Canon Danelaw

Context here.

Imagine that a group of "Crusader Vikings" is ruled by a blend of canon law and Danelaw called the Canon Danelaw. As a plausible alternate history construction, write a description of the features of Canon Danelaw. Although it is a hypothetical, simply write it in the indicative as if it exists.

The Canon Danelaw

The Canon Danelaw governs the Crusader Vikings by fusing northern customary norms of the old Danelaw with Latin canon law. It presents itself as a single ordinance—the Liber Canonum Danorum—but is practiced through local assemblies and ecclesiastical courts that share jurisdiction.

Sources of law

• Dual font of authority. Secular custom descends from wapentake ordinances and borough usages; spiritual norms follow decretals and synodal canons. When these conflict, a written canon prevails in matters of sin and sacrament, while customary law governs land and war.
• Promulgation. Law is issued by synods held at thing-sites; enactments require assent of bishops and jarls. Capitularies are sealed with both the archbishop’s cross and the jarl’s ring.
• Writing and witness. Charters are drafted by notaries in Latin but witnessed in the thing by twelve oath-worthy thegns; runic endorsements authenticate local custom.

Courts and jurisdiction

• The Thing-Consistory. Each wapentake holds a joint session: the lay thing hears pleas of land and violence; the bishop’s consistory sits beside it for marriage, inheritance legitimacy, oaths, and morality. Cases may be “split,” with facts found by the thing and sentence shaped by penance tariffs.
• Appeals. From borough to shire to the High Synod at the Five Boroughs, where a panel of twelve canons and twelve thegns sit, presided over by an archbishop-jarl when the matter touches war or crusade.
• Proof. Compurgation and ordeal survive in limited form, but confessional inquiry (inquisitio) replaces trial by hot iron in all pleas touching sacraments. Oaths are sworn on both a gospel and the temple ring.

Personal status and family

• Marriage. Handfasting confers betrothal; a priestly benediction is required for full rights. The church’s prohibitions on close kin prevail, yet local custom preserves the morgengifu (morning-gift) and widows’ dower.
• Legitimacy. Children born before blessing may be legitimated by later solemnization if the parents complete assigned penance.
• Slavery and freedom. Thralls are manumitted at baptismal feasts; manumission converts bondage to church-ward tenancy rather than absolute freedom unless a weregild-equivalent is paid.

Land and tenure

• Bookland and folkland. Ecclesiastical bookland is held by charter and exempt from certain lay levies; folkland follows wapentake custom and is alienated by thing-witness.
• Church-fenced farms. Farms placed under sanctuary hedges owe extra tithe but enjoy protection from distraint during holy seasons.
• Inheritance. Partible inheritance remains, but a canonical “child’s portion” for daughters and orphans is secured before the remainder is divided among sons and sworn companions.

Obligations and levy

• Trinoda and the Oared Cross. The threefold duty (bridge, fort, host) persists, joined by a fourth: the Oared Cross, a naval levy for crusading voyages. Service earns indulgences scaled to distance and season.
• Taxes. The tithe is universal; the crucegeld (a redirected heregeld) funds crusading fleets under episcopal audit. Peter’s Pence is paid at the midsummer fairs.

Crime, compensation, and penance

• Wergild scaled by sin. Traditional weregild tariffs are retained but tempered by penance: grave sins require pilgrimage or alms in addition to silver. Blood-feuds are commuted through a church-managed weregild bank that advances sums in return for future tithes.
• Sanctuary and the bell. Parish bells raise hue-and-cry; fugitives enjoy forty nights of sanctuary. Afterward, they must accept exile, composition, or embark on a penitential voyage.
• Truce of God, northern term. No feud-taking or distraint runs from Advent to Epiphany, during Lent, or when the sea is ice—canonical truces mapped to sailing realities.

Procedure and policing

• Frankpledge-by-parish. Tithings coincide with parishes. The reeve and the parish priest keep joint rolls; presentments of crime are made at Ember-tide.
• Assizes of confession. Lenten assizes allow conversion of corporal punishments into alms, bridge-work, or crusade service, at a fixed tariff.

Trade, money, and maritime law

• Borough fairs under relics. Major markets open under a displayed relic; stall rents fund hospitals. Sunday trade is banned except for fish and ship-tackle.
• Coinage and weight. Borough moneyers strike crosses and ravens; fines may be paid by weight in hacked silver, but scales must be blessed and sealed each Michaelmas.
• Sea-law of the Pilgrim Keel. Prize shares are divided by canonical thirds: one share to ship and crew, one to captains and jarls, one to churches and the poor. Flotsam is churchward unless claimed within three tides.

