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Title: The Life and Times of Alfred the Great
Being the Ford lectures for 1901
Author: Charles Plummer
Release Date: February 13, 2018 [EBook #56557]
[Most recently updated: December 24, 2020]
Language: English
Produced by: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALFRED THE GREAT ***
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALFRED THE GREAT
_C. PLUMMER_
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
ALFRED THE GREAT
BEING THE FORD LECTURES FOR 1901
BY
CHARLES PLUMMER, M.A.
FELLOW AND CHAPLAIN OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH AN APPENDIX
[Illustration]
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1902
[_All rights reserved_]
OXFORD
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
TO THE REV. JOHN EARLE, M.A.
RAWLINSONIAN PROFESSOR OF ANGLO-SAXON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
THESE LECTURES ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND AND FORMER PUPIL
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
The present work contains the lectures delivered by me on the Ford
foundation in Michaelmas Term, 1901. The lectures are printed
substantially as they were delivered, with the exception that certain
passages which were shortened or omitted in delivery owing to want of
time are now given in full.
In the notes will be found the authorities and arguments on which the
conclusions of the text are based. The notes occupy a rather large
proportion of the book, because I wished to spare my audience, as far as
possible, the discussion of technical details.
I have not thought it necessary to recast the form of the lectures.
The personal style of address, naturally employed by a lecturer to his
audience, is retained in addressing the larger audience to which I now
appeal.
The objects which I have aimed at in the lectures are sufficiently
explained at the beginning and end of the lectures themselves, and need
not be further enlarged on here.
In many ways the lectures would no doubt have been improved, if I had
been able to make use of Mr. Stevenson’s long-expected edition of Asser.
On the other hand there may be advantages in the fact that Mr. Stevenson
and myself have worked in perfect independence of one another.
I am sorry that I have had to speak unfavourably of some of the recent
Alfred literature which has come under my notice. I am a little jealous
for the honour of English historical scholarship; and I am more than
a little jealous that the greatest name in English history should be
considered a theme on which any one may try his prentice hand. It
suggests the possibility of adding a new chapter to what I have called
‘that ever-lengthening treatise De casibus illustrium uirorum’ (p. 178).
I have, as usual, to thank all the officials of the Clarendon Press,
especially my friend Mr. C. E. Doble, for the interest and care which
they have bestowed upon the work; and I must also thank the Delegates
for so kindly undertaking the publication of it. The help which I have
received in reference to various points is acknowledged in the book
itself.
For the map I am indebted to the skill of Mr. B. V. Darbishire.
In the Dedication I have tried to express the gratitude which I owe for
the friendship and intellectual sympathy of some quarter of a century.
Finally I would record my great obligations to the electors to the Ford
Lectureship for the distinguished honour which they did me in appointing
me to the post without any solicitation on my part.
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_March 10, 1902_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
DEDICATION v
PREFACE vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x
KEY TO NAMES ON MAP xii
INTRODUCTORY 1
LECTURE I. The Sources 5
LECTURE II. The Sources (_continued_) 31
LECTURE III. The Life of Alfred prior to his Accession to
the Throne 69
LECTURE IV. Alfred’s Campaigns against the Danes; Civil
Administration 97
LECTURE V. Civil Administration (_continued_); Education;
Literary Works 130
LECTURE VI. Literary Works (_continued_); Summary and
Conclusion 166
APPENDIX. Sermon on the Death of Queen Victoria 205
ADDENDA 214
INDEX 215
MAP OF ALFRED’S CAMPAIGNS _To face p._ 1
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AA. SS. = Acta Sanctorum, the great Bollandist Collection.
Ang. Sac. = Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton.
Ann. Camb. = Annales Cambriae, M. H. B.; R. S.; and (more correctly) in Y
Cymmrodor, vol. ix.
Ann. Wint. = Annales Wintonienses, R. S.
Asser. The edition in M. H. B. has been chiefly used, the pages of Wise’s
edition being given in brackets; a new edition by Mr. W. H. Stevenson is
expected shortly.
Bede. For the Latin Text of the Hist. Eccl. my own edition is referred
to; for the Anglo-Saxon Translation Miller’s edition, E. E. T. S.,
is generally referred to, though Schipper’s edition, Bibliothek d.
angelsächsischen Prosa, is occasionally cited.
Birch = Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum.
‘Blostman’ or ‘Blooms’ = Alfred’s translation of the Soliloquies of St.
Augustine; for editions see pp. 128, 194.
Boethius, Alfred’s translation of, ed. Sedgefield, with Modern English
rendering by the same; both at the Clarendon Press.
Bromton = Chronicon Johannis Bromton in vol. i of Twysden’s Decem
Scriptores.
Brut = Brut y Tywysogion, M. H. B.; R. S.; also ed. J. Gwenogfryn Evans
in vol. ii of the Red Book of Hergest.
Capgrave = Capgrave’s Chronicle of England, ed. Hingeston, R. S.
C. E., _see_ Green.
Chron., _see_ Sax. Chron.
Cura Pastoralis = Pope Gregory’s treatise on the Pastoral Care; Alfred’s
translation, ed. Sweet, E. E. T. S.
Dict. Christ. Biog. = Dictionary of Christian Biography.
Dict. Nat. Biog. = Dictionary of National Biography.
Ducange = Ducange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, 4to, 1884-7.
E. E. T. S. = Early English Text Society.
E. H. S. = English Historical Society.
Essays. For the work quoted by this title, _see_ p. 6 _note_.
E. T. = English Translation.
Ethelw. = Ethelwerdi Chronica, ed. M. H. B.
Flor. = Florence of Worcester, ed. Thorpe, E. H. S.; also in M. H. B.
Gaimar = Lestorie des Engles solum Geffrei Gaimar, ed. Martin, 2 vols.,
R. S.; also in M. H. B.
G. P. = William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed. Hamilton, R. S.
G. R. = Gesta Regum, _see_ W. M.
Green, C. E. = J. R. Green, The Conquest of England.
H. E. = Historia Ecclesiastica, _see_ Bede.
H. H. = Henry of Huntingdon, ed. T. Arnold, R. S.
Ingulf = Ingulfi Historia Croylandensis, in Fulman’s Scriptores, vol. i.
K. C. D. = Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus Aeui Saxonici, 6 vols., E. H. S.
Laȝamon = Laȝamon’s Brut, ed. Sir F. Madden, 3 vols., 1847.
Lib. de Hyda = Liber Monasterii de Hyda, ed. Edwards, R. S.
M. H. B. = Monumenta Historica Britannica, vol. i (all published).
Migne, Pat. Lat. = Migne, Patrologia Latina.
Muratori = Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum.
Orosius, Alfred’s Translation of, ed. Sweet, E. E. T. S.
Pertz = Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, folio series.
R. S. = Rolls Series.
R. W. = Roger of Wendover, ed. Coxe, E. H. S.
Sax. Chron. = Saxon Chronicle; except where otherwise indicated, my own
edition is referred to.
S. C. H. = Stubbs’ Constitutional History, cabinet edition, 3 vols.,
1874-8.
Schmid, Gesetze = Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, von Dr. Reinhold Schmid,
1858.
S. D. = Simeon of Durham, ed. T. Arnold, R. S. (For the meaning of the
symbols S. D.¹ and S. D.², _see_ p. 32 _note_.)
Soliloquies, _see_ Blostman.
Thorn = Chronica Gul. Thorn, in Twysden, Decem Scriptores.
W. M. = William of Malmesbury; except where otherwise stated the Gesta
Regum is meant; ed. Stubbs, R. S.
Wülker, Grundriss = Grundriss der angelsächsischen Literatur, von R.
Wülker, 1885.
KEY TO THE NAMES ON THE MAP
Æscesdun Ashdown
Æðelinga-ig Athelney
Apulder Appledore
Arx Cynuit Kenny Castle
Basingas Basing
Beamfleot Benfleet
Bearrucscir Berkshire
Bedanford Bedford
Brecheiniog (_see_ Index)
Brycg Bridgenorth
Buttingtun Buttington
Cæginesham Keynsham
Cantwaraburh Canterbury
Cent Kent
Ciceceaster Chichester
Cippenham Chippenham
Cirenceaster Cirencester
Cornwealas Cornwall
Cruland Croyland
Cynete R. Kennet
Defenas Devon
Dorsæte Dorset
Dyfed (_see_ Index)
East Engle East Anglia
East Seaxe Essex
Ecgbryhtesstan Brixton Deverill
Englafeld Englefield
Ethandun Edington
Exanceaster Exeter
Fearnham Farnham
Fullanham Fulham
Gleaweceaster Gloucester
Glewissig (_see_ p. 44)
Grantebrycg Cambridge
Guilou R. Wylye
Gwent (_see_ Index)
Hamtun Southampton
Hamtunscir Hampshire
Hreopedun Repton
Hrofesceaster Rochester
Hwiccas Parts of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire
Iglea Leigh
Legaceaster Chester
Limenemuþa Mouth of Lymne
Lindisse Lindsey
Lundenburh London
Lyge R. Lea
Menevia St. Davids
Meres-ig Mersea
Meretun Marton
Middeltun King’s Milton
Myrce Mercia
Oxnaford Oxford
Pedride R. Parrett
Readingas Reading
Sæfern R. Severn
Sandwic Sandwich
Sceaftesburh Shaftesbury
Sceoburh Shoebury
Scireburne Sherborne
Snotingaham Nottingham
Sturemuða Mouth of the Stour
Sumorsæte Somerset
Suðrige Surrey
Suðseaxe Sussex
Swanawic Swanage
Swealwe R. Swale
Temes R. Thames
Tenet Thanet
Turces-ig Torksey
Þeodford Thetford
Use R. Ouse
Wætlingastræt Watling Street
Wanating Wantage
Weage R. Wye
Werham Wareham
West Seaxe Wessex
Weþmor Wedmore
[Illustration: SOUTHERN BRITAIN, to illustrate Alfred’s Campaigns.
_To face p. 1._
_Darbishire & Stanford, Limited._
_The Oxford Geographical Institute._]
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALFRED THE GREAT
INTRODUCTORY
[Sidenote: _In Memoriam_ W. Stubbs.]
§ 1. I trust you will not think it inappropriate if I begin these
lectures by paying my humble tribute of reverence and gratitude to the
memory of the great historian who, since my appointment to this post
of Ford’s Lecturer, has been taken from us. I believe that to him I am
very largely indebted for the honour of appearing before you to-day[1];
and if that were so, it would only be of a piece with the many acts of
kindness and encouragement which he showed me; encouragement sometimes
couched in that humorous form which he loved, and which was occasionally
misunderstood by those who had not, like himself, the saving gift of
humour. It is not easy to measure the greatness of his loss. He was
unquestionably one of the most learned men in Europe; one of the few who
could venture to assert an historical negative. If he declared ‘there
is no authority for such a view or statement,’ you knew that there was
nothing more to be said. But even more wonderful than the extent of his
learning was the way in which he could compress it, and bring it all to
bear upon the particular point with which he was dealing. I daresay it
has happened to you, as it has often happened to myself, to read other
books and authorities, and to fancy that one had gained from them fresh
facts and views, and then to go back to Stubbs and find that all our new
facts and views were there already; only, until we had read more widely
ourselves, we had not eyes to see all that was written there.
§ 2. But with all this, history was never to him mere erudition. It
was, on the one hand, the record of human experience, a record ‘written
for our learning,’ and rich with unheeded lessons; on the other, it was
the gradual unfolding to human view of the purposes of God, working
themselves out not only in spite of, but often by means of the weakness
and waywardness of the human agents. And so he views the characters and
the course of history, not, as so many historians do, merely from the
outside, but, if I may so speak, from within. The characters of history
are no mere puppets, to be dressed in picturesque costumes, and made
to strut across the stage of the world; they ‘are men of like passions
with’ us, tempted and sinning, and suffering, as we are tempted, sin,
and suffer; aspiring and achieving, as we too might aspire and achieve.
‘History,’ he says, ‘cannot be well read as a chess problem, and the
man who tries to read it so is not worthy to read it at all[2].’ And
so we have in the Prefaces to Hoveden, Benedict of Peterborough, the
Itinerarium Ricardi, and Walter of Coventry, those wonderful studies of
the characters of Henry II, Richard I, and John, which must always remain
as masterpieces of historical portraiture. In the same way the course of
history at large is no mere complex of material and mechanical laws; it
yields no countenance to that ingenious philosophy which is ‘so apt,’
as he contemptuously says, ‘to show that all things would have been
exactly as they are if everything had been diametrically opposite to
what it was[3].’ ‘The ebb and flow of the life of nations is seen,’ he
says, ‘to depend on higher laws, more general purposes, the guidance of a
Higher Hand[4].’ And so we have those wonderful summaries which conclude
the second and third volumes of his Constitutional History, the finest
specimens I know of historical generalisations controlled by an absolute
mastery of all the facts.
§ 3. And here we find the secret of his unfailing hopefulness. The last
words of that same second volume must, I think, have dwelt in the hearts
of all who have ever read them; where, after speaking of the luxury,
the selfishness, the hardness of the fourteenth century, and the lust,
the cruelty, the futility of the fifteenth, he concludes: ‘Yet out of
it emerges, in spite of all, the truer and brighter day, the season
of more general conscious life, higher longings, more forbearing,
more sympathetic, purer, riper liberty.’ While those who remember the
Commemoration Sermon which he preached at the late Queen’s first jubilee
will know that he brought the same wise spirit of hopefulness to the
history of our own day. There was much in the tendencies of modern
thought and of modern society which, to a man of his strong convictions
as a Christian and a Churchman, was justly repugnant. But in his case
‘experience,’ and history, the record of experience, had ‘worked hope.’
Some of us may perhaps remember how in one of his public lectures he
himself quoted the Psalmist’s words: ‘I said, It is mine own infirmity:
but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most Highest.’
§ 4. It is only of his character as an historian that I have a right to
speak to you from this place; but perhaps you will forgive me if, as a
Churchman, I just briefly put on record my sense of the loss which the
Church of England has suffered in his death; though only the rulers of
the Church can fully estimate the value to the Church in these anxious
days of that ripe judgement, based on so unique a mastery of the history
both of Church and State. We should be false to his own wise spirit of
sober hopefulness if we did not trust that others may be raised up in
turn to take his place.
With these few words of introduction, I turn to the proper subject of
these present lectures.
LECTURE I
THE SOURCES
[Sidenote: Character of the present lectures.]
§ 5. When the electors to the Ford Lectureship did me the great honour
of offering me the lectureship, coupled with the informal suggestion
that the present set of lectures might appropriately be devoted to some
subject connected with King Alfred, I warned them, in the letter in which
I accepted both the offer and the suggestion, that it was unlikely that
on such a well-worked period of English history I should be able to offer
anything very new or original. That warning I must now repeat to you. If
in the course of our labours I can remove some of the difficulties and
confusions which have gathered round the subject, and put in a clearer
light some points which have been imperfectly apprehended, that will be
all that I can aspire to. For the rest I must be content to put in my own
words, and arrange in my own way, what has been previously written by
others or by myself; and these lectures may rank as Prolegomena, in the
sense in which the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, remarked
that Dean Alford seemed to have used that word in his edition of the
Greek Testament, viz. ‘things that have been said before.’
[Sidenote: Prevalence of uncritical statements about Alfred.]
§ 6. But if I cannot tell you much that is very new, I hope that what
I shall tell you may be approximately true. I shall not tell you, as a
recent writer has done, that ‘by his invention of the shires [Alfred]
anticipated the principles of the County Council legislation of ten
centuries later[5].’ For, in the first place, Alfred did not ‘invent the
shires’; and secondly, if I may quote a letter of my friend the Rev. C.
S. Taylor, whose papers on Anglo-Saxon topography and archaeology[6] are
well known to and appreciated by historical students, it ‘is surely a
mistake to make Alfred, as some folks seem to do, into a kind of ninth
century incarnation of a combined School Board and County Council.’
Yes, it is surely a mistake; and no less surely is it a mistake to make
him into a nineteenth century radical with a touch of the nonconformist
conscience[7]; or a Broad-Churchman with agnostic proclivities[8].
Nor shall I, with another recent writer, revive old Dr. Whitaker’s
theory that St. Neot was an elder brother of Alfred, identical with the
somewhat shadowy Athelstan who was under-king of Kent at any rate from
841 to 851[9]. For, firstly, it is very doubtful whether Athelstan was
really Alfred’s brother, and not rather his uncle[10]; and secondly,
as we shall see later on, St. Neot is an even more shadowy person than
the under-king with whom Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Edward Conybeare would
identify him; so shadowy indeed, as almost to justify an attitude of
scepticism towards him as complete as that which Betsy Prig ultimately
came to adopt towards the oft-quoted Mrs. Harris:—‘I don’t believe there
never was no such person.’ I shall not repeat William of Malmesbury’s
confusion of John the Old Saxon with John Scotus Erigena[11], and of
Sighelm, Alfred’s messenger, with Sighelm, bishop of Sherborne in the
following century[12]; or Henry of Huntingdon’s assertion[13] that
Æthelwulf before his accession was bishop of Winchester. I shall not
speak of an ‘_Earl_ of Berkshire’ in the ninth century, nor tell you that
Alfred’s Jewel is in the Bodleian[14], or that ‘the Danes made their
first appearance on these shores in 832[15].’ Nor shall I tell you that
‘Alfred supplied chapter-headings and prefixed tables of contents to each
of his authors, an improvement hitherto unheard of in literary work,
which, simple as it seems now to us, betokened in its first conception no
small literary genius[16]’; for I happen to have had better opportunities
than most people of knowing that, in the case of Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History, the chapter-headings were there long before Alfred undertook
the work of translation. The same is true of Pope Gregory’s Dialogues,
and of his Pastoral Care. The only works to which the above remarks
could apply would be the Boethius and the Orosius translations; and
even there we cannot be sure that the Latin MSS. used by Alfred had
no chapter-headings; certainly the St. Gallen and Donaueschingen MSS.
of Orosius have capitula[17], though, owing to the free way in which
Alfred dealt with the Orosius, the Latin and Anglo-Saxon capitula do not
correspond very closely. And the same is true of some Boethius MSS.[18]
It is in truth a little disheartening to have all these old confusions
and myths trotted out once more at this time of day as if they were
genuine history. The fact is that there has been, if I may borrow a
phrase from the Stock Exchange, a ‘boom’ in things Alfredian lately; and
the literary speculator has rushed in to make his profit. Along with a
few persons who are real authorities on the subjects with which they
deal, eminent men in other departments of literature and life are engaged
to play the parts which the ducal chairman and the aristocratic director
play in the floatation of a company. They may not know very much about
the business in hand, but their names look well on a prospectus. The
result is not very creditable to English scholarship.
