Leges Henrici Primi - Authorship and Title

Authorship and Title

The Leges was written between 1114 and 1118 by an unknown Norman, who is very likely to be the author of another legal work, the Quadripartitus, although some historians, including H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, argue that the two works were by different authors. The Leges was probably part of a project including the Quadripartitus, the two works being part of a planned work in four volumes to cover not only the laws of the writer's own time, but previous laws of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, as well as how to handle legal cases. As part of both works, the author has included the Charter of Liberties, which was King Henry's coronation charter promising not to follow the administrative and legal policies of his predecessor, King William II. About a third of the material in the Leges is also in the Quadripartitus. There is evidence that the author of the two works had been a member of the household of Gerard, who had been chancellor under Kings William I and William II before becoming Archbishop of York under Henry I. The work was likely composed at Winchester.

Usually the work has been known as the Leges Henrici Primi, or Laws of Henry the First. It gained that name from the inscription "De libertate ecclesie et totius Anglie obseruanda leges Henrici primi" which occurs on five of the six extant manuscripts. The sixth manuscript adds "filii conquestoris" at the end of the inscription. The historian Felix Libermann called the work Leges Henrici, but the fuller title of Leges Henrici Primi is generally used to help differentiate which Henry is being referred to.