Penance, Murder, and the Sanctity of Close Kinship in Early Medieval England and Francia

Many secular and ecclesiastical texts from early medieval England and Francia between the ninth and eleventh centuries show that in these societies, the killing of kin was treated as a distinct, and far more severe, offence than the killing of non-relatives. This article explores the differences in the treatment of these offences, demonstrating that there was a substantial social aversion to the killing of relatives among contemporaries, and considers some of the reasons for this reaction. It is also argued that the example of killing one's kin reveals important details about the conceptualisation of kinship in English and Frankish societies more widely: notably that bonds of close kinship were considered to possess a distinctly sacred element to them, and that this marked ties of close kinship out as different from other kinds of social bonds.