[Sidenote: English learning non-professional.]
§ 7. I would not be understood as wishing to confine the writing of
English history to a small body of experts. It is one of the great
characteristics of English learning that it has never been the monopoly
of a professional or professorial caste, as in Germany, but has been
contributed to by men of every, and of no profession. To this fact
it owes many of its best qualities—its sanity and common sense, its
freedom from fads and far-fetched fancies, its freshness and contact with
reality—qualities in which German learning, in spite of its extraordinary
depth and solidity, is sometimes conspicuously wanting.
[Sidenote: Qualities required for writing English history.]
Still the fact remains, that to write on any period of early English
history requires something more than the power of construing the Latin
Chroniclers in the light of classical Latin, and of spelling out the
Saxon Chronicle with the aid of a translation[19]. It needs some
knowledge of the general lie of English history, and of the main line of
development of English institutions; it needs some grasp of the relations
of England to the Continent during the period in question, some power
of weighing and comparing different kinds of historical evidence, some
acquaintance with the existing literature on the subject[20]. It must be
confessed that in many of the recent writings on King Alfred we look for
these requirements in vain.
[Sidenote: Need for a critical survey of the sources.]
§ 8. But, seeing that so many uncritical statements on the subject
of King Alfred are abroad, it is all the more imperative that we
should begin our work with a critical survey of the materials at our
disposal. We shall find them in many respects disappointingly scanty and
incomplete. But we must look that fact full in the face, and must not
allow ourselves to supply the defects of the evidence by the luxuriance
of a riotous imagination. The growth of legend is largely due to the
unwillingness of men to acquiesce in inevitable ignorance, especially in
the case of historical characters like Alfred, whom we rightly desire to
honour and to love.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s own works.]
§ 9. The first place in our list of authorities for the life of Alfred
must be given to his own literary works. It is true that the evidence
which they furnish is mostly indirect, but it is, for that very reason,
all the more secure. It might be thought that the fact that these works
consist almost entirely of translations would prevent them from throwing
much light on the life and character of their author. In reality the
contrary is the truth.
[Sidenote: Their evidence largely indirect; but also direct.]
It was very acutely remarked by Jaffé[21] that if, as Ranke alleged,
the fact that Einhard’s Life of Charles the Great is obviously modelled
on Suetonius’ Life of Augustus detracts somewhat from its value as an
original portrait, on the other hand the careful way in which Einhard
alters those phrases of his model which were not strictly applicable to
his own hero, brings out many a fine shade in Charles’ character of which
we should otherwise have been ignorant. In the same way, the manner in
which Alfred deals with the works which he translated reveals as much of
his mind as an original work could do. And this is not merely the case
with works like the Orosius, the Boethius, and the Soliloquies of St.
Augustine, in which he allowed himself a large freedom in the way of
adaptation and addition. Even in the Cura Pastoralis, in which he keeps
extremely close to his original, there are little touches which seem to
give us glimpses into the king’s inmost soul[22].
And sometimes the evidence is not indirect but direct. The well-known
and oft-quoted Preface to the Cura Pastoralis is an historical document
of the first importance; and, as a revelation of the author’s mind, it
holds, as Professor Earle has said[23], the first place. Next to this
would come the Preface to his Laws, which, for the purposes of this
section, may be included among his literary works, and the mutilated
preface to the translation of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine. On all
these literary works I shall have much to say later on[24]; I only
mention them here in their character of historical authorities.
[Sidenote: The Saxon Chronicle.]
§ 10. The next place in our list of authorities belongs on every ground
to the Saxon Chronicle. Of the relation of Alfred to the Chronicle I may
also have something to say subsequently[25]. But I have elsewhere[26]
given my reasons for believing that the idea of a national chronicle, as
opposed to local annals, was due to the inspiration of Alfred, and was
carried out under his supervision; and I have said that ‘I can well fancy
that he may have dictated some of the later annals which describe his
own wars.’ For the former view the high authority of the late bishop of
Oxford[27] may be quoted, while as to the second point Professor Earle
writes[28]: ‘I never can read the annals of 893-897 without seeming to
hear the voice of King Alfred.’ My friend Sir Henry Howorth indeed has a
very low opinion of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; and as regards the early
part of the Chronicle I am entirely at one with Sir Henry Howorth. I
have more than once[29] recorded my conviction of the futility of the
attempts of Dr. Guest, Mr. Freeman, and Mr. Green, to base an historical
account of the Saxon Conquest of Britain on the unsubstantial dreamwork
of traditions embodied in the earlier entries of the Chronicle. But Sir
Henry Howorth seems to me to carry his scepticism down to an unduly late
period. Anyhow, for the period covered by the public activity of Alfred,
868-901, the Chronicle is as nearly contemporary with the events which it
records as any written history is likely to be.
[Sidenote: Meagreness of the Chronicle.]
But granting that the Chronicle is, for this period, trustworthy as far
as it goes; it must be confessed that it is often disappointingly meagre.
Of the thirty-four years 868-901, three are entirely vacant[30]. Eight
have merely brief entries of a line or two recording the movements of
the Danish army or _here_; and of these eight entries the last three
have nothing to do with England, being concerned with the doings of the
_here_ on the Continent[31]. Two other very brief entries deal with the
sending of couriers to Rome, and with certain obits[32]. The date of
Alfred’s death is barely (and probably wrongly) recorded[33]; not a word
as to its place or circumstances. And there is a singular dearth of any
note of panegyric like that which meets us in the records, meagre as they
are, of the reigns of Athelstan, Edmund, and Edgar[34]. In regard to the
doings of Alfred this may be due to the influence of Alfred himself; but
on the occasion of his death one might have expected, if not the worthy
tributes which Ethelwerd and Florence insert at that point[35], at least
some recognition of the work which he did. But there is nothing beyond
the rather cold statement that ‘he was king over the whole Anglekin,
except that part which was under the power of the Danes.’ One would
fain hope that this reticence was due to the feeling so finely expressed
by Hallam where he speaks of Sir Thomas More as one ‘whose name can ask
no epithet[36].’ But I do not think it was; and I rather doubt whether
Alfred’s greatness was fully appreciated in his own day, except by one or
two of those in his immediate neighbourhood.
[Sidenote: Charters not numerous.]
§ 11. In charters, which often supplement so usefully the deficiencies of
formal histories, the reign of Alfred is far from rich. The time, indeed,
was not favourable to the preservation of documents. Of the destruction
of title deeds owing to the troubles of the time we have a striking and
pathetic instance[37]:—Burgred, king of Mercia, had, for a consideration,
granted land to a man named Cered, with remainder to his wife after his
death. In course of time Cered died, and his widow Werthryth desired
to go to Rome, and to dispose of the land to her husband’s kinsman,
Cuthwulf. The charter of the original grant to Cered had however been
carried off by the Danes; and Werthryth consequently could not prove her
title. She accordingly appeared before a Mercian Witenagemót held under
Æthelred, Alfred’s son-in-law, as ealdorman of Mercia, and made oath to
this effect. Whereupon Æthelred and the Witan allowed a new charter to be
made out securing the land to Cuthwulf.
And the strong-handed took advantage of this confusion to annex the
property of their neighbours. Thus in 896 Æthelred of Mercia, with
Alfred’s permission, held a Witenagemót at Gloucester, in order ‘to
right many men both clerical and lay in respect of lands and other
things [wrongfully] withheld from them’; a measure no doubt necessitated
by the great campaign of 892-895. Here Werferth, bishop of Worcester,
complained that he had been robbed of woods at Woodchester, which had
belonged to his see ever since the days of Æthelbald of Mercia[38].
If this was the experience of a powerful bishop, a special friend of
the king himself, we may imagine the dangers to which lesser men were
exposed. Fortunately among the documents which have been preserved is
Alfred’s own will, a most interesting relic, on which something will be
said later[39].
[Sidenote: Asser’s work. Suspicious points. The work consists of two
parts, (_a_) annalistic, (_b_) biographical. Crude arrangement.]
§ 12. We come now to what is the greatest _crux_ in our whole subject,
viz. the so-called life of Alfred which bears the name of Asser. It is
obvious that if this work is genuine, it is an historical authority
of the highest interest and importance. On the other hand, it must be
confessed that there are features in it which do excite suspicion. Apart
from difficulties of detail, some of which will come up for subsequent
consideration, the general form of the work is most extraordinary, and
high authorities have pronounced that, in its present shape, it cannot
possibly be original[40]. The work is made up, as most students know, of
at least two distinct elements. There is a series of annals extending
from 851 to 887 inclusive, which are for the most part parallel to the
corresponding annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I deliberately choose
a neutral phrase ‘parallel to,’ as I do not wish, at this stage, to
prejudge the question whether the Latin or the Saxon annals are the more
original. Into this series of annals are inserted, at various points,
sections of biographical matter, of which the earliest refer to Æthelwulf
and Æthelbald, one refers to Æthelred, and the remainder to Alfred. In
some cases these biographical sections are introduced by editorial
head-links (if I may borrow a word from the Chaucerian specialists),
consisting as a rule of very florid and elaborate metaphors[41]. But the
way in which these biographical sections are inserted is so inconsequent
and inartistic, that one is sometimes almost inclined to think that the
compiler, while keeping his annals (as he could hardly help doing) in
chronological order, cut up his biographical matter into strips, put the
strips into a hat, and then took them out in any order which chance might
dictate; much as a famous Oxford parody supposed the names of successful
candidates in certain pass examinations to be determined[42]. It is true
that in Florence of Worcester the biographical matter identical with that
in Asser is woven much more skilfully into the chronological framework
of the story; but, after careful consideration, I do not think that this
implies that Florence’s Asser was any better arranged than our own. I
attribute the changes to Florence’s own skill and judgement; and Florence
had more of both than some of his modern critics are willing to allow.
[Sidenote: Excessive self-assertion of the author.]
§ 13. Another general ground of suspicion is, if I may so say,
psychological; and I may illustrate what I mean by a little personal
reminiscence. Some few years ago I was dining in a college not my own,
where one of the junior fellows told us a somewhat startling tale,
prefacing it with the remark that the incident was unquestionably true,
as it had happened to himself. ‘Ah,’ said the senior fellow, with the
frankness which is one of the privileges of seniority, ‘whenever a man
begins a story in that way, I always know that some bigger lie than
usual is going to follow.’ Now it is at least curious that our author
so constantly lays stress on the fact that he had himself witnessed
some of the most striking of the things which he relates, or at least
had heard them from those who had seen them. Thus he had frequently
(‘saepissime’) witnessed Alfred’s skill in hunting[43]; he had himself
seen the little book containing the daily offices and Psalms and prayers
which Alfred always carried about with him[44]; he had with ‘his very
own eyes’ often seen Alfred’s maternal grandmother, Eadburh[45]; ‘with
his very own eyes’ again he had seen the solitary thorn which marked the
site of the battle of Ashdown[46]; he had himself surveyed the site of
the fort of Cynwit, and verified its capacities for defence[47]. He gives
us to understand that he, with others, had witnessed Alfred’s mysterious
attacks of illness[48]; that he had not only seen, but read the letters
which Alfred received from the patriarch of Jerusalem[49]; that he had
seen in Athelney Monastery the young Dane whom Alfred was educating there
in the monastic life[50]. So he had heard from various persons different
opinions as to the relative guilt of the parties in the alleged rebellion
of Æthelbald[51]; he had conversed with many who had seen Offa’s daughter
Eadburh, the Jezebel of Wessex history, in her dishonoured and mendicant
old age at Pavia[52]; while the story of her crimes in Wessex, which
deprived all her successors of the title of queen, he had heard from
Alfred himself[53]. He had heard from eye-witnesses how Æthelred at
Ashdown refused to engage till mass was finished[54], and of the military
skill of Abbot John the Old Saxon from those who knew him[55]. Now in all
these things there is nothing impossible, or even improbable. It is only
the constant asseveration which excites suspicion.
[Sidenote: Frankish element in Asser; no ground for suspicion.]
§ 14. One general objection which has sometimes been brought against
our author is, I am convinced, without foundation:—I mean the presence
in him of a certain Frankish element. He uses certain Frankish words,
_vassallus_, _indiculus_ (a letter; both these words puzzled the scribes
a good deal), _comes_ (in the sense of ealdorman), _senior_ (a lord,
seigneur), and possibly others[56]. So too the story how Eadburh ‘put her
foot in it,’ if I may use the phrase, with Charles the Great[57], and of
her subsequent fate, evidently reflects the gossip of the Carolingian
Courts. It is possible that the story of Æthelbald’s incestuous
marriage[58] comes from the same source; as, with the exception of
Asser, the only contemporary authorities in which it is found are
Frankish[59]; so too, perhaps, the judgement on Arnulf’s conduct in
deposing Charles the Fat[60], and the more correct form Carloman, as
against the Carl of the Chronicle[61]. But when we consider that two at
least of Alfred’s principal literary and educational coadjutors, Grimbald
and John the Old Saxon, came from different parts of the Carolingian
empire, that Æthelwulf married a Frankish wife, stayed some time at the
Frankish Court[62], and had, as the epistles of Lupus of Ferrières
show, a Frankish secretary[63], that some of these words occur in
English charters[64], where likewise they probably bear witness to the
influence of Frankish scribes, we shall see that there were plenty of
channels through which these Frankish elements might find their way into
the biography of an English king. Moreover, if we should come to the
conclusion that the book is mediately or immediately the work of Asser,
we may be inclined to connect this element in it with a statement quoted
by Leland from a lost life of Grimbald[65], that Asser was one of the
ambassadors deputed to bring Grimbald to England[66]. The description of
Paris also looks as if it might rest on personal knowledge[67].
[Sidenote: Detailed objections; the Diocese of Exeter.]
§ 15. Of the objections in detail which have been brought against our
author, the most important perhaps relates to his statement that Alfred
gave him ‘Exeter with the diocese belonging to it both in Cornwall and
Saxony,’ i.e. Wessex[68]. Mr. Wright[69] thought that this was conclusive
evidence that the work was later than the transference of the united see
of Cornwall and Devonshire to Exeter, under Edward the Confessor. I
shall show presently that there is evidence, both external and internal,
for the existence of our Asser about 975. Meanwhile, I would point out
that under the year 875 the Welsh Annals record the drowning of Dumgarth,
king of Cornwall[70], though it gives one a little start to realise that
there were kings in Cornwall as late as the last quarter of the ninth
century[71]; and we know from the Chronicle that in 877 Alfred recovered
Exeter from the Danes. Now the state of affairs in South Wales which
Asser represents[72] as determining him, at any rate in part, to accept
Alfred’s invitation, in the hope of securing his protection for St.
David’s, clearly refers to a period 877 × 885. Rotri Mawr is obviously
dead, as his sons only are spoken of, and Rotri Mawr was slain in 877;
while Howel, son of Rhys, king of Glewissig, is spoken of as alive; and
he is probably the Howel who died at Rome in 885[73], having gone there,
it is likely, in expiation of a crime, of which the record is preserved
in the Book of Llandaff[74]. It seems to me not unlikely that in view of
the events of 875 and 877, Alfred may have wished to place the districts
round Exeter under episcopal supervision, without necessarily intending
to create a definite diocese, and may have thought a Celtic-speaking
prelate likely to be more effective than an Englishman[75]; for at this
time the Bristol Channel was not either physically or linguistically a
serious barrier between the Celts on either side of it.
[Sidenote: When did Asser become a bishop?]
Whether Asser was already a bishop when he first came to Alfred is
difficult to determine. He is often spoken of as bishop of St. David’s.
Novis, or Nobis, bishop, or, as Asser in the passage referred to above
patriotically calls him, archbishop of St. David’s, died, according to
the Welsh Annals, in 873, after a rule of thirty-three years[76]. His
immediate successor was Llunwerth or Llwmbert[77]; but when the latter
died I have not succeeded in satisfying myself[78].
[Sidenote: Mention of Asser in the Cura Pastoralis.]
Confirmation of the grant of Exeter to Asser is sometimes sought in
the fact that Alfred, in the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis, speaks of
Asser as ‘_my_ bishop,’ at a time when Asser cannot have held his later
diocese of Sherborne, as one of the copies of Alfred’s Cura Pastoralis
was actually addressed to Wulfsige, Asser’s predecessor in that see. But
if Asser was bishop of St. David’s when he came to Alfred, I should feel
myself precluded from using this argument, for I could not regard it as
impossible that Alfred should speak of Asser as ‘my bishop’ in respect
of his Welsh bishopric, seeing that Asser expressly says that Hemeid,
king of Dyfed, had commended himself to Alfred; or he might be called ‘my
bishop’ in regard to the position which he held in Alfred’s service[79].