Church and governance

• Bishop-jarls. Each shire pairs a jarl with a bishop; neither may sit alone in capital pleas. Clergy claim benefit of clergy for learning crimes, but violent crimes by clerics revert to the mixed bench.
• Discipline. Clerical celibacy is expected; lay concubinage is fined as a sin but compounded by alms rather than outlawry.
• Education and record. Cathedral schools train notaries and ship-clerks; every wapentake keeps a white book of charters with Latin texts and runic abstracts.

Military and crusading norms

• Letters of cross and mark. Privateering against declared enemies issues from the synod, sealed by cross and ring; spoils are audited in the consistory.
• Pilgrimage as sentence. Sentenced wrongdoers may commute outlawry by sailing on crusade or walking to designated shrines, with sureties from their tithing.

Language and forms

• Bilingual formulae. Legal formulas pair Old Norse/Danish terms with Latin glosses: bot et satisfactio, wite et poenitentia. Oath-rings bear inscriptions naming both the saint and the ancestral god it once honored, now reclaimed.

Public order and mercy

• Poor-right. Beggars hold a recognized right to bread at parish gates on fast days; hospitals at port-fairs are funded from prize thirds.
• Year of release. Every seventh year, the High Synod proclaims remission of minor fines and cancels arrears of tithe for households that kept bridges and mended piers.

In sum, the Canon Danelaw binds a sea-borne warrior people to the altar’s discipline without extinguishing the thing’s old freedoms. Silver pays for wrongs, penance answers for sins, and the oar answers the cross.

Imagine that the Crusader Vikings became a major international force with the ambition of enforcing global justice. Write a description of how the Canon Danelaw handles international law, in particular international disputes over annexations.

The Canon Danelaw of Nations

The Canon Danelaw extends beyond the fjords and boroughs to govern intercourse among realms. Its international code—kept in the Red Book of the Five Boroughs—binds princes, city-leagues, and Orders at sea. It treats conquest as a sin to be cured, not a right to be claimed, and makes the church the ledger-keeper of borders.

Fonts of authority

• Dual source. Title to land follows folk-right (possession, custom, oath of neighbors) while legitimacy follows canon (just cause, consent of souls, absence of mortal sin in gaining rule). Both must concur for sovereignty to be “whole.”
• The High Synod and the Sea-Curia. A standing Sea-Curia of twelve canons and twelve thegns sits at the Five Boroughs to hear disputes among princes; its sentences bind on pain of excommunication and embargo. Appeals lie to the High Synod of Cross and Ring when crusade or schism is implicated.

Recognition of realms

• Threefold standing. A polity is recognized if it shows: (1) a bannered host and courts in session (force and forum), (2) churches kept and tithes gathered (cure of souls), and (3) sworn neighbors acknowledging its bounds (oath of marches). Lacking any one, it is deemed a ward rather than a sovereign.
• Protections of the small. Abbey-lands, free ports under relics, and pilgrim roads enjoy “parish-sovereignty”—limited self-rule under the Synod’s shield, not to be annexed save by ritual union.

Title to territory

• Right by charter and oath. Bookland charters, boundary crosses, and sworn perambulations are the highest proofs. The white books of frontier parishes are treated as public registers.
• Right by guardianship. Where a land is truly lordless (no courts, no tithe, churches fallen), a neighbor may take wardenship for seven winters, keeping local laws and rendering annual accounts to the Sea-Curia. Wardenship does not ripen into ownership without consent.
• Right by matrimonial union. Dynastic unions bind realms only if the marriage was licit and the subject parishes freely assent in synodal assemblies.

The annexation doctrine

• Presumption against conquest. Seizure of land by force is illicit unless one of four canonical doors is opened and proved:

  1. Restoration of a dispossessed lawful lord (with continuous protests and surviving oath-men).
  2. Liberation from a prince under major ban (excommunicate for tyrannies named in sentence), followed by parish assent.
  3. Union by matrimonial pact (licit marriage, dowers honored, parishes heard).
  4. Guardianship matured (seven winters of wardenship with audited rolls and parish consent).

