Athelston and English Law: Plantagenet Practice and Anglo-Saxon Precedent

The Middle English romance Athelston deals with an issue that was extremely topical to the time of writing at the end of the fourteenth century, that is, treason. Two concepts of treason, personal and institutional, are opposed in the text. The work seeks to retrieve the Anglo-Saxon past through the operation of historical nostalgia in which Saxon history shown as a time of divine blessing and intervention. It also speaks directly to contemporary concerns by establishing an opposition between established English custom and foreign innovation in terms of royal power and prerogative. This is done through the treatment of the law and legal procedure, specifically surrounding the issue of treason. As a result the work can be read as an assertion of English national identity through the deployment of Anglo-Saxon history and the affirmation of English law in comparison to French models.