[Sidenote: Argument from the mention of Asser’s illness.]
§ 16. Another objection has been based on the passage in which Asser
relates how, at the close of his first visit to Alfred, he promised to
return in six months’ time, and give a definite answer to the king’s
proposals; but on his way home, he says, ‘I was seized in the city of
Winchester by a troublesome fever, in which I lay for a year and a week’;
until Alfred sent letters to inquire why he had not kept his promise[80].
Now it has been argued that it is quite impossible that Asser should
have been for over a year at Winchester without Alfred knowing about
it. On the other hand, my late friend, Mr. Park Harrison, who, in spite
of his advanced age, kept up his interest in these matters to the very
end, called on me only a few weeks before his death, and argued that
this same passage showed that Alfred could have had but little to do
with Winchester, and therefore it was an impertinence of Winchester to
attempt to monopolise the millenary celebration. As a matter of fact
both arguments are baseless, and rest on a mistranslation. For in the
passage cited, the words ‘in which’ (in qua), refer not to the city
of Winchester, but to the fever. It is quite evident, I think, from
the context that though it may have been at Winchester that Asser was
attacked by the fever, yet he managed somehow to reach St. David’s, and
that it was there that Alfred’s letters reached him.
[Sidenote: Corruption of the text of Asser, largely due to editors.]
§ 17. But before we can judge fairly of the work before us, we must try
to do something to rescue the text from the very parlous condition in
which it has come down to us. Indeed, with the exception of Ethelwerd’s
Chronicle, hardly any work connected with Early English history has
been textually so unfortunate as Asser. The only known manuscript of any
antiquity perished almost entirely in the great Cottonian fire of 1731;
the two existing manuscripts are paper copies of the sixteenth century.
For our knowledge of the ancient Cottonian MS. we are dependent mainly
on Wise’s edition of 1722; an excellent work for the time at which
it was produced, but that it is not scrupulously accurate, according
to modern notions, is proved by the fact that, whereas the facsimile
given by Wise himself of the beginning of the MS. writes the name of
Alfred’s birthplace, Uuanating, the text prints it Wanading. Moreover,
the work has been shamefully tampered with by editors. Apart from longer
interpolations, of which I shall speak presently, numberless smaller
additions have been introduced into the text from the so-called Annals
of Asser or of St. Neot[81], a compilation of the eleventh or twelfth
century[82], largely based it is true on Asser for the period 851-887,
and therefore available, within proper limits, like the works of other
authors who have made use of Asser, for purposes of textual criticism;
but not to be used, as has been done, for the wholesale depravation of
the text. Even the editors of the Monumenta Historica Britannica were
content to place these additions in brackets, instead of removing them
altogether. Consequently they are often quoted by modern writers as if
they were part of the original Asser.
[Sidenote: Florence of Worcester’s use of Asser.]
Of writers who have made use of Asser the most valuable, for our
purposes, is Florence of Worcester. Very often he furnishes us with what
is evidently the true reading[83], in one case at least a passage of some
length can be recovered from his pages, which has been dropped out of
our present text of Asser merely owing to homoioteleuton[84]. But even
Florence must be used with caution for textual purposes. For just as his
greater skill in composition led him (as we have seen[85]) to rearrange
the materials with which Asser furnished him, so his better taste and
greater command of Latin led him to revise and prune the language of
his author. Moreover, in certain cases, Florence has corrected and
supplemented Asser by the direct use of the Saxon Chronicle[86]. It must
not therefore always be assumed that because Florence’s reading is better
than Asser’s, it is therefore more original. Conversely, though rarely,
Asser enables us to correct the text of Florence[87].
It is very curious that though Florence shows, by substituting the name
Asser for the pronoun of the first person wherever it occurs, that he
accepted Asser’s authorship of the work, he should place Asser’s death in
883, while continuing to use his narrative for four years longer.
Of the use of Asser by Simeon of Durham I shall have something to say
presently[88].
[Sidenote: The Oxford interpolation.]
§ 18. Of the longer interpolations alluded to above, the first that must
go is, of course, the famous passage about the University of Oxford[89].
This passage is a fine illustration of the remark, made in this place by
my brilliant predecessor, Professor Maitland, that the earliest form of
inter-university sports seems to have been a competition in lying. The
different phases of that competition have been traced by Mr. James Parker
in the first two chapters of his Early History of Oxford[90], and need
not detain us here. This passage made its first appearance in the text of
Asser under Camden’s auspices in 1603. It is much to be regretted that so
worthy a name should be connected with so questionable a transaction[91].
I will only add that the use of the one word ‘Diuus’ instead of ‘Sanctus’
stamps the passage as a post-renaissance forgery.
[Sidenote: The story of the cakes.]
§ 19. The next passage which must go is what I must be pardoned for once
more[92] calling the silly story about the cakes, and the yet more silly
story of the tyranny and callousness of Alfred in the early days of his
reign[93]. I hope to show later[94] how utterly inconsistent both these
stories are with the genuine history of the reign. Here I need only say
that the passage was introduced into our text by Archbishop Parker from
the so-called Annals of Asser. It comes ultimately, as stated in the
passage itself, from some life of St. Neot which I have not yet succeeded
in identifying.
[Sidenote: Interpolation at 877.]
§ 20. I have pointed out in another place[95] that the printed text of
Asser contains two accounts of the events of the year 877[96]. With the
exception of a few words relating to the division of Mercia by the Danes,
neither of these versions, according to Wise, existed in the oldest MS.
That they were not in Florence’s MS. of Asser seems indicated by the
fact, that this is one of the annals in which he resorts directly to the
Saxon Chronicle. They therefore must also be expunged. I still, however,
retain the conviction that the former of the two versions, though not
traceable higher than Roger of Wendover in the thirteenth century, is yet
perfectly genuine as history, and furnishes a valuable supplement to the
account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[Sidenote: Earlier interpolations. Story of Alfred’s illness.]
§ 21. So far our task has been comparatively simple. We have only had to
remove what are obviously later accretions. But the question must now be
faced whether the text, as we can prove it to have existed about the year
974, had not already suffered from the hand of the interpolator. From
this point of view the most suspicious passage is that which describes
the mysterious illness with which Alfred is said to have been attacked at
his wedding-feast[97]. This passage has already been severely criticised
by Pauli[98], though he has not exhausted all the arguments which can be
brought against it.
[Sidenote: Analysis.]
In the first place it is entirely out of position. Though it refers to
Alfred’s wedding, which has already been given, probably correctly, under
868, when Alfred was about twenty years old, it is inserted between
the events of the year 884[99] and those of 886. The substance of the
story is as follows:—During the marriage festivities Alfred was suddenly
attacked by an intolerable pain, from which he has suffered, as those
who daily see it know, without intermission, from his twentieth to his
fortieth year, or longer. No one could trace its origin. Some thought
it was ‘fascination,’ that is, the evil eye, due to the applause of
the multitude; others, that it was the envy of the devil; others, some
strange kind of fever; others, the disease called ‘ficus,’ from which he
had suffered from his infancy. Once, when he was hunting in Cornwall,
he turned aside to pray in a church, where St. Guerier reposes, and now
also St. Neot rests, and entreated that some lighter affliction might
be substituted for that from which he was suffering; such, however, as
would not be externally apparent, like blindness or leprosy, so as to
make him contemptible and incapable of discharging his functions. Shortly
afterwards he was divinely healed of the ‘ficus.’ Though, indeed, this
very ‘ficus’ had been given him in answer to prayer; for, in the first
flower of his youth, before his marriage, feeling the assaults of carnal
desire, he would often rise secretly and visit churches and relics of
the saints, praying that God would strengthen him by sending him some
infirmity, such, however, as would not make him unworthy or incapable in
worldly matters. In answer to this prayer he shortly after received the
‘ficus,’ from which he suffered for many years, until it was removed by
prayer. But alas, on its removal a worse affliction came upon him at his
marriage which lasted from his twentieth to his forty-fifth year without
intermission; and even if it leaves him for a single hour, the fear and
horror of it never quit him, but render him, as he deems, almost useless
in things divine and human.
[Sidenote: Inconsistencies in the story. Improbability of the story.]
§ 22. It would be difficult to cram more inconsistencies into so short
a space. First of all, though the whole point of the story is to show
that the wedding-feast disease was different from, and in substitution
for, the ‘ficus,’ the writer ineptly says, that some people thought it
was the ‘ficus.’ This is inserted in order to introduce the statement
that Alfred had suffered from the latter disease ‘from infancy.’ Then,
after telling how it was removed by prayer at the Cornish shrine, he adds
that this same disease was sent in answer to prayer, when Alfred was ‘in
the flower of his youth.’ We can hardly place this period earlier than
(say) the seventeenth year (a very different thing from infancy); yet
he suffered from it ‘for many years,’ though it had certainly ceased
before his marriage in his twentieth year. Again, the condition that the
visitation sent should not be disfiguring or incapacitating, is in one
place attached to the substituted disease, lower down it is attached to
the original trouble. It may be noted that the original disease does
fulfil this condition, the substituted one certainly did not, seeing that
it rendered Alfred ‘almost useless in things divine and human.’ And yet
a main point of the passage is to illustrate the efficacy of Alfred’s
prayers. Once more, at the beginning of the passage the substituted
disease lasts from Alfred’s twentieth year to rather over his fortieth;
towards the close it extends from the same date to his forty-fifth year—a
very rapid growth. After all this it seems somewhat tame to remark
that leprosy and blindness hardly come under one’s idea of ‘lighter
infirmities.’
[Sidenote: Possible conflation.]
§ 23. In this triumph of ineptitude we may, I think, detect a conflation
of two separate traditions; one of which represented Alfred as suffering
from infancy from a disease for which in answer to prayer another was
substituted; while, according to the other version, the original disease
was granted in answer to prayer, and though removed by the same means,
only departed to make way for a heavier visitation. But the whole passage
is a concoction in the worst hagiological manner, to the source of which
we are guided by the mention of St. Neot; for if the legendary Alfred
was reformed by the legendary St. Neot, there is no doubt that the
historical Alfred has been deformed in an extraordinary degree by the
same agency. And in the present instance we may be glad, I think, to free
the historical Alfred from the atmosphere of morbid religiosity which
taints this whole passage. It may be noted that Florence, with his usual
good sense, has entirely recast the incident, so as to remove most of the
absurdities above enumerated. Whether the other two passages, which refer
to Alfred’s illness[100], are also to be rejected is less easy to say.
In one of them the language is very nearly akin to that of the present
passage; but that might be due to the compiler having made use of it for
his own bad purposes. Personally, I should not be sorry to let all these
passages go; for it seems to me quite inconceivable that Alfred could
have accomplished what he did under the hourly pressure of incapacitating
disease[101]. Still we must distinguish between what is historically
doubtful and what is textually suspicious. There are several things in
Asser which, as we shall see, come under the former category, though I
could not bring them under the latter.
[Sidenote: Incorporation in the text of glosses and marginal notes.]
§ 24. One source of the corruption of the text of Asser is, I think,
to be found in the fact that words and phrases, which were originally
interlinear glosses, have become, as often happens, incorporated with
the text[102]. In one case the text of Florence seems to show that the
gloss has entirely expelled the original reading, at least in the printed
copies[103].
In another instance a marginal note by a later scribe has got into
the text. As this case is of some importance as bearing on the date of
the composition, I must ask your particular attention to it. In the
description of Alfred’s visit to the Cornish shrine, already alluded to,
the following sentence occurs:—‘Cum … ad quandam ecclesiam … diuertisset,
in qua S. Gueryr requiescit, et nunc etiam S. Neotus ibidem pausat,
subleuatus est (erat enim sedulus sanctorum locorum uisitator, …) diu
in oratione prostratus … Domini misericordiam deprecabatur[104],’ &c.
Here the words ‘subleuatus est’ can by no possibility be construed,
either with what goes before, or with what follows. Some time before
I saw the meaning of them, I had underlined these words in my copy of
the Monumenta, and noted on the margin ‘this seems to make nonsense.’
The explanation, I believe, is this:—The original scribe had stated the
repose of St. Neot’s remains in his Cornish home as a present fact,
‘ibidem pausat.’ A later scribe notes on the margin ‘subleuatus est,’ ‘he
has been taken up’; a word very fitly used of the taking up a saint’s
body from the grave in order to place it in some elevated shrine, or
translate it to some other abode. A subsequent copyist incorporated
the note with the text, which is again a frequent phenomenon[105].
Now the translation of St. Neot to the site which bears his name in
Huntingdonshire took place about the year 974[106]. The original text
of this passage must therefore be anterior to that date; the marginal
note, and _a fortiori_ the MS. on which our present text of Asser rests,
must be subsequent to it. If, as I think, the passage in which these
words occur is itself an interpolation, the evidence for the genuine
text of Asser is thrown yet further back. However, the argument for _a_
text of Asser earlier than 974, derived from the use of the present
tense ‘pausat,’ is quite independent both of my explanation of the words
‘subleuatus est,’ and of my views as to the spurious character of the
passage in which they occur.
LECTURE II
THE SOURCES (_continued_)
[Sidenote: Further evidence for the text of Asser in the tenth century.]
§ 25. We saw in the last lecture that there was good evidence for the
existence of our text of Asser, apart from the interpolations made by
sixteenth and seventeenth century editors, about the year 975. Another
argument pointing the same way is derived from the text of Simeon of
Durham.
[Sidenote: Simeon of Durham.]
In that writer’s Historia Regum there exists a double recension of
the Annals 848-951, both of which are, for the years 848-888, largely
derived, mediately or immediately, from Asser. The explanation of
this curious fact given by Mr. Thomas Arnold in his interesting and
able introduction to the edition of Simeon in the Rolls Series, is as
follows[107]. The earlier recension is the work of a Cuthbertine monk,
writing at Chester-le-Street in the second half of the tenth century,
who drew largely on Asser for the reign of Alfred, farcing the text
however (to use a liturgical term) with many rhetorical flourishes of
his own. When Simeon, at the beginning of the twelfth century, embodied
the Cuthbertine’s work in his Historia Regum, his better taste was
revolted by these florid insertions, and he rewrote these annals, not
wholly discarding his predecessor’s work, but using in addition both
the original text of Asser, and also the recent work of Florence of
Worcester. (The fact, which can be demonstrated, that Simeon used (1)
the original text of Asser; (2) Asser as farced by the Cuthbertine; (3)
Asser as revised by Florence, is one which I commend to the notice of
students of the synoptic problem[108].) Had Simeon lived to give his work
the final revision, he would no doubt have cancelled the earlier version
of these annals. As it is, his literary executors embodied both versions;
and we may be thankful that they did so, as they have thereby preserved
some interesting evidence both literary and historical.
If then Mr. Arnold’s theory is correct, as I believe it to be, we have
once more evidence of the existence of a text of Asser before the end of
the tenth century. This however, though probable, is only a theory. But,
even if it be rejected, the argument of the preceding section remains
unaffected.
[Sidenote: The palaeographical evidence unimportant.]
§ 26. Seeing then that we can trace our Asser text back at least as far
as the year 974, the palaeographical question as to the date of Wise’s
MS. becomes comparatively unimportant. And it is well that it is so; for
the doctors differ to an extraordinary degree. One morning in Bodley I
submitted Wise’s facsimile of the beginning of his MS. to three eminent
palaeographers of this University. The first was too wary to be caught by
my chaff, and refused to give a definite opinion; the second said, ‘Not
much later than 950’; the third said, ‘Well, it isn’t later than the
twelfth century, but it isn’t very much earlier.’ I believe the general
opinion would place it early in the eleventh century, and this fits in
well enough with what I have tried to prove above, that it is copied,
mediately or immediately, from a MS. which cannot be later than 974.
[Sidenote: Conjectural emendation. Alfred’s intercourse with the East.]
§ 27. Something may be done for the text of Asser by cautious conjectural
emendation. There are a certain number of obvious blunders in it due to
the carelessness of scribes, the ignorance of editors, possibly even to
the mistakes of compositors[109]. Most of these are concerned with minor
details. There is one correction however, with which I will trouble you,
as it relates to a point of some historical interest; and, moreover,
converts into a proof of Asser’s accuracy, what might have been used as
an argument against him, though I am not aware that it has actually been
so used. In the somewhat magniloquent passage in which are described
the extensive relations which Alfred cultivated with foreign parts, the
following sentence occurs[110]: ‘nam etiam de Hiersolyma Abel patriarcha
[v. l. patriarchae] epistolas … illi directas uidimus et legimus.’ The
passage as it stands is open to two objections, one historical, the other
grammatical. The historical objection is that no one of the name of Abel
held the patriarchate of Jerusalem during Alfred’s reign; though our
historians go on copying and recopying the name without ever dreaming
of verifying the point. The grammatical objection is that the passive
participle ‘directas’ cries aloud for a preposition of agency. By the
addition of two vowels and the subtraction (if necessary) of another the
passage can be brought into harmony both with history and grammar, thus:
‘ab Elia patriarcha.’ Elias III was patriarch of Jerusalem from 879 to
907[111]. In the earlier of the two versions which occur in Simeon of
Durham the word ‘Abel’ is printed ‘a Bel[112].’ This does justice to the
grammar, but not to the history. In the later version, Simeon himself,
following Florence, omits the passage altogether. One would be glad to
know whether Florence omitted it because he saw the objections to which
it was open.
