Oral features in late middle English legal texts

Abstract

Legal acts in Anglo-Saxon society were public rather than private. The community in general was concerned with agreements of any kind-marriage contracts, land grants, etc.- which were performed orally and validated by the use of stereotyped legal wording and formulas. The frequent practice of giving symbolic objects and the use of a ritual language reinforced the performative nature of these ceremonies. Many of the oral features present in Anglo-Saxon legal transactions have passed down to late Middle English deeds. This article aims to identify some oral strategies present in fifteenth-century English legal discourse. As we will see, some of them date back to the Germanic tradition, other ones, however, are the result of the influential Latin formularies and the medieval Latin rhetorics.