Of all the kings of Wessex prior to the reign of King Alfred, Ine is the one with probably the greatest reputation. This rests mostly on the respect afforded to his law code by King Alfred in the preface to his own collection of legal rulings. There Alfred explicitly set himself in a tradition following from Moses and Ine in making laws for his people. This is high praise and surely must attract the interest of readers. Who was this Ine? Why were his laws so notable? And does the reality live up the expectation set by Alfred’s praise? In this episode we will seek to answer these questions and discover that Ine’s legacy is decidedly more complicated that a surface reading of Alfred’s preface would suggest.