[Sidenote: Evidence of the Leechbook, and of the Anglo-Saxon Martyrology.]
I was first put on the track of this correction by the curious passage
of the Leechbook printed by Mr. Cockayne in the second volume of his
interesting Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, where the writer, after giving certain
medical recipes, says at the end: ‘all this my Lord Elias, patriarch of
Jerusalem, bade thus say to King Alfred[113].’ As the MS. from which this
is taken is, according to Mr. Cockayne, of the early part of the tenth
century[114], we are brought very near indeed to Alfred’s time. Moreover
in the Anglo-Saxon Martyrology printed by the same editor in his work
called ‘The Shrine; a collection of occasional papers on dry subjects,’
two Eastern saints, martyred in Persia in 341, SS. Milus and Senneus,
are commemorated at November 15[115]. These are found in no Western
Calendar, and Mr. Cockayne thinks that the knowledge of them must have
come to England through Alfred’s intercourse with Elias of Jerusalem.
The martyrology, which is unfortunately incomplete, was not improbably
drawn up by Alfred’s directions, and cannot be later than his reign, as
it mentions St. Oswald’s body as resting at Bardney[116], whence it was
translated to Gloucester by Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians, and her
husband Æthelred, not long after Alfred’s death[117].
In one instance, I may remark in passing, the editors have altered
Asser’s text for the worse, what the Germans call ‘Verschlimmbesserung.’
It is the passage where Athelney monastery is said to be unapproachable
‘nisi cauticis, aut etiam per unum pontem[118].’ Here ‘cauticis’ has been
altered to ‘nauticis.’ But ‘cautica’ is a perfectly good word, and means
causeway, _chaussée_[119], a much better sense than any that can be got
out of ‘nauticis[120].’
[Sidenote: Evidence of the work as to the author. He was a native of
South Wales.]
§ 28. But even when all has been done that criticism can do for the
restoration and purification of the text, the work still remains a puzzle
almost insoluble. What can we make out as to the author? It is clear that
he was a Celt from South Wales. This is proved partly by his language and
terminology, partly by his knowledge of South Welsh affairs. As to the
former point, he has the special Celtic use of the terms ‘right-hand’ and
‘left-hand,’ to express the ideas of south and north. The Celt always
faced the east, and named the quarters of the heaven from that point of
view. Thus Chippenham is in the left-hand part of Wiltshire[121]. The
author’s own home was to the left and west of Severn[122]. The Danes
throw up earthworks on the right-hand side of Reading[123]; Sussex is
the region of the right-hand Saxons[124]; and, lastly, all the regions
of the right-hand part of Britannia belonged to Alfred[125]. This does
not, however, exclude the use of the more ordinary words ‘meridianus’ and
‘aquilonaris’ for south and north[126].
[Sidenote: Ambiguous use of the term _Britannia_.]
§ 29. The example last cited brings me to another characteristic of the
author’s terminology; viz. his ambiguous use of the word _Britannia_,
which sometimes means Britain in the ordinary sense[127], but more
often means Wales. Historians have gone wrong through ignoring this
distinction. Thus Dr. Pauli[128], in the passage just quoted, takes
_Britannia_ in what is to us the ordinary sense. But that all the
southern parts of Britain belonged to Alfred is so obvious as not to be
worth saying. That all the southern districts of Wales had submitted
to Alfred is a new and most interesting fact. And this clearly is the
meaning; for the statement is introductory to that sketch of the troubles
in South Wales which explains both why the South Welsh princes commended
themselves to Alfred, and why the author consented to enter his service.
Moreover this use is paralleled again and again in the Book of Llandaff,
a primary South Welsh authority. We find there Asser’s very phrase
‘dextralis pars Britanniae’ several times repeated[129]. We have the
clergy and people, the inhabitants, the churches, the archbishop, the
kings and princes, the kingdom, the islands, ‘Dextralis Britanniae[130].’
To return to Asser:—Æthelwulf reduces ‘Britannia’ under Burgred of
Mercia[131]; Offa’s dyke divides Mercia from ‘Britannia[132],’ and
finally Asser himself agrees to spend half his time ‘in Britannia’ and
half with Alfred ‘in Saxonia[133].’
[Sidenote: Use of the terms _Saxones_ and _Saxonia_. Limitation of the
term _Saxonia_.]
§ 30. This brings me to my next point. For our author, as for all
branches of the Celtic race, the Germanic tribes settled in Britain
bear the common name of Saxons[134]. So much is this the case that
he once writes ‘regnum Orientalium Saxonum, quod Saxonice Eastengle
dicitur[135].’ This is a mere slip, for in other cases he has ‘Orientales
Angli’ quite correctly[136]. But it shows how much more natural the word
‘Saxones’ was to him than the other. So too their language is ‘Saxonica
lingua[137],’ as opposed to Welsh, which is ‘Britannicus sermo[138]’;
a place bears one name, ‘Saxonice,’ ‘in English[139],’ and another,
‘Britannice,’ ‘in Welsh[140]’; and we hear of the ‘Saxon’ poems which
Alfred loved from his boyhood[141], and of the ‘Saxon’ books[142],
in which they and other English writings were contained. So too the
country of these tribes is ‘Saxonia[143].’ But here it is important to
notice the precise limitations under which Asser uses this last term.
It is not coextensive with the whole of Germanic Britain. It includes
Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Surrey, and Essex. Cornwall is excluded as being
Celtic[144]; but Mercia is also excluded[145], and _a fortiori_, though
this is not expressly mentioned, East Anglia and Northumbria[146]. In
other words it includes that part of the island which, at the death of
Egbert, was under the direct rule of Wessex; or, to borrow Bede’s useful
distinction, it connotes the ‘regnum’ as opposed to the ‘imperium[147]’
of the West Saxon house. It is possible that in many cases the term
‘Saxones’ should be understood with a like limitation, for the Mercii,
Northanhymbri, and Orientales Angli are generally mentioned separately.
But I do not think that this limitation can be carried out quite so
rigorously, for instance where Asser speaks of the ‘Schola Saxonum’ at
Rome[148], answering to the ‘Angelcynnes scolu’ of the Chronicle. In one
case he does expressly distinguish ‘Angli et Saxones[149].’
[Sidenote: Alfred ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons.’]
§ 31. And in this connexion it is deplorable to remark that for Asser
Alfred is always ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons[150]’; but then we must
remember that Asser never had the advantage of reading Mr. Freeman’s
history of the Norman Conquest, or of attending the lectures of Professor
Napier. But, jesting apart, it is important to note that by the use of
this title our author intends to mark a real advance in power and dignity
on the part of Alfred as compared with his predecessors, none of whom
bears any higher style than that of king of the West Saxons[151], and the
change of style is justified by the fact that a large number of Mercian
Angles became Alfred’s immediate subjects in 878. On the other hand Asser
does not exaggerate Alfred’s position, as later Chroniclers do, calling
him ‘monarch of the whole of Britain’ and so on[152]. If the heading
of the work is genuine, as I am inclined for this very reason to think
it is, Alfred is addressed as ‘ruler of all the Christians of the isle
of Britain[153].’ In other words the writer recognises exactly the same
limitations to Alfred’s power as does the Saxon Chronicle, where it says
that, after Alfred’s occupation of London, all the English kin submitted
to him, except what was under the thraldom of the Danes[154].
[Sidenote: Other Celtic terms.]
Another term of Celtic origin is probably to be found in the unique
title of ‘secundarius’ given by Asser to Alfred during the reign of
Æthelred[155]; but of this I shall have more to say in another lecture;
while for ‘graphium’ in the sense of ‘donation’ or ‘written grant,’ the
only other authority quoted is from the life of a Welsh saint[156].
[Sidenote: Celtic use of the term _Germania_.]
§ 32. Another trace of Celtic influence is to be found, I believe, in
the innocent-looking passage where it is said that in 884 an army of
pagans from Germany, ‘de Germania,’ invaded the Old _or_ Continental
Saxons[157]. It might be thought that this merely refers to the fact
that part, at any rate, of the invading army had wintered at Duisburg on
the Rhine[158]. But could they be said to be going _from_ Germany when
they invaded Saxony? I cannot speak positively as to all the mediaeval
uses of the word ‘Germania,’ but one would think that it must include
Saxony[159]. But however this may be, the fact remains that Asser nowhere
applies the name ‘Germania’ to any part of the Carolingian empire. The
people of that empire are Franks[160]. Charles the Great[161], Charles
the Bald[162], Charles the Fat[163], Louis the Stammerer[164], Louis,
king of Northern France[165], are all kings of the Franks. Carloman, king
of Aquitaine and Burgundy, is king of the Western Franks[166]. We hear
also of the kingdom or region of the Western Franks[167]. The territory
included in the empire as a whole is called Francia[168]. The eastern
kingdom is Francia Orientalis[169]. The western territory is sometimes
called Gallia[170], and its inhabitants are Gauls[171], or of Gallic
race[172]. Charles the Fat, before he gained the western kingdom, is
king of the Alamanni[173]. I believe that Germania here means Norway,
a meaning which, strange as it may seem, it unquestionably has in the
Welsh Annals. Thus at 1036 the Brut y Tywysogion calls Canute king of
England, Denmark, and Germania, while at 1056 the title king of Germania
is given to Harold Hardrada. In other words, the invaders of Saxony,
according to Asser, came from Norway, and not from Denmark, which he
calls Danubium[174].
[Sidenote: Other Celtic characteristics.]
Another very obvious characteristic of the writer is his fondness for
giving Welsh equivalents for English names of places[175].
May I add without offence that I think another Celtic trait in our author
is a certain largeness of statement? Mons. Henri Martin, a great admirer
of the Celts, notes as characteristic of them a certain ‘rebellion
against facts[176]’; and there are many things in Asser which we can
hardly accept as literally true, though, as I have shown already, and
shall have to show again, some of the criticisms directed against him
rest on misunderstandings of his words.
[Sidenote: Knowledge of South Welsh affairs.]
§ 33. We have next to consider the author’s knowledge of South Welsh
affairs. The principal passage is the one already alluded to where Asser
describes his motives for entering Alfred’s service[177]. He and his
friends hoped thereby to check the mischief inflicted on St. David’s
by Hemeid, king of Dyfed, who had on one occasion expelled Archbishop
Novis, Asser’s relative, and himself. Alfred was in a position to help,
for some time previously all the princes of South Wales had commended
themselves to Alfred; Hemeid himself, and Helised ap Teudyr, king of
Brecheiniog, owing to the pressure of the sons of Rotri Mawr, king of
North Wales; while Howel ap Rhys, king of Glewissig, Brochmail and
Fernmail, sons of Mouric, kings of Gwent, took the same step, owing to
the pressure of Æthelred of Mercia. Even Anaraut, son of Rotri himself,
with his brothers, leaving the friendship of the Northumbrians (by
which I take the Northumbrian Danes to be meant) sought the king’s
friendship; and after being honourably received by him, and made his
godson at confirmation, agreed to stand to him in the same relation of
subordination as Æthelred did in Mercia, and was dismissed with rich
presents—a scene which almost repeats the submission of Guthrum, and
incidentally perhaps supports the view that the defect of which Augustine
complained in Welsh baptismal practice, was the omission of the rite
of confirmation[178]; while the comparison with Æthelred of Mercia
illustrates the semi-royal position of Alfred’s son-in-law[179] at least
as forcibly as it illustrates Anaraut’s dependence.
[Sidenote: Relations of Wales to Wessex.]
§ 34. Many years ago the late Mr. Bradshaw laid stress on the forms of
these Welsh names as showing that Asser could not be a late forgery[180].
This argument becomes of less importance in view of the results we have
already arrived at as to the date, and of the fact that names of the same
type occur in documents later than the latest date which any reasonable
critic could propose for Asser[181]. But the whole passage throws a flood
of light on the state of Wales, and its relations to the house of Wessex.
We see South Wales forced to submit to Wessex by the joint pressure of
North Wales and Mercia; while North Wales, which had remained hostile
at any rate up to 880, when a battle was fought which was regarded
as avenging the slaughter of Rotri Mawr by the Saxons in 877[182],
ultimately found it to its interest to seek the shelter of the West Saxon
overlord. Thus we see actually going on before our eyes the transition
from the state of things under Egbert, when the Celtic population joined
eagerly with the Scandinavian invaders in the hope of undoing the work
of the Saxon Conquest[183], to a state of things in which they combine
with their Saxon rivals against the common foe. It seems to me that such
a passage, introduced so incidentally and naturally, could only have been
written by a contemporary writer. Moreover all the South Welsh princes,
with two exceptions, are mentioned in the Book of Llandaff, several
of them occur in the Annals. Hemeid of Dyfed, Asser’s enemy, died in
892 or 891[184]. Howel ap Rhys is probably the Howel who died at Rome
in 885[185] whither he had gone, it is not unlikely, in expiation of
the crime—a peculiarly foul case of treachery—recited in the Book of
Llandaff[186]. His district, Glewissig, is often mentioned in the same
authority; it is ‘roughly the district between the lower courses of the
Usk and Towy[187].’ Mouric of Gwent and his sons Brochmail and Fernmail
also occur frequently[188]. Mouric is probably the one whose death is
recorded in 873[189]. The only prince as to whom I can find nothing
is Helised ap Teudyr of Brecheiniog. But there is a Teudyr ab Elised,
king of Brecheiniog[190], contemporary with Llunwerth or Llwmbert, the
successor of Novis in the see of St. David’s, who is not impossibly his
father. Of Novis himself I have said enough above (p. 20).
[Sidenote: Events of 878.]
Another place where the author shows his knowledge of South Welsh affairs
is in the interesting addition which he makes to the Chronicle under 878,
to the effect that the heathen force which besieged Cynwit on the north
coast of Devon, had wintered in Dyfed, and massacred many Christians
there[191]. Facts like this explain the change of attitude on the part of
the Welsh. South Wales also suffered severely in 895[192].
[Sidenote: Question as to unity of authorship. Peculiar sense of the word
_aedificia_.]
§ 35. I have so far spoken of ‘our author’ in the singular. But the
question must now be faced: is the work (apart from actual and possible
interpolations) the composition of a single hand? When I first took up
this question I rather hoped that the result to be arrived at would
be, that the annals were the work of one author, the biographical notes
of another, while the florid head-links, of which I spoke before[193],
would be the work of the later editor who combined the two documents.
This would have been a result dear to the heart of the higher critic. But
any such theory, however pretty, will not stand a moment’s examination.
Allowing for the difference of subject-matter, the same characteristics
appear both in the annalistic and biographical sections. Thus of five
instances of the Celtic use of left and right instead of north and
south, two occur in the annals and three in the biography; ‘Britannia,’
in the sense of ‘Wales,’ occurs six times in the biography and once
in the annals[194]. So there are some not quite common words and
expressions, for which the writer has an evident predilection, which
are sprinkled about both parts of the work. The details are too dry for
reproduction here, and may be safely relegated to the obscurity of a
footnote[195]. But one instance is of sufficient general interest to
merit discussion. This is the use of the word ‘aedificia’ in the sense
of articles of goldsmiths’ work. To this I can produce no parallel from
any other writer; but the meaning seems to me practically certain in
three instances, and probable in the fourth; and of these four cases one
occurs in the annals, and the rest in the biography. The first instance
is where Alfred, after Guthrum’s baptism, gives him ‘multa et optima
aedificia[196].’ It is clear that Guthrum did not carry away with him
edifices, in the ordinary sense of the word. Lappenberg would alter
‘aedificia’ into ‘beneficia[197]’; ‘mit vollem Rechte,’ says Pauli[198];
but this will hardly do in other cases, as we shall see.
The next instance is where Asser says that Alfred ‘by his novel
contrivance made “aedificia” more venerable and precious than any of his
predecessors[199].’ Here the ordinary meaning is just possible, though
the epithet ‘pretiosiora’ and the fact that ‘aurifices et artifices’ are
mentioned just before, point decidedly the other way. The third passage
speaks of ‘aedificia of gold and silver incomparably wrought under his
instructions[200].’ Even the most Celtic imagination cannot suppose that
Alfred built edifices, in the ordinary sense, of the precious metals,
especially as his own royal halls and chambers are expressly stated to
have been of stone and wood[201]. The fourth passage tells how Alfred
had workmen who were skilled ‘in omni terreno aedificio[202],’ where
the meaning is probably the same. The use of the word in so strange a
sense in both parts of the work seems to me a strong proof of unity
of authorship. The usage, however, becomes a little less strange if
we remember how much of the goldsmith’s art at that time would go to
the making of shrines and reliquaries, which really were ‘edifices’
in miniature. The two middle passages which speak of Alfred’s ‘novel
contrivance,’ and of his personal instructions to his workmen, are of
singular interest in connexion with the Alfred Jewel; and the fact that
my friend Professor Earle, who has made a special study of that jewel,
agrees with my interpretation of these passages, adds greatly to my
confidence in advancing it. Alfred’s love for this kind of art seems
to have been hereditary. William of Malmesbury gives an account of a
shrine which Æthelwulf had made to contain the bones of St. Aldhelm. ‘The
covering is of crystal, whereon the king’s name may be read in letters of
gold[203].’ This exactly answers to the character of the Alfred Jewel.
[Sidenote: Asser’s style.]
