga.
External ...
.
Contents
One part of the book is the Old Frisian version of the '' Fifteen Signs before Doomsday''. Buma observed that the Asega-bôk's version has a style, compared to that of other versions, that is particularly Frisian. Although the list matches other versions, a conclusion was appended to it by its unknown author, who took multiple versions of the list as his or her source, in Buma's opinion, although relying mainly upon one.
Rolf Bremmer
Rolf Hendrik Bremmer (born 13 August 1950, Zwolle) is a Dutch academic. He is professor of Old and Middle English, and extraordinary professor of Old Frisian, at Leiden University.
Biography
Rolf Bremmer's father, also named Rolf Hendrik Bremme ...
noted that the attribution of the list to Jerome in the Asega-bôk's version was copied from
Pseudo-Bede
The following is a list of works by Bede.
Bede's list of his works
At the end of Bede's most famous work, the '' Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'', Bede lists his works. His list includes several books that have not survived to the pres ...
, and that the added conclusion is similar to Comestor's ''Historia scholastica''. The deduction that it was taken from Comestor is what pushes the 20th century dating of the Asega-bôk later than Bosworth's dating, given that Comestor died in 1178.
The book comprises, in order:
* two similar, but not identical, versions of ''The Prologue to the Statutes and Land Laws'' (supporting the hypothesis, made by Buma, that the book is a compilation of prior texts from multiple sources);
* the ''Seven Statutes'' and the ''Twenty-Four Land Laws'';
* the ''General Fine Register'', part 1 (of 2);
* the ''Riustring Fine Register'';
* the ''Wendar to the 17th Statute'' (''Wendar'' meaning exception);
* the ''Elder Riustring Statutes'' (that are modified from the originals to include references to
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
and the Frisians);
* the ''Younger Riustring Statutes'';
* two texts that begin ''Thet is ac friesk riucht'' ("This is also Frisian law");
* the ''Fifteen Signs before Doomsday'', already mentioned;
* the ''Riustring Fines Concerning Crimes Against Clergymen'', part 1 (of 2);
* a list of the situations in which one is allowed to break into a church;
* the ''General Fine Register'', part 2 (of 2);
* a second group of texts that begin ''Thet is ac friesk riucht'';
* a list of coins and their values;
* an outline of the ecclesiastical penalties for murder of relatives;
* the ''Riustring Fines Concerning Crimes Against Clergymen'', part 2 (of 2);
* the ''Fines for Desecrating Church and Churchyard''; and
* the ''Riustring Synodal Laws''.
According to Johnston, this is one of a great many Frisian legal documents which have a secondary function: the promotion of the ideology of Frisian independence. He identifies three levels of ideology represented in those texts: "(1) the glorification of the concept of law in general, (2) the assertion of the idea of a Pan-Frisian law, (3) the propagation of the idea of Frisian independence and the promotion of Frisian unity against threats from outside". The only text in the codex he deems exempt from such ideology is the ''Fifteen Signs before Doomsday''.