ABSTRACT
If Cynewulf was adapting the legend for a society living at a given historical point in time, however, it follows that the poem was written from the outlook of a given historical time, and thus the evidence which shows the poem’s conformity to Anglo-Saxon social and legal expectations also dates the poem to the historical period at which all those conditions existed to which the poem conforms. Systematically catalogued, the differences between the Latin and Anglo-Saxon legends may be comprehended under three titles: differences related to the legal process of the trial—a category comprehending the greater part of the discrepancies and all the substantive changes. In Anglo-Saxon law the claimant to whom the right of proof adhered by the nature of the contention was allowed to bring forward both compurgators and witnesses to assist his oath that his claim was correct.