§ 36. Of Asser’s style two prominent characteristics are a fondness for
long parentheses[204], and a tiresome trick of repeating a word or
phrase, sometimes with a slight variation, at intervals, in some cases
longer, in others very short[205]. He certainly would have had no chance
with the editor who objected to the quotation ‘to the pure all things
are pure,’ on the ground that it sinned against the rule of the office
that the same word must not be repeated within six lines. Occasionally
he seems as if he could not get away from a phrase, but clings to it,
as a drowning man clings to a plank; and I think that this feature is
due, not to any love for these particular words and phrases, but to
a poverty of expression like that which causes the repetitions of an
unpractised speaker. These characteristics come out most strongly no
doubt in the biographical sections, but they are not wholly absent from
the others[206].
[Sidenote: Relation of Asser to the Saxon Chronicle. Mistranslation, or
misunderstanding.]
§ 37. The next question which must be considered is the relation of
the Latin Annals of Asser to the corresponding passages of the Saxon
Chronicle. Sir Henry Howorth indeed expresses roundly his conviction that
Asser wrote (if indeed he would not rather say forged) the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle[207]. This I regard as quite inconceivable. Sir James Ramsay,
without going so far as this, records that ‘several’ passages have
convinced him that the Latin of Asser is more original than the Saxon of
the Chronicle[208]. Unfortunately he does not indicate these passages.
My own conviction is unfalteringly the other way. In the first place
there is at least one passage in Asser which can only be explained as a
mistranslation of the Chronicle. It occurs under 876. Here the Chronicle
has a phrase which puzzled all translators of the Chronicle, mediaeval
and modern, till it was cleared up by Professor Earle. It runs thus: ‘The
mounted force (_i.e._ of the Danes) stole away from the fyrd and got
into Exeter.’ Asser misunderstands this, making it a defeat of a native
body of cavalry by the Danes[209]. At 886[210] there seems also to be a
mistranslation or misunderstanding, but the text is possibly corrupt, and
Florence has not improved it.
[Sidenote: ‘East-Seaxum.’]
Again, such forms as ‘Middel-Seaxum[211],’ ‘East-Seaxum[212],’
‘Suð-Seaxum[213],’ ‘Eald-Seaxum[214],’ which contain the Saxon dative
plural surely imply a Saxon original. It may be noted too that Asser
retains the Saxon name of the river Seine, Signe[215], whereas the
more classical Florence translates it into the Latin form, Sequana.
Phrases again like ‘ipso eodem anno[216]’ for ‘þy ilcan geare,’ and
the constantly recurring ‘loco funeris dominati sunt[217]’ for ‘ahton
wælstowe geweald,’ ‘superius’ for ‘ufor[218]’ point the same way.
[Sidenote: Omission.]
Again, Asser accidentally omits the annal 884, which is a very brief one
in the Chronicle. Consequently, he mechanically puts the events of 885
under 884.
[Sidenote: Chronology.]
Lastly, Steenstrup showed by a comparison of the continental Chronicles
that the movements of the Danes from 879 to 897 in the Saxon Chronicle
(= 878-896) are probably dated a year too late[219]. This is confirmed by
the mention of a solar eclipse under 879 at one o’clock of the day. Now
in 878 there was a solar eclipse on October 29, at 1.30 p.m. There was
a solar eclipse also in 879, on March 26, but this was at 4 p.m. Asser
gives the hour of the eclipse as ‘between nones and vespers but nearer to
nones[220].’ In other words he has altered the hour of the eclipse given
by the Chronicle to suit the wrong numbering of the Annal. The force of
these arguments taken together seems to me overwhelming.
[Sidenote: Asser’s additions to the Chronicle.]
§ 38. But Asser is not content to be a mere translator. He makes
considerable additions to the Chronicle, which vary very much in value.
Some are pure rhetoric, others are mere inferences from the words of the
Chronicle, legitimate enough it may be, but of no higher authority than
similar inferences deduced by ourselves. Many consist of interpretations
of Saxon names[221], or statements of their Welsh equivalents[222]. A
considerable number are geographical glosses explaining the situation
of the places mentioned[223]. These three last classes of additions
occur only in the Annals, and all three seem to point to an interpreter
wishing to make his original clearer to his readers, who are assumed to
be unfamiliar with Saxon names and places. Even the situation of London
is carefully explained. But other additions, like the one discussed above
about the wintering of the Danish fleet in Dyfed[224], are of real value,
and evidently rest on authentic information.
[Sidenote: Abrupt termination.]
§ 39. The abrupt termination of the work after the year 887 has always
been a difficulty. If we could trust the statement that the work was
written in Alfred’s forty-fifth year, i.e. about 894[225], we might account
for this by supposing that the Chronicle, from which the writer borrows
so much, had not at that time got much beyond 887. And the work may have
been laid aside and never taken up again. Unfortunately this date occurs
in one of those suspicious passages about Alfred’s illness, though not in
the one most open to suspicion. Or, again, the work may be mutilated.
[Sidenote: Asser to be used with caution; but there is a genuine nucleus.]
§ 40. On the whole, then, Asser is an authority to be used with criticism
and caution; partly because we have always to be alive to the possibility
of interpolation, partly because the writer’s Celtic imagination is apt
to run away with him. But that there is a nucleus which is the genuine
work of a single writer, a South Walian contemporary of Alfred, I feel
tolerably sure, and I know no reason why that South Walian contemporary
should not be Asser of Menevia. There is a slight confirmation of
this view in the quotation which the writer makes from Gregory’s Cura
Pastoralis[226], for we know from Alfred’s own mouth that Asser was
one of those who helped him in the translation of that work. Another
coincidence with Alfred’s preface to the Cura Pastoralis is to be found
in the phrase ‘aliquando sensum ex sensu ponens,’ which Asser uses in
reference to the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues[227]. Anyhow, as I
have shown[228], the work which bears Asser’s name cannot be later than
974, and the attempt to treat it as a forgery of the eleventh or twelfth
century must be regarded as having broken down. I may add that I started
with a strong prejudice against the authenticity of Asser, so that my
conclusions have at any rate been impartially arrived at.
[Sidenote: A puzzling work.]
§ 41. Still the book remains a puzzle both in form and substance. It
was a curious work to offer to Alfred if it contained the scandals
about Æthelbald and Judith, and what we must regard as the idealised
description of Alfred’s court and administration. I am conscious that
I am very far from having solved the problem. I shall be content if
I am thought to have contributed something towards a solution, which
will perhaps be given before long by Mr. Stevenson. The suggestion
of Mr. Macfadyen that the work was drawn up with a view to Alfred’s
canonisation[229] may be dismissed at once. People are not canonised in
their lifetime.
[Sidenote: Lives of saints.]
§ 42. In one class of historical literature, which often very usefully
supplements more formal histories, the reign of Alfred is singularly
barren, I mean the lives of saints. We have nothing like the lives of
Dunstan, Oswald, and Æthelwold, which give us so much help towards the
end of the next century; or like the lives of Wilfrid and Cuthbert at an
earlier period. The times, indeed, were not favourable to the development
of saintship of the mediaeval pattern. The monasteries, the chief schools
of that type of sanctity, suffered more than any other institutions at
the hands of the Danes; and the virtues which the age required were of a
more active kind than those which went to make up the mediaeval ideal.
The title of saint is indeed given by one authority to Werferth, bishop
of Worcester; but this rests, as we shall see, on a misconception;
though in truth, as Mr. Taylor has remarked, the conduct of Werferth
in accepting the see of Worcester in 872, the very year preceding the
expulsion of Burgred, king of Mercia, Alfred’s brother-in-law, by the
Danes, was as heroic as that of any Christian missionary[230].
[Sidenote: Lives of St. Neot; their mythical character.]
§ 43. The only hagiological literature relating to Alfred’s reign
consists of the lives of St. Neot. And these are late, and not merely
unhistorical, but anti-historical. To them are due some of the prevalent
misconceptions as to Alfred’s reign. For this very reason something must
be said about them.
[Sidenote: Five Lives. The Bodleian Life. The Bollandist Life. The
Metrical Life. The Anglo-Saxon Life.]
The existing Lives of St. Neot are, as far as I know, five in number,
four in Latin, of which three are in prose and one in verse, and one
Anglo-Saxon Life. Besides these there is, as we have seen, a fragment
of another Latin Life, embodied in the Annals of St. Neot, and thence
transferred by Archbishop Parker to the text of Asser[231]. Roger of
Wendover’s account of St. Neot[232] seems also to be based on some Life
different from any of those mentioned above. Of the Latin Lives that
have come down to us the earliest is that contained in MS. Bodley 379,
and printed at the end of Whitaker’s Life of St. Neot[233]. It may
sufficiently characterise this writer’s style to say that he describes
Wessex as the country of ‘the Anglican Saxons who dwell beneath
the Zephyr wind[234].’ The next Latin Life is that printed by the
Bollandists[235] from a MS. formerly belonging to Bec. It bears within
itself clear evidence of being later than the Norman Conquest[236]. This
is a very pedantic writer. He talks much of form and matter, genus and
species[237], ‘the dry notions of Logicians,’ as one translator of Thomas
à Kempis[238] depreciatingly calls them; and is fond of using Greek words
like ‘anatole,’ ‘mesembria,’ ‘dysis[239].’ The Metrical Life, printed
by Whitaker[240] from a MS. belonging to Magdalen College, Oxford, is
clearly based on this, of which also John of Tynemouth’s Life[241] is a
mere abridgement. The Anglo-Saxon Life (or rather Homily) is preserved
in a Cottonian MS. (Vesp. D. xiv), whence it was printed by the Rev. G.
C. Gorham in his History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St. Neot’s
(1824)[242], and more recently by Cockayne[243] and Wülker[244]. As
to its date widely different views have been held, based on divergent
interpretations of a passage near the end, where the writer contrasts the
evils of his own times with the prosperity of Alfred’s later years. Sir
T. Duffus Hardy thought that this description pointed to the year 986
as the date of composition[245], while Professor Earle would place it
in the eleventh or twelfth century[246]. But the mistake of the writer
in making Neot contemporary with Ælfheah of Canterbury is absolutely
conclusive against the earlier date[247]. Wülker is inclined to attribute
it to Ælfric[248]; but this also is unlikely. It is clearly based on
earlier Lives, for the expressions occur: ‘as books say,’ ‘it is told in
writings,’ &c.[249] But I do not think it is directly derived from any
of the preceding Lives, and, though not ancient, it may be earlier than
any of them. It certainly contains one miracle which is not found in any
of the others, a very quaint story (probably a folk-tale) of a fox which
stole the Saint’s shoe while he was bathing[250].
[Sidenote: Analysis of the Lives.]
§ 44. These lives cover much the same ground. St. Neot is made the son
of Æthelwulf and his wife, granted to their prayers as a reward for
their piety[251]. Æthelwulf is represented not incorrectly as king of
one of the four English kingdoms, viz. of Wessex with Kent[252], the
other three of course being Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. Of the
relations of these kingdoms a very ideal sketch is given. As the Metrical
Life says, in verses which are as open to criticism on prosodical as they
are on historical grounds:—
‘Suffecit cuique sua pars, nec plura petebat,
Alter in alterius nil sibi iure petit.
Pax stabilis, uita concors, discordia nulla;
Inter eos regnat gratia, liuor abest[253].’
Neot becomes a monk at Glastonbury under Dunstan[254] (who was made abbot
of Glastonbury in 946!), and was the special friend of Æthelwold[255]
(bishop of Winchester 963!) or of his successor Ælfheah[256]! After this
Neot becomes an anchorite in Cornwall, whence he goes to Rome to Pope
Marinus[257]. On his return he founds a monastery in Cornwall[258],
and now it is that Alfred first hears of him (though according to the
pedigree he would be his own brother). Alfred visits him, and Neot
rebukes him for his licentiousness and tyranny[259], compelling him, in
the words of the Bollandist Life, ‘to tremble at the sulphureous flames
of Gehenna’; he prophesies Alfred’s expulsion from the throne, and his
ultimate restoration, and then dies[260]. Next comes the invasion of
Guthrum. Alfred gives up everything and flies to Athelney; the cakes are
duly burnt[261], and then St. Neot appears in a vision and finally leads
the English hosts to victory at Ethandun[262].
[Sidenote: Absurdity of the story.]
§ 45. It would not be necessary to quote this precious stuff, even in
outline, were it not that people still continue to treat it as more or
less historical. I have already adverted to the strange inconsistency
of making Alfred first hear of Neot’s fame after the latter’s return
from Rome, although he was his own brother according to the pedigree.
This seems to show that the making Neot a son of Æthelwulf was a later
development, and not part of the original legend. And, indeed, in the
fragment of the Life interpolated in Asser he is no more than Alfred’s
‘cognatus[263],’ which in mediaeval Latin means cousin, or sometimes
brother-in-law, like ‘cognato’ in modern Italian[264]. But if St. Neot
ever existed, his connexion with the royal house of Wessex has probably
as little basis in fact, as the forged Carolingian pedigree which the
later Lives of St. Hubert give to that Saint[265]. Another noteworthy
point is that the only pope contemporary with Alfred known to these Lives
is Marinus[266], though his obscure pontificate only lasted a little over
a year (December, 882, to the beginning of 884[267]), and was some time
posterior to the death of Neot, who is represented as dying before the
campaign of 878[268]. The reason for this prominence is, of course, to
be found in the privileges which this pope was said to have granted, at
Alfred’s request, to the English School at Rome[269], and still more in
the story that he had sent a fragment of the true cross to Alfred[270]. I
need hardly say that the idea of Alfred’s early licentiousness, or of his
tyranny at the beginning of his reign, is absolutely inconsistent with
authentic history. The year 871, when Wessex was at deathgrips with the
foe, was not the time, even if Alfred had been the man, for establishing
a tyranny. It is pitiable that modern writers should lend even half an
ear[271] to these wretched tales, which besmirch the fair fame of our
hero king, in order to exalt a phantom saint.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s withdrawal to Athelney.]
§ 46. But perhaps the worst misconception, and the one which has most
injuriously affected English history, is that connected with the
withdrawal to Athelney. The Lives represent Alfred on the invasion of
Guthrum as becoming not merely a helpless, but a cowardly and criminal
fugitive. This view is put most strongly in the Saxon Life, which runs
as follows[272]: ‘Then came Guthrum the heathen king with his cruel host
first to the eastern part of Saxland (Saxonia).… When King Alfred …
learnt that the host … was … so near England, he straightway for fear
took to flight, and forsook all his warriors and his captains and all
his people, … and crept by hedge and lane, through wood and field, till
he … came to Athelney,’ where the cakes are burnt. Now there is no doubt
that Wessex was thoroughly surprised by the sudden attack of the Danes
at mid-winter, after twelfth-night, 878[273]. And it is possible that
in this the Danes were hardly ‘playing the game.’ Military operations
were generally suspended in the winter. Chippenham was a ‘villa regia’
as Asser notes; and it looks as if the Danes, with Boer ‘slimness,’ had
tried to surprise Alfred in his winter home[274]. Happily they failed in
this, and, as Pauli has finely said[275], Alfred’s cause was not hopeless
as long as Alfred was alive. For the moment the struggle was converted
into a guerilla war. But this is what authentic history has to say about
it: ‘Here the host … stole on Chippenham and surprised Wessex, … and most
of the people they reduced except the King Alfred[276], and he with a
little band made his way with difficulty by wood and swamp; … and then
after Easter he with his little band made a fort at Athelney, and from
that fort kept fighting against the foe[277],’ until he in his turn
surprised the Danes, and forced them to submit. Athelney, in fact, played
no small part in the redemption of England.
[Sidenote: Later Chroniclers; Ethelwerd.]
§ 47. Of later Chroniclers, Ethelwerd, at the end of the next century,
bases his work mainly on the Chronicle. But, like Asser, he has good
additions here and there; and as he was closely connected with the royal
house of Wessex, being descended from Æthelred, Alfred’s brother, and was
also highly placed as an ealdorman in Wessex, he may well have had access
to authentic sources of information. Unfortunately there is no one who
has worked at Ethelwerd, who will not echo Ranke’s sigh: ‘wenn er nur
verständlich wäre[278]!’ ‘If only he were intelligible!’ The designation
which he gives to himself: ‘Patricius consul Fabius Quaestor Ethelwerdus’
is but too true an index of the puerile pomposity of his style. Something
of this unintelligibility is no doubt to be put down to the corruption of
the text[279], of which no MS. is known to exist. But if he fails to make
us understand his Latin, his blunders in translating the Chronicle show
that he had a very imperfect acquaintance with the Saxon language[280].
It is possible that this fact may be due, as Professor York Powell once
suggested to me, to his having been brought up on the Continent.
[Sidenote: Florence of Worcester.]
The careful Florence gives us less help than usual in this reign,
because, as we have seen, he borrows so much from Asser. His splendid and
inspiring panegyric on Alfred[281] is almost his only serious addition,
though a worthy one, to what we learn from Asser and the Chronicle.
[Sidenote: Henry of Huntingdon.]
Henry of Huntingdon makes no use of Asser, and does little more than
reproduce the Chronicle. There is no trace of the use of ancient
ballads[282], such as we find in other parts of his history; no survival
of personal traditions, like the splendid anecdotes of old Siward
a century and a half later, one of which is the ultimate source of
Shakespeare’s glorious lines:—
‘Had he his hurts before?’
‘Ay, on the front.’
‘Why then, God’s soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death.’
One picturesque phrase Huntingdon has, where, describing the sudden swoop
of the Danes on Chippenham in January, 878, he says that ‘they covered
the land like locusts[283].’
[Sidenote: Simeon of Durham. Legend of St. Cuthbert.]
§ 48. Of the double recension of the annals of this reign in Simeon of
Durham I have spoken above. In the second one, which is Simeon’s own,
there is very little which is not derived from Florence, Asser, and the
Chronicle, except a few notices of northern affairs, taken mainly from
his own history of the Church of Durham. The earlier recension also adds
little to our authorities, except the writer’s own rhetoric, of which
the following specimen from the opening of the battle of Ethandun may
suffice[284]:—‘When the most limpid ray of the sun arose, the king and
all the glory of his people put on their warlike adornments, that is to
say, the threefold breastplate of faith, hope, and love of God. They,
rising from the ground, boldly challenged the caitifs[285] to the fight,
trusting in the clemency of the Creator, secure and fortified as with
a rampart by the presence of their king, whose countenance shone like
that of a resplendent angel,’ with more to the same purpose—or want of
purpose. In these northern accounts St. Cuthbert plays very much the
part which St. Neot plays in southern legend, appearing to Alfred in his
distress, and promising him victory[286], a trait adopted also by William
of Malmesbury[287]. And with this stream of legend Mr. Freeman[288]
ingeniously connects the dedication of the parish church[289] of Wells
to St. Cuthbert, a very unusual dedication for a south-country church.
Moreover, some of these northern accounts prolong the retreat of Alfred
in the marshes of Somerset from three months to three years[290]. We are
fast entering the world of legend.
[Sidenote: William of Malmesbury.]
William of Malmesbury uses both Asser and the Chronicle, though he
declines ‘to unravel separately the inextricable labyrinths of Alfred’s
labours.’ He adds not only the legend of St. Cuthbert, but also the
stories of the golden bracelets, and of Alfred visiting the Danish camp
disguised as a minstrel[291]; wandering folk-tales which get attached
to more than one historical character. There is no reason to believe
that Malmesbury had for Alfred’s reign any historical authority not open
to ourselves, as he unquestionably had for that of Athelstan; unless,
indeed, he had seen Alfred’s Handbook, of which I shall have more to say
later on[292]. He has, however, some very interesting remarks on Alfred’s
literary works[293].
[Sidenote: Knowledge of early English History declines.]
§ 49. After William of Malmesbury men ceased to consult, indeed were
unable to consult, the authentic sources of English history[294], and
there is nothing to check the growth of legend. We get into a world
where cakes are freely burnt, where Alfred is sent to Ireland to be
cured (Irish fashion) of an incurable disease by St. Modwenna[295],
where he invents tithings, hundreds and shires[296], translates into
Saxon the Martian law, originally drawn up by Martia, a wise British
queen[297]. Here, too, Alfred rules as monarch of all Britain[298],
appoints ‘custodes regni[299],’ yet is considerate enough to abstain from
all interference with the Church[300]. Here he founds[301], or better
still, reforms, the University of Oxford, to which he sends his son
Æthelweard[302], and to which, by an improvement on Asser’s scheme, he
devotes a fixed proportion of his revenues[303]. His supreme effort in
his mythical realm is marked by the invention of trial by jury[304], and
the hanging of forty-four judges in one year for unjust judgements[305].
I think it must be admitted that these achievements were highly
creditable to one who, in the same mythical realm, had shown in his early
years such licentiousness and tyranny[306].
[Sidenote: Origin of some of the myths.]
§ 50. In some cases we can trace how the later myth arose; and this
furnishes us with an instructive warning as to the danger of listening to
the unsupported statements of later chroniclers, as many modern writers
are half inclined to do.
[Sidenote: Simeon of Durham.]
The following is a good instance:—
The Chronicle under 885 tells how Alfred sent a fleet to East Anglia,
which defeated a force of sixteen wiking ships at the mouth of the
Stour, but on their way home fell in with a superior force of the enemy,
and were totally defeated. In the earlier text of Simeon of Durham an
elaborate explanation is given of the cause of this defeat[307]; how the
English were surprised, an unarmed multitude, when plunged in lazy sleep;
so that to them, says the moralising writer, would apply the proverb:
‘many shut their eyes when they ought to see.’ Will it be believed that
this elaborate tale, with its attendant moral, has all grown out of a
false reading in the parallel account of Asser? He says that the English
were attacked ‘cum inde uictrix classis dormiret,’ where ‘dormiret’ is a
corruption of ‘domum iret,’ the ‘hamweard wendon’ of the Chronicle[308].
Florence has ‘rediret,’ whether that be his substitution for ‘domum
iret,’ or his own correction of the obviously nonsensical ‘dormiret.’
This example is further interesting as showing how early the text
of Asser was corrupted. Simeon in his turn is misunderstood by later
writers. The Chronicle of Melrose says[309] that in 883 Alfred ‘began to
inhabit the devastated provinces of Northumbria.’ This is a misreading
of a passage in Simeon[310], in which the nominative to ‘prepared to
inhabit’ is ‘exercitus,’ i.e. the Danish army.
[Sidenote: Langtoft.]
Langtoft says that Æthelred died at Driffield, which shows that he first
of all confused him with Aldfrid of Northumbria[311], who reigned just
two hundred years earlier; he next goes on to confuse him with his own
brother Alfred[312]. As he writes Æthelred’s name ‘Elfred’ the confusion
of names is not surprising. We are reminded of Fuller’s quaint protest
against the similar confusion in the case of Ceadda (Chad) and Cedd:
‘though it is pleasant for brethren to live together in unity, yet it is
not fit by errour that they should be jumbled together in confusion[313].’
[Sidenote: Roger of Wendover.]
Roger of Wendover says that Alfred sent alms to Jerusalem[314]. The thing
in itself is not impossible. But the context in which the statement
occurs shows that it rests simply on a false reading in two MSS. of the
Saxon Chronicle ‘Iudea’ for ‘Indea[315].’
[Sidenote: Liber de Hyda.]
Lastly the Liber de Hyda gives Alfred a pedigree which seems to make
him a descendant of Offa of Mercia[316]. If this pedigree was the only
one which we possessed, we might rack our brains to discover what the
connexion was. But on reference to the authorised West-Saxon pedigree we
find that the compiler of the Liber de Hyda has simply made a confusion
between Offa of Mercia and Eafa, one of the steps in the descent of the
royal house of Wessex.
One wonders how many statements, usually accepted as historical, would,
if they could be traced to their origin, prove to have no better
foundation than these.
[Sidenote: Ingulf.]
§ 51. Curiously enough, among the statements of later writers, some of
those which sound most authentic occur in Ingulf, one of the most notable
forgeries of the Middle Ages[317]. It seems to me that the accounts of
the ravages of the Danes[318] may rest, at least in their outlines,
on genuine local traditions. Other statements, though probably false
considered as descriptions of concrete facts, may be true as types of
things which must almost certainly have occurred. For instance, when we
are told[319] that a monk of Croyland named Tolius, formerly a Mercian
soldier of repute, organised military resistance to the Danes, I take the
freedom very seriously to doubt the historical existence of any person of
that name. But that in the time of their country’s need, more than one
world-weary warrior may have come forth from their monastic retreats,
to lead their countrymen against the foe, just as two centuries earlier
Sigbert, ex-king of the East Angles, had been dragged from the cloister
to lead his former subjects against the heathen Penda[320], is more than
likely. So when we read how Beornred, king of Mercia, took advantage of
the confusion caused by the Danish raids to annex monastic estates[321],
how, owing to the ravages of the Danes, and the exactions of their puppet
king, Ceolwulf, Croyland became so poor that no one could be found to
take the monastic vows there[322], we have every disposition to accept
the statements.
It is in Ingulf that Alfred is praised for his devotion to St. Neot and
_St._ Werferth[323]. It is curious to find the very definite connexion of
Alfred with the human friend who helped him so much in his literary and
other tasks, converted into the shadowy relation of a votary to a saint.
[Sidenote: ‘A land where all things are forgotten.’ Alfred eclipsed by
Edgar. Decline of Alfred’s fame.]
§ 52. Where, on the other hand, this growth of legend does not appear
in later chroniclers, we seem to come into ‘a land where all things are
forgotten.’ And it is, I think, unquestionably true, that Alfred’s fame
was in after times largely obscured by that of Edgar. The connexion of
the latter with the monastic revival secured him the homage of monastic
historians, and his imperial position appealed more to the imagination
of posterity than the weightier achievements of Alfred. And then he was
three-quarters of a century nearer to their view. It is not unnatural
therefore that the laws and homilies of Æthelred’s reign should look
back to the reign of Edgar as a golden age[324]; that here in Oxford,
in 1018, Canute and his conquered subjects should be reconciled on the
basis of Edgar’s law[325]. The one exception is the Anglo-Saxon homily on
St. Neot, in which the later years of Alfred are regarded as the golden
age[326]. The motive of this is too obvious to be dwelt on. But to show
how small a space Alfred occupies in some of the later Chronicles, I may
point out that in the Annals of Waverley[327] the only thing mentioned
about him is his foundation of the three monasteries of Athelney,
Newminster, and Shaftesbury, that in the Annals of Dunstaple[328] the
only act recorded of him is the sending of alms to St. Thomas in India;
while this is what his reign shrinks to in the pages of Capgrave, the
first to apply the English tongue once more to the original writing of
history in prose:—
‘In this tyme regned Alured in Ynglond, the fourt son of Adelwold. He
began to regn in the ȝere of our Lord 872. This man, be the councelle
of St. Ned, mad an open Scole of divers sciens at Oxenford. He had many
batailes with Danes; and aftir many conflictes in which he had the
wers, at the last he overcam hem; and be his trety Godrus (a nominative
inferred from Godrum = Guðrum) here king was baptized, and went hom with
his puple. XXVIII ȝere he regned, and deied the servaunt of God[329].’
And so through these dim pages the greatest name in English story moves
like the shadow cast by some great luminary in eclipse[330].
LECTURE III
LIFE OF ALFRED PRIOR TO HIS ACCESSION TO THE THRONE
[Sidenote: Date of Alfred’s birth.]
§ 53. There has been a good deal of discussion as to the date of Alfred’s
birth. Asser at the beginning of his work places it in 849. And in the
annalistic portions he dates each year, not only by the Incarnation, but
by the nativity of Alfred. From 851 to 869 inclusive this latter series
(with one exception) is correctly reckoned from Asser’s own date 849;
from 870 to 876 the dates are reckoned as if from 850; from 878 to 887
they are reckoned as if from 852. In one case, the annal for 853, the
resulting year of Alfred’s nativity is 843. With this single exception
all the other errors are accounted for by the accidental repetition of
numbers, combined with the occurrence of blank annals which are not
allowed for[331]. I have shown elsewhere how the chronology of the Saxon
Chronicle is dislocated in various places by similar causes of a purely
mechanical nature[332]. It is idle to build anything on this. Sir James
Ramsay indeed seizes on the one eccentric annal 853 as giving the true
date of Alfred’s birth[333]. But, to say the least, the doctrine of
chances is strongly against this. We cannot indeed account for this date
by progressive degeneration, but it is simply one of those scribal errors
to which numerals are peculiarly liable[334].
[Sidenote: The true date is 848.]
The best authority for the date of Alfred’s birth has been generally
overlooked. This is the genealogical preface prefixed to MS. A of the
Chronicle. This is a strictly contemporary document, being drawn up
during Alfred’s reign, as is proved by the fact that, though it gives
Alfred’s accession, it does not, as in the case of all preceding kings,
give the length of his reign. According to this authority Alfred ‘took
to the kingdom when there were gone of his age three and twenty winters.’
In other words, Alfred was ‘turned’ twenty-three, as we say, at his
accession in 871. This fixes his birth to 848[335]. The place, according
to Asser, was Wantage.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s first visit to Rome. Question of the Roman unction.
Something more than confirmation implied. The consular diadem. Possibly
titular royalty conferred on him.]
§ 54. The earliest event recorded in the life of Alfred is his being sent
to Rome in 853, when he would be, according to this, five years old.
Of the fact there can be no possible doubt. It is not only mentioned
by the Chronicle and Asser; but we have the actual letter which Leo IV
wrote to Æthelwulf announcing Alfred’s safe arrival[336]. Considering
the child’s tender age, I can hardly think that the object of the
journey was educational, as is very commonly supposed; to say nothing of
the fact that Rome, at this time, had very little to offer in the way
of education, being far outstripped in this respect by the Carolingian
schools of Germany and Gaul[337]. The motive was, I think, much more
religious than intellectual. I see no reason to doubt Asser’s statement
that Alfred was, from the very first, a child of singular promise and
attractiveness[338]; and his parents, who were both conspicuous for
their piety[339], may well have wished to secure for their favourite
child[340], in his earliest years, those spiritual advantages which
were believed to attend a pilgrimage to Rome, and contact with the
visible head of the Church. The passion for pilgrimages and relics was
indeed at its height in the ninth century[341]. So far there is no
difficulty. The difficulty is as to what took place at Rome. Not only
Asser, but the Chronicle, assert that the pope ‘hallowed Alfred as king,
and took him as his bishop’s son.’ The latter phrase clearly points to
confirmation. We have seen by the case of Anaraut of North Wales, that
it was no unusual compliment for one exalted person to act as sponsor to
another at his confirmation[342], or, as in the case of Guthrum, at his
baptism. And in some cases the confirming or baptising prelate acted
also as sponsor, as we see in the case of Birinus and Cuthred of Wessex,
mentioned in the Chronicle at 639. There is therefore some plausibility
in the suggestion, that the unction which formed part of the rite of
confirmation was afterwards misinterpreted as a royal anointing. This
theory was put forward as early as the seventeenth century, as appears
by Sir John Spelman’s life of Alfred[343], and has been accepted by
many subsequent writers, myself included. I confess it fails to satisfy
me now. The statement of the Chronicle seems to me too explicit to be
lightly set aside. Dr. Liebermann indeed argues[344] that the Chronicle
cannot have been drawn up under Alfred’s influence, because of the
gross improbability of this very statement. I am inclined to turn the
argument round the other way. I think that Alfred must have understood
the ceremony to mean something more than confirmation, especially as the
two ceremonies, the hallowing as king, and the reception as ‘bishop’s
son,’ are in the Chronicle clearly distinguished. In the letter of Leo
IV alluded to above the words run thus: ‘We have affectionately received
your son Erfred … and have invested him as a spiritual son with the
girdle (or office), insignia, and robes[345] of the consulate, as is the
manner of Roman consuls.’ It is certain that Clovis wore a diadem after
receiving the consular insignia from Constantinople[346]; and in these
ceremonial matters the Papacy largely inherited the traditions of the
Byzantine Court. If then the imposition of a diadem of some kind on the
child’s head formed part of the ceremony of the consular investiture,
this would come very near to a royal coronation. I am however inclined
to go a step further in the way of suggestion. Ailred of Rievaulx
indeed, who compares the anointing of David by Samuel, supposes the pope
to have been endowed with the gift of prophecy[347]. And a spurious
charter[348] represents Alfred as making promises to the pope, as if
it was then certain that he would one day become king. But, humanly
speaking, it was of course impossible that Alfred’s succession to the
West Saxon throne should have been foreseen in 853, seeing that he had
three brothers living, all older than himself. But is it not possible
that he may titularly have held some subordinate royalty conferred on him
by his father for this very object? Athelstan, the under-king of Kent,
disappears from history after 851. Æthelberht, Alfred’s second brother,
was appointed to that under-kingdom when Æthelwulf went to Rome in
855[349]. Is it not just possible that in the interval it may have been
titularly conferred on Alfred? What emboldens me to make this suggestion
is the curiously interesting parallel of Louis the Pious, who, at the age
of three, was crowned by Pope Hadrian I in 781 as king of Aquitaine[350].
But if this be thought too bold a theory, then I should fall back on
the diadem as one of the consular insignia. When in the course of years
Alfred inherited his father’s throne, he, and others, may well have seen
in the action of him who was ‘high priest that same year,’ a prophetic
significance; just as St. John traces a higher inspiration in words[351],
which, in the intention of the speaker, simply laid down the doctrine of
political expediency in its most brutal form.
[Sidenote: Æthelwulf’s visit to Rome.]
§ 55. Two years later, in 855, Æthelwulf went to Rome himself[352]. As
early as the year of his accession, 839, he had formed the plan, and had
sent an embassy to the emperor, Louis the Pious, to prepare the way[353];
and now at last, after sixteen years, he was able to accomplish it.
How much the subject filled his thoughts seems to be indicated by the
fact that a charter of this year is dated: ‘when I set out to go beyond
the sea to Rome[354].’ He hardly left ‘composito regno’ as William of
Malmesbury states[355], for in 855 the Danes for the second time wintered
in the island[356], and a Mercian charter of this very year is dated:
‘when the Pagans were in the country of the Wrekin[357]’; though that
concerned Mercia more immediately than Wessex. Before leaving England
Æthelwulf entrusted his dominions to his two eldest sons in the way in
which they were ultimately divided at his death; Æthelbald receiving
Wessex, and Æthelberht Kent with its dependencies[358]. The spirit of
family partitions, which wrecked the Carolingian empire, threatened the
house of Wessex also. Happily the evil consequences were averted, as
we shall see[359], by the patriotic unselfishness of the two youngest
brothers, Æthelred and Alfred.
[Sidenote: He takes Alfred with him. Æthelwulf’s reception on the
Continent.]
Æthelwulf took Alfred with him on this journey to Rome. This fact is
not mentioned in the Chronicle, and rests only on the authority of
Asser[360], and those writers who have copied him. But on the whole the
statements are too precise to be set aside, and we may accept Dr. Stubbs’
decision: ‘there is no possibility that a single visit has been broken
into two[361].’ That the child returned to England after his visit in
853, and did not wait at Rome till his father came, is proved by the fact
that his signature is affixed to the charter of 855, already cited, which
Æthelwulf executed when setting out for Rome[362]: and this is better
authority than that of the two recensions of Simeon of Durham; which
however both state the fact very distinctly[363].