• The three tests. Even with a door, annexation stands only if it passes:

  • Title test (lex): instruments and oaths show right.
  • Consent test (vox): parishes, by lot and acclamation before relics, accept the new lord; dissenting parishes may claim ius emigrandi within a year and a day.
  • Penance test (poena): the annexing prince pays composition for blood spilt and endows churches and bridges as penance proportioned to the sin.

• What fails. “Banner-right” (mere victory), purchase without parish hearing, forced baptism of laws or tongues, and occupancy during holy truces are void ab initio.

Procedure in disputes over annexations

1. Truce of the Map. Upon complaint, the Sea-Curia proclaims a forty-night truce along the contested marches; bells silence the feud, fleets furl letters of mark.
2. The boundary inquest. Mixed panels of canons, thegns, and local oath-men walk the bounds with relics and rods, recording cairns, fords, and charters into a red roll.
3. Hearing and proofs. Parties lay charters, host-lists, tithe-rolls, and witness oaths. Torture is forbidden; compurgation allowed only for matters of custom, not for acts of war.
4. Interim wardenship. If sovereignty is doubtful, the Curia appoints a neutral warden to keep local law and tithe until judgment.
5. Sentence. The Curia may (a) confirm annexation, (b) restore the dispossessed, (c) partition by parish lines or watersheds, or (d) impose wardenship for a term with milestones.

Remedies and sanctions

• Penance and composition. Illicit annexers owe a crucegeld to hospitals and bridges, ransom for captives, and foundations of parish schools; commanders guilty of sacrilege sail on penitential crusade.
• Embargo of bell and keel. Excommunicated realms lose access to pilgrim ports; letters of cross and mark authorize seizure of their ships and goods until amends are made.
• Indulgenced enforcement. Naval levies under the Oared Cross enforce sentences; service earns indulgence scaled to risk and season, but plunder is audited, a third reserved for the poor.

Occupation and governance

• Wardenship, not fusion. During occupation, existing borough law and tithe-routes remain. New taxes are “maintenance-only”: garrisons, granaries, harbor piers. Courts sit with both a reeve and a visiting canon; capital pleas require a mixed bench.
• Safeguards of soul and hearth. Forced removals, desecration of shrines, and burning of seed-grain are mortal crimes in the Curia’s eyes. Priests keep rolls of births, deaths, and confiscations for later restitution.
• Exit and ransom. Dissenter households may depart with chattels after paying a fixed redemption for immovables, to be repaid from the Curia’s weregild bank when peace is sealed.

Consent and plebiscite

• Parish assent. Consent is taken parish by parish at the church door under a displayed relic. Voting is by acclamation and lot of leading households; minorities may claim protected law-peace for seven years under the old custom.
• Free ports and city-leagues. Boroughs under relic charters may opt for “free adherence”: acknowledging the new prince for sea-law and mint, yet keeping their guild courts and Sunday bans.

Neutrality and guarantees

• Truce belts. Pilgrim roads, abbey lands, and burial-fields form belts where no levy is gathered and no pursuit runs. Violators incur the Ban of the Relic and universal blockade.
• Sureties and hostages. Princes pledge ring-bearing hostages; breach of truces forfeit their weregild to the poor and hospitals before any return to arms.

Sea and river boundaries

• Waters decide. Maritime bounds follow soundings, cod banks, and lighthouse beacons rather than lines on vellum. Islands are attached to the parish whose bell is first heard by a pilot in fair wind.
• Prize and blockade. During sentences, blockade is licit if proclaimed at three ports and a fast-day; famine-inducing blockades during holy seasons trigger penance and alms ships.

Crimes against the peace

• Annexation in holy time. War raised from Advent to Epiphany or during Lent adds a sin-multiplier to penance. Burning churches, cutting boundary crosses, or slaying clerks voids all color of right and invites universal pursuit.
• Erasure of custom. Outlawing local tongues, tearing guild charters, or suppressing ancient fairs is classed as cultural sacrilege; sentences require restoration in kind before any recognition of title.

Final settlement

• White year. After sentences on annexation, a white year is proclaimed: minor fines remitted, tithe arrears canceled for bridge-keepers and pier-menders, and mixed marriages regularized by fast-day benedictions.
• Recording and oath. Borders are carved on boundary stones, copied to the white books, and sworn by twelve oath-men from each side upon ring and gospel. Only then does the Curia publish recognition of title.

In this order, lands change hands rarely and at cost; the sword may open a door, but only charters, parishes, and penance keep it from swinging shut.