The continental authorities do not mention Alfred; but they tell how
honourably the emperor Charles the Bald received Æthelwulf, and escorted
him to the borders of his kingdom[364]; while the Roman historian
gives lists of the offerings which the pious monarch made at the holy
places[365]. Gregorovius indeed says that he came ‘to be anointed and
crowned by the pope[366].’ But he gives no authority, and I do not
believe that any exists. Some authorities transfer to this visit the
royal unction of Alfred[367], while another places it at Æthelwulf’s
death, January, 858[368]. But there is no reason to believe that Alfred
remained at Rome after his father left. The object of both versions is to
make the story of the unction rather more probable; but both alike are
inconsistent with the fact that Leo IV, who is always represented as the
anointing pontiff, died July 17, 855[369].
[Sidenote: State of Rome at this time. The Saracens.]
§ 56. According to the Chronicle and Asser, Æthelwulf remained a year
in Rome, and according to William of Malmesbury he restored the ‘Schola
Saxonum[370]’ or English hostelry there, which is probable enough, as
early in Leo’s reign it had suffered much from fire[371]. It is worth
while to take a glance at the state of Rome at this time. Only nine
years before, under Sergius II, a Saracen fleet had entered the Tiber
and sacked the papal suburb, though they probably did not capture Rome
itself. St. Peter’s, the centre of Western Christendom, the archive, the
museum, the treasury of five centuries of Christian devotion, became
their prey. The church of his brother apostle St. Paul, scarcely less
rich, shared a like fate[372]. The conquest of Sicily, 827-832, had
thrown down the last barrier against Islam[373]. The Mediterranean
was indeed fast becoming a Saracenic lake; and the Saracens were, as
has been well said[374], to the dwellers on its coasts very much what
the Danes and Northmen were to the dwellers on the coasts of Northern
Europe, a haunting ever-present dread, which would not let men sleep.
Some parts indeed suffered from both plagues alike[375]; and in Spain
we find Saracen and Christian combining against the Dane[376], much
as we have seen Celt and Saxon combining in England[377]. It was to
prevent a repetition of the disaster of 846 that Leo IV, with the help
of the emperor Lothair[378], built the fortifications which have ever
since given to the papal suburb the name of ‘the Leonine city.’ These
fortifications were solemnly consecrated by the pope just a year before
Alfred’s former visit, viz. on June 27, 852[379].
[Sidenote: Æthelwulf’s second marriage.]
§ 57. It was on his way home in 856 that Æthelwulf and, presumably,
Alfred also, stayed once more at the court of Charles the Bald; and
here at Verberie on October 1 the elderly Æthelwulf was married to the
emperor’s daughter Judith, a child of twelve or thirteen[380]. The
motive of this ill-assorted match is thought to have been to cement
an alliance between the two monarchs against the wikings, who were
the common foes of both. If this was its object, it was a conspicuous
failure. As far as I can read the history of the succeeding years,
whenever the wikings were defeated on the Continent they threw themselves
on England, and conversely[381]. So that the success of one kingdom
was the disaster of the other. There is no trace of any joint action
beneficial to both. And indeed Charles the Bald, a typical Frenchman in
many respects, intellectually clever, but caring only for the outward
pomp and circumstance of empire, without the strength of character to
grasp and hold the reality of power[382], was hardly the man to carry out
a consistent policy.
[Sidenote: Æthelwulf’s return. Alleged conspiracy against him.]
‘And afterwards he came home to his people, and they were fain thereof,’
says the Chronicle; using, in regard to Æthelwulf’s return, almost the
same simple and expressive words which it uses afterwards to describe
the joy of the people when Alfred emerged from his retreat at Athelney.
This seems to me to give the lie direct to Asser’s story[383]—in
itself most suspicious—that Æthelwulf on his arrival was greeted by a
conspiracy of his eldest son Æthelbald, Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne,
and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, to exclude him from the throne, and
that Æthelwulf, sooner than allow a civil war, consented to accept
the subordinate kingdom of Kent, &c., leaving Wessex to the rebellious
son. We have seen that Æthelwulf, on his departure, had divided his
kingdoms between his two eldest sons, and it is possible that Æthelbald
was less willing than Æthelberht to resign the delegated power. The joy
at Æthelwulf’s return may point to trouble in his absence; and the same
may be hinted at where it is said of Æthelberht, that he reigned ‘in
all good quietness and peace[384].’ This cannot refer to exemption from
Danish attacks, for it was in his reign that Winchester, the capital
of Wessex, was captured[385]. One is almost tempted to think that the
writer, struck, as everyone must be struck[386], with the parallel
between Æthelwulf and Louis the Pious, wished to create an English
counterpart to the Lügenfeld, or Field of Lies, where Louis was betrayed
into the hands of his rebellious sons[387] (June 30, 833). Asser’s
quaint characterisation of an atrocious conspiracy as a ‘misfortune’
(infortunium), reminds one of Gibbon’s immortal description in the
autobiography of the gentleman who ‘was always talking about his faults,
which he called his misfortunes.’ Here, too, I seem to see traces of the
conflation of two different traditions[388], which might point to the
possibility of interpolation. But even if the story be all Asser’s own,
we must remember that he was writing at least thirty-eight years after
the event; and surely we in Oxford know that a legend may grow up in a
shorter time than that.
[Sidenote: Question of Judith’s marriage with Æthelbald.]
§58. If Judith’s marriage to her step-son Æthelbald rested only on the
authority of this early part of Asser[389], I should reject it with
equal decision; and with the same sort of inclination to regard it as
a fabricated pendant to the second marriage of Louis the Pious to her
grandmother, the elder Judith, which caused so much dissension in the
Carolingian empire[390], and was freely labelled by its opponents as
‘incestuous,’ because the parties to it were said to be within the
prohibited degrees[391]. But the marriage of Judith to Æthelbald is
vouched for by strictly contemporary continental authorities[392], one
of them being Hincmar, the prelate who blessed the ceremony of her
coronation[393], so that it is hard to set it aside. And yet it is hard
to accept it. One of the few charters of Æthelbald’s reign[394] bears
as its first three signatures, ‘Eðebald rex, Iudith regina, Swithun
episcopus.’ Did Swithun condone a flagrant case of incest, or does
‘regina’ only mean queen-dowager? Once more: is it not just possible
that the whole story may have grown out of a confusion of Æthelbald with
Eadbald, the son of Æthelberht of Kent, whose incestuous marriage with
his step-mother is mentioned by Bede[395]? The difference between Eadbald
and Æthelbald would not be very serious, especially to continental ears
and pens. Anyhow, we shall hardly acquiesce in the verdict of a later
continental chronicler: ‘nor did the king’s crime seem grievous to the
English, to whom the worship of God was much unknown[396].’
[Sidenote: Story of Alfred learning to read.]
§ 59. Apart from his signatures to charters[397], there is no mention of
Alfred in our authorities after his second return from Rome till he takes
his place upon the stage of history by the side of his brother Æthelred.
But no account of Alfred’s early years could be regarded as complete
which did not include a discussion of the famous story about his learning
to read. I venture to think that a good many unnecessary difficulties
have been made about the matter.
The common view may be expressed in the quaint words of Robert of
Gloucester’s rhyming Chronicle[398]:—
‘Clerc he was god ynow, and yut, as me telþ me,
He was more þan ten yer old, ar he couþe is a be ce.’
[Sidenote: _Illiteratus_ = ignorant of Latin.]
The original source of all this is of course the well-known passage of
Asser[399], where it is said that Alfred ‘remained illiterate’ up to his
twelfth year or more, though he learned many Saxon poems by heart. Then,
after an intervening sentence on his skill as a hunter, comes the pretty
story of the book of Saxon poems which he won by learning to read it to
his mother. Here there are several points to be noticed. In the first
place I believe that ‘illiteratus permansit’ means nothing more than that
he was ignorant of Latin. If we consider that Latin was at this time
the universal vehicle of culture in Western Europe, that ‘legere’ is
constantly used, and notably in Asser[400], of reading Latin; that all
through the Middle Ages the decision ‘legit ut clericus,’ which entitled
an accused person to benefit of clergy, meant that he could read Latin,
this interpretation will seem quite natural. Nor does the contrasted
statement that Alfred had picked up many Saxon poems by heart oblige us
to believe that he could not read his own language in his thirteenth
year. Asser is not so logical in his use of conjunctions; and besides
this, many, perhaps most, Saxon poems could be acquired in no other
way; since they only existed in oral tradition. Alfred’s thirteenth
year, according to Asser’s date for his birth, would point to 861. If we
remember that we have Alfred’s own statement that only ten years later,
at his accession in 871, there was scarcely a priest south of the Humber
who knew any Latin[401], we shall easily see that Alfred would have
little opportunity of making good the defects of his early education on
this side before he came to the throne; and the complaints which Asser
puts in his mouth, that when he had leisure to learn, he could find no
one to teach him, though rhetorical in form, are true enough in fact[402].
[Sidenote: Chronology of the incident of the poetry book.]
§ 60. Secondly, I can see nothing in the passage which obliges us to put
the incident of the poetry book in Alfred’s thirteenth year. It is true
that Asser introduces it with an ‘ergo.’ But when we have once grasped
the thoroughly aimless way in which Asser sprinkles his conjunctions
about, we shall not be inclined to lay much stress on this. And, if we
are to construe so strictly, the ‘ergo’ couples the incident, not to the
statement of Alfred’s want of literature, but to the sentence about his
skill in hunting[403]. The incident may belong therefore to any period
anterior to Alfred’s second visit to Rome in 855. This at once gets rid
of all the chronological difficulties which have been evolved from the
passage.
[Sidenote: Other misconceptions refuted.]
Nor is it necessarily implied that the reading of the poetry book was
Alfred’s first essay in reading. It is only said that he went to a master
and learnt to read that particular book. But a child would need help in
mastering a new work, even if he could read to some extent before.
Again, the suggestion of Pauli[404] and others that even in this case
Alfred was merely taught to say the poems by heart, and then repeated
them to his mother, is based simply on a piece of bad scholarship.
Because in the modern languages recitation means repeating by heart, it
does not follow that that is the meaning of the Latin word. ‘Recitare’
means ‘to read aloud’; it occurs no less than seven times in Asser, and
that is the meaning of the word in every case[405].
[Sidenote: The mother in the story is Osburh.]
Once more, the mother mentioned in the story is unquestionably Alfred’s
own mother Osburh. That he should ever have spoken to Asser of Judith,
who was only some four years older than himself, with all her doubtful
after-history, as his mother, is, as Dr. Stubbs says[406], absolutely
inconceivable.
[Sidenote: Theory of Osburh’s divorce refuted.]
Lastly, an emphatic protest must be entered against the abominable
theory put forward by Wright[407] and Lappenberg[408], and accepted by
Freeman[409], without a shred of evidence, that Æthelwulf had divorced
his noble wife Osburh—noble in character as in race—as Asser excellently
says[410], in order to marry the child Judith. The object of the theory
is to get over the supposed chronological difficulties of the incident
of the poetry book. I have tried to show that those difficulties are
imaginary. But no amount of chronological difficulties would induce me
to accept a moral impossibility like this. It would be better to give up
the story altogether. When Osburh died we do not know. Her name does not
occur in the Chronicle or in charters. If she died in 854 or 855[411],
grief for her loss may have been an additional motive for Æthelwulf to
seek the spiritual consolations associated with a visit to the holy
places.
[Sidenote: Æthelwulf’s death. Limitations of his power. Character of
Æthelwulf’s reign. Question of Æthelwulf’s will.]
§ 61. Æthelwulf did not long survive his return from the Continent,
dying about fifteen months later, January 13, 858[412]. Looking back
over his reign of eighteen and a half years we seem to see that Wessex
had hardly maintained the advance which she had made under Egbert; and
indeed in some respects that advance was probably greater in appearance
than in reality. There is no trace of any exercise of superiority on
Æthelwulf’s part in regard to Northumbria or East Anglia; and though
it is unsafe to argue absolutely from silence, especially where our
authorities are so meagre, the inference seems confirmed by the title
which Æthelwulf gives himself in one of his charters, ‘Rex Australium
populorum[413],’ a district coincident with that denoted by Asser’s
Saxonia, as explained above[414]. While a Mercian charter which makes
special provision for the entertainment of heralds (_praecones_) on their
journeys between Mercia and Northumbria, and Mercia and Wessex[415]
seems to indicate that those kingdoms existed on a footing of equality
and mutual independence. If Burgred of Mercia’s application to Æthelwulf
in 853 for help against the Welsh implies that he regarded the latter
in any way as his over-lord, it equally shows that Egbert’s reduction
of the Welsh had not been permanent. But on the whole I agree with Mr.
Green[416] that the facts of Æthelwulf’s reign do not bear out that
character of weakness commonly ascribed to him, which rests, I think,
largely on the idea that a reputation for piety is incompatible with
mental vigour. The hold of Wessex on Kent and its dependencies was not
relaxed. Egbert himself had found it expedient to conciliate local
feeling by making his son Æthelwulf under-king of these districts[417],
a system for which he could have pleaded the example of the great
Charles, with which he must have become acquainted in the days of his
exile[418]. The same system was continued at Egbert’s death, and again
at Æthelwulf’s departure for Rome, and at his death; the latter division
being prescribed, according to Asser[419], by the terms of Æthelwulf’s
will. Whether Æthelwulf really did venture to fly so much in the face of
Mr. Freeman, as to dispose of his dominions by will, cannot be certainly
known, as the will is not in existence. Anyhow, in view of the earlier
precedents, I hesitate to accept the theory of Lappenberg and Pauli, that
Æthelwulf intended definitely to sever Kent, &c., from Wessex, entailing
it on the descendants of Æthelberht, who in turn were to remain excluded
from the Wessex succession[420]. Possibly Kent was not at once ripe for
incorporation with Wessex, and the arrangement may have been justified as
a transitional measure. Happily it came to an end on Æthelbald’s death in
860; Æthelberht retained Kent on his accession to Wessex[421]; Æthelred
on this occasion, and Alfred, on the death of Æthelberht, patriotically
abstaining from pressing the claims to Kent, which they might have based
on the recent precedents. And this I take to be the residuum of fact in
Asser’s rhetorical statement[422] that Alfred might, if he liked, have
assumed the royal power during his brother’s lifetime.
[Sidenote: Reign of Æthelbald. New phase of the Danish struggle under
Æthelberht.]
§ 62. Of Æthelbald’s short reign of two and a half years nothing is
recorded in the Chronicle; Asser’s statement[423] that his government
was ‘unbridled,’ I regard as a mere flourish, based on his alleged
incestuous marriage; while Henry of Huntingdon’s pathetic sigh that ‘at
his death England realised how much she had lost[424],’ I take to be an
equally valuable piece of rhetoric on the other side. With Æthelberht’s
reign of rather over five years the Danish struggle[425] enters on a new
and more serious phase. Under him, as we have seen[426], Winchester was
taken in the year 860, and though the assailants were ultimately driven
off, a severe blow must have been struck at the prestige of Wessex by
the capture of her capital[427]. The wintering of the Danes in Thanet in
865, marks, according to Steenstrup[428], the beginning of the deliberate
and systematic attempt to conquer England. The recent incorporation of
Kent with Wessex did not prevent the Kentishmen from making a separate
agreement with the foe. The next year, 866, the Danes wintered in East
Anglia, and there too a separate peace was made, to be followed, four
years later, by the definite conquest of that land, and the death of
its martyr-king, St. Edmund. In 867 the never-ending civil discords of
Northumbria opened that country also to the invaders; and there too
a separate peace was made, and a puppet king, Egbert, was set up by
the Danes[429] in the district north of the Tyne, just as they set up
Ceolwulf, a few years later, in Mercia. Mercia’s turn was to come the
following year.
[Sidenote: Accession of Æthelred; Alfred’s public life begins.]
But meanwhile, in 866, Æthelred had succeeded his brother Æthelberht on
the throne of Wessex, and it is under Æthelred that the public life of
Alfred begins. A late authority[430] states that Æthelred was Alfred’s
favourite brother. The statement is probably a mere inference from the
record of their co-operation contained in the Chronicle and Asser; but in
itself it is likely enough.
In 868 the Danes invaded Mercia and wintered at Nottingham. Burgred, who
with his Witan had in 853 invoked Æthelwulf’s help against the Welsh, and
who that same year had married Æthelwulf’s only daughter Ealhswith, now
once more with his Witan invoked the aid of Æthelred and Alfred against
this newer and much more dangerous foe. The brothers obeyed the call,
and marched to Nottingham, but they did not venture to attack the Danish
lines, and the Mercians made peace with the invaders.
[Sidenote: Title of _secundarius_ given to Alfred by Asser. Significance
of the title. Alfred’s will.]
§ 63. It will have been noticed that the Mercian application for West
Saxon help is said to have been made to Æthelred and Alfred jointly[431];
and it is significant that it is just before this Mercian campaign that
Asser first applies to Alfred the title _secundarius_[432] alluded to in
an earlier section. This title is unique in English history. Apart from
Asser and writers who copy Asser, the only instances of the use of the
word given by Ducange are as the title of a monastic officer. And this
to some extent confirms the suggestion already made[433], that the word
is to be traced to Celtic influence; for in Irish _secnab_, literally
‘second abbot,’ is one of the regular titles of the prior of a monastery.
And I look on ‘secundarius’ as the equivalent of the Irish ‘tanist,’
the person appointed or elected during the lifetime of the chief as his
future successor[434]; and it is to be remarked that the Irish word
_tanaise_ or _tanaiste_, anglicised ‘tanist,’ actually means ‘secundus.’
The institution of tanistry existed among the Welsh[435], though I
have not come across any name for it so closely corresponding with the
meaning of ‘secundarius’ as the Irish _tanaiste_. What then I take to be
the significance of the title as applied to Alfred is this: that some
time between Æthelred’s accession in 866 and 868 a definite agreement
was come to, by which Alfred was recognised as Æthelred’s successor, to
the exclusion, for the present at any rate, of the latter’s children
(if at this time he had any); Alfred in return perhaps definitely
abandoning any claim to Kent. This theory derives some confirmation
from the very similar arrangement which was come to about this time
in regard to the private landed property belonging to the brothers. In
the preamble to Alfred’s will it is stated that Æthelwulf left certain
property to be held in common by the three brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelred,
and Alfred, the ultimate survivor to have the whole. On the death of
Æthelbald, ‘Æthelred and I,’ says Alfred, ‘gave our share in trust to
our kinsman[436], King Æthelberht, on condition that he restored it
to us [i.e. at his death] in the same state as he received it. And he
did so, not only in respect of that property which he obtained by our
concurrence, but also in respect of that which he himself acquired.’
When Æthelred succeeded, Alfred suggested in the Witan a final division
of the property. Æthelred pointed out the difficulty of division, and
promised that, if Alfred would withdraw his proposal, he (Æthelred)
would leave him not only the whole of the joint property, but also that
acquired by himself separately. To this Alfred agreed. The next clause
recites how certain modifications were made at a later time, because the
Danish troubles had brought home to the brothers that, under the original
agreement, the children of the one who died first might be left without
any provision.
[Sidenote: This will refers to private property only; not to the Crown.]
§ 64. It is to be observed in the first place that this will, and the
provisions of Æthelwulf’s will therein recited, have to do solely with
the private property of the family; there is not a word about the royal
succession. It is only in the Latin version that this is mentioned; and
that the Latin is not the original, is proved by the fact that it is full
of the most obvious mistranslations from the Saxon. Indeed, I am not
sure that the introduction of the royal succession is not the result of
a mistranslation[437]. Secondly, the inclusion of Æthelbald is rather
against the story of his rebellion; while on the other hand the omission
of Æthelberht is to be accounted for on the supposition that he had been
provided for in other clauses of the will, not here recited; for Asser
distinctly says[438] that Æthelwulf divided his private property between
his sons and his daughter. However, notwithstanding the exclusion of
Æthelberht from this particular portion of the inheritance, Æthelred and
Alfred made it over to him, on condition that at his death they should
receive, not only it, but also his separate property; in other words,
they made much the same agreement as was ultimately made between Æthelred
and Alfred.
[Sidenote: But analogous arrangements were probably made as to the
succession. These explain the title _secundarius_.]
The latter agreement was made, says Alfred, when Æthelred had succeeded;
that is, shortly after 866. It does not seem to me unreasonable to
suppose that some arrangement was made at the same time with reference
to the succession, and sanctioned in the same Witenagemót. Alfred’s
marriage took place according to Asser in 868, the very year of the
Mercian expedition. Whether at the time of the agreement about the
private property any of Æthelred’s children had been born is uncertain.
The subsequent modifications, providing for the children of the two
brothers, would seem to suggest that they had not. Anyhow they must have
been too young to be contemplated as possible successors, in the not
unlikely event of Æthelred’s falling in battle; and the danger of the
country required that there should be no uncertainty on the question of
the succession. It is by this definite recognition of Alfred as successor
that I would explain the title of ‘secundarius’ given to him by Asser. I
may add that, except as to the Celtic analogies which I have suggested,
this is practically the view of Dr. Stubbs[439], though I was not
conscious of the fact when I worked out my own theory.
[Sidenote: ‘Alfred’s Year of Battles.’ Chronology.]
§ 65. For two years Wessex had a respite. The year 869 was spent by the
invaders in Deira with their headquarters at York. In 870, as already
mentioned, they completed their conquest of East Anglia. But in the
following year the storm burst. This was indeed ‘Alfred’s Year of
Battles,’ as it is called by the late Mr. W. H. Simcox in an excellent
article on the subject, which he contributed to the second number of
the English Historical Review[440]. Here, as seven years later, the
object of the Danes seems to have been to surprise Wessex by an attack
in mid-winter. Mr. Simcox, by reckoning back the intervals between the
various engagements as given in the Chronicle from the death of Æthelred,
which is stated to have occurred ‘after Easter,’ placed the beginning of
the campaign in January. But a fact, first pointed out, as far as I know,
by Sir James Ramsay[441], enables us to fix it more precisely. Heahmund,
bishop of Sherborne, fell in the battle of Marton, the last engagement
in which Æthelred took part. So little was his warlike activity held
to derogate from his episcopal character, that his death in battle
against a heathen foe won him the title of martyr[442], and a place in
the calendar. His day is March 22, and that would almost certainly be
the day on which he fell; and this fits in well with the statement of
the Chronicle that the battle of Marton was before Easter, which fell
on April 15 in 871[443]. Reckoning backward from this we get January 22
for the English defeat at Basing, January 8 for the victory of Ashdown,
January 4 for the abortive attack on the Danish lines at Reading,
December 31 for the successful engagement at Englefield, and December 28
for the descent of the Danes on Reading. These two last dates according
to our reckoning belong to 870; but the Chronicler, who begins his year
with Christmas Day[444], is quite correct in placing them in 871.
[Sidenote: The Danes at Reading. Battle of Ashdown.]
The Danes seized Reading and fortified the tongue of land between the
Kennet and the Thames[445]; a large foraging party under two jarls was
cut up by Æthelwulf, the ealdorman of Berkshire, at Englefield, but the
main attack by the royal brothers on the Danish lines at Reading failed,
and here the victor of Englefield was slain. Gaimar gives some details as
to the route by which the defeated English made their escape, which seem
to me perfectly genuine, though I know not whence he derived them[446].
Mr. Simcox objects to them on military grounds, of which I do not profess
to be a judge. Anyhow, only four days later the English gained the
brilliant victory of Ashdown, about five-and-twenty miles further to the
west. I confess I find it difficult to fit into the Chronicler’s account
of the battle the well-known anecdote of Asser[447], which tells how
Æthelred refused to engage until the priest had finished saying mass,
though Mr. Simcox accepts it as ‘perfectly historical.’ However, if true,
Æthelred’s delay had no bad effect on the result of the battle; and
the bringing up of a fresh body of troops after the enemy had already
been disordered by Alfred’s ‘boar-like’ charge[448], may have largely
contributed to the victory. So that the cheap sneers of some writers have
not the merit of being even superficially effective.
[Sidenote: The Ashdown thorn.]
We have noticed[449] that among the objects of interest which Asser
claims to have seen with his own eyes was the solitary thorn round which
the battle of Ashdown raged. It is an interesting fact, first pointed
out to me by my friend Mr. Taylor, that among the Berkshire Hundreds
enumerated in Domesday is one called Nachededorn, i.e. Naked-thorn,
containing within itself a manor of the same name, and also the manor
of Ashdown[450]. As the name of a hundred, ‘Naked-thorn’ has perished;
and the manors which it contained are by modern arrangements distributed
among several hundreds. But it was suggested by Dr. Wilson, formerly
President of Trinity College, Oxford[451], that the name of ‘Naked-thorn’
manor probably survived in a slightly altered form in the name of
Roughthorn Farm, close to Ashdown[452]. The manor of Naked-thorn was held
by the Conqueror in demesne; that of Ashdown by Henry de Ferrers. It is
certainly, as Mr. Taylor remarks, an interesting fact that the site of
the battle of Ashdown should have been owned by the Conqueror himself.
[Sidenote: Battles of Basing and Marton. Death of Æthelred.]
From Ashdown the beaten Danes withdrew to their lines at Reading. A
fortnight later fortune turned once more, and the English were defeated
at Basing. This southward movement seems to indicate that the Danes were
striking for Winchester, the capital of Wessex[453]. The fact that they
were unable to press the attack home, shows that the English, though
defeated, were still formidable. Then for two months our authorities
are silent. The Chronicler tells us that in this year of battles there
were no less than nine general engagements[454], not counting minor
operations. But of these nine engagements only six are actually named,
Englefield, Reading, Ashdown, Basing, Marton, Wilton. It is just possible
that one or more of the unnamed battles may have taken place in the
interval. The next engagement, however, that we hear of was at a place
called by the Chronicler Meretun, which is neither Merton in Surrey,
nor Merton near Bicester, nor (as I once thought) Marden near Devizes,
but, as Mr. Simcox argues with great probability, Marton, about three
miles south of Great Bedwin in Wiltshire; and here the English, at first
victorious, had ultimately to yield possession of the field of battle,
and a month later, shortly after Easter[455], Æthelred died. Whether he
was wounded in the battle[456], or whether he was simply worn out by the
incessant strain and exposure of the last four months, he equally died
for England and the Faith, and it is difficult to read with patience
the depreciatory comments of some writers, who seem here also to assume
that piety and efficiency must be mutually exclusive qualities. But with
Alfred to succeed him, Browning’s noble words were certainly true of
Æthelred:—
‘O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death[457].’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s task.]
The fate of England and of Western Europe hung, humanly speaking, on the
heart and brain and arm of a young man of three-and-twenty years. That,
under God, he proved himself equal to his high task, is what has justly
earned for him the title of Great[458].
LECTURE IV
ALFRED’S CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE DANES; CIVIL ADMINISTRATION
[Sidenote: Alfred’s greatness.]
§ 66. ‘Alfred is one of the greatest figures in the history of the
world.’ These are not the words of any insular patriot, but of the great
German historian, Leopold von Ranke[459], who, if I may venture to
criticise so great a man, is almost too diplomatic and cosmopolitan in
his view of history, too little sensitive to purely national movements
and aspirations.
[Sidenote: State of England at his accession. Fresh invaders. Second
battle of Reading. Battle of Wilton.]
But, when Alfred ascended the throne in 871, the prospect was dark
enough; and we can well believe what Asser tells us, confirmed as it
seems to be by expressions of Alfred himself in the Boethius, that it was
only reluctantly that Alfred undertook the burden laid upon him[460].
The earlier writer embodied in Simeon of Durham says distinctly that
Alfred was elected by the chief men of the whole people[461]. Our primary
authorities tell us nothing of this[462]; and though their silence
is not conclusive[463], a formal election would probably be rendered
unnecessary by the arrangement already come to with reference to the
succession; while it certainly was no time for coronation festivities
or anything of that kind. Even before Æthelred’s death a new force of
wikings, ‘a summer army[464]’ as opposed to those who had wintered in
the land, invaded the country. Æthelred was interred at Wimborne, where,
in Asser’s words, ‘he awaits the coming of the Lord, and the first
resurrection with the just[465].’ Even while Alfred was busied with
his brother’s exequies, an engagement was being fought in his absence.
Ethelwerd alone tells us of this engagement[466]; and at one time I
supposed[467] that his account was merely a mistaken version of the
battle of Wilton, but I am now convinced that his account is distinct,
and that it is not improbable in itself. If I understand him rightly,
and he is never very easy to understand, the new force of wikings came
to Reading, where they were joined by the Danes who had wintered in the
country; and together they defeated an English force, which was in no
great numbers, owing to the absence of the king. If this is correct, we
have here one of the unnamed ‘folc-gefeoht’ of the Chronicle[468]. But
though Ethelwerd calls it a barren victory[469] for the Danes, it seems
to have opened to them the heart of Wessex, for the next engagement
was fought at Wilton, a month after Æthelred’s death, that is towards
the end of May, where another of those enigmatic contests took place,
in which the Danes are put to flight, and yet encamp upon the field of
battle. Possibly the Danes, whether in real or pretended flight, turned
upon their disorderly pursuers and defeated them. This seems to be
distinctly suggested by Asser’s narrative[470]. After this, peace was
made, probably by purchase, and a respite was well worth paying for. The
Danes had suffered scarcely less than the West Saxons[471], and for four
whole years they avoided Wessex. The question has been asked: Why did
not Burgred of Mercia come to the help of his brothers-in-law in their
hour of need, as they had come to help him three years before? Mr. Simcox
points out that here too the despised Ingulf[472] supplies the right
answer. Burgred was detained by an incursion of the Welsh, acting, no
doubt, in concert with the Danes.
[Sidenote: The Danes at London. Their exactions. They overrun Mercia.]
§ 67. After this peace, the Danes moved from Reading, which had remained
their head-quarters, to London, where they spent the winter of 871-2,
and forced the Mercians once more to purchase peace. Alfred seems to
have kept at any rate an army of observation in the neighbourhood. For
a later annal, speaking of the alms sent by Alfred to Rome and India
in 883[473], says that this was in fulfilment of a vow made ‘when they
encamped against the host at London. And through God’s mercy,’ adds the
pious Chronicler, ‘they fully obtained their prayer after that vow.’
Whether these last words refer to an actual defeat inflicted on the
Danes by Alfred, or only to his success in keeping them out of Wessex,
we cannot tell. In either case the notice illustrates very strikingly
the fragmentary nature of even our best authorities. The weight of
the exactions which Burgred had to impose to raise the ransom for the
Danes, is illustrated by a lease executed this very year (872) of lands
belonging to the see of Worcester, which was necessitated ‘owing to the
enormous tribute in the year when the heathen sat in London[474].’ The
next year the Danes moved northwards and wintered at Torksey, 872-3. The
next winter, 873-4, was spent at Repton, and in 874, after destroying
that mausoleum of the Mercian kings[475], they overran the whole of
Mercia, drove out Burgred, who withdrew to Rome to die; and set up in
his place for the present a puppet king in the person of ‘an unwise
king’s thane,’ as the Chronicle quaintly calls him, named Ceolwulf,
‘an Englishman by race, but a barbarian in cruelty[476].’ In 875 the
Danes divided their forces, and part went to the Tyne and part went to
Cambridge. The only event recorded in connexion with the history of
Wessex in this year is the defeat, by Alfred in person[477], as it would
seem, of a small fleet of seven wiking ships.
[Sidenote: The Danes in Wareham. They make a dash for Exeter. Destruction
of a Danish fleet. Mercia partitioned.]
§ 68. But in 876 the Cambridge division of the Danes managed to slip
past the Saxon ‘fyrd,’ and get into Wareham, the ancient importance of
which is still attested by the large quadrangular earthworks[478]. We do
not know what time of year this was; but apparently the Danes stayed
there till the following winter[479]; when Alfred found it expedient to
make peace with them, by purchase, according to Ethelwerd; the Danes
giving hostages, and swearing their most binding oaths on the sacred
temple-ring, ‘on which they would never swear before to any people.’
Yet in spite of this, the negotiations were only a blind on the part
of the Danes, and under cover of them they took to their horses, and
slipped away by night to Exeter. This seems to have been early in 877.
Alfred failed to overtake them before they reached Exeter, and he did not
venture to attack them behind their fortifications[480]. But he sat down
and blockaded them by land, and, if a later account may be trusted[481],
his ships watched the mouth of the Exe. Meanwhile a wiking fleet of 120
sail was making its way west about from East Anglia, no doubt with the
view of throwing supplies and reinforcements into Exeter. But off the
coast of Swanage they were caught in a violent storm, and in Gaimar’s
uncomplimentary language, who rather exaggerates the number of the fleet,
‘140 ships went to the devils[482].’ But for the wreck of these 120 ships
the issue of the campaign, perhaps even of the whole war, might have been
very different[483]. The motto on a Dutch medal struck to commemorate the
ruin of the Armada in 1588 would apply here also: ‘Flauit et dissipati
sunt[484].’ ‘Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they
sank as lead in the mighty waters[485].’ And so the Danes in Exeter were
fain to submit, and swore mighty oaths, which for once they kept, and
withdrew to Mercia, which they now partitioned, dividing part of it among
themselves, and restoring the remainder to their puppet Ceolwulf. This
partition is of some prospective importance as being probably the origin
of the distinction between English and Danish Mercia[486].
[Sidenote: The campaign of 878. Battle of Ethandun. Submission of the
Danes. Defeat of the Danes in North Devon. The Danes retire to East
Anglia.]
§ 69. Of the sudden swoop of the Danes on Chippenham in January, 878,
and Alfred’s retirement to Athelney I have said enough above[487]. It
was at Easter, March 23, 878, that Alfred and his little band reared
the fort on Athelney. Some seven weeks later, that is to say, about the
middle of May, he moved out of it to Brixton Deverill near Warminster.
The date of this movement must have been carefully fixed, and widely
made known by Alfred’s messengers beforehand. For here he was joined at
once by the levies of Somerset, Wilts., and part of Hampshire, ‘and they
were fain of him,’ says the Chronicler, in words the more expressive for
their extreme simplicity. How effectually the preliminary arrangements
had been made, is shown by the fact that the very next day Alfred was
able to continue his forward movement to Leigh near Westbury, and the
next day to Edington[488]. Here a general engagement was fought with the
whole Danish army under Guthrum, which had moved out of Chippenham. The
result was a complete victory for Alfred: ‘he put them to flight, and
rode after them to their fort, and sat down before it for a fortnight,
and then the host (_here_) gave him leading hostages and swore mighty
oaths that they would quit his realm. And they further promised that
their king should receive baptism. And so it was performed, and three
weeks later [that is, about the end of the first week in June] the king
Guthrum, with twenty-nine of those that were worthiest in the host, came
to him at Aller near Athelney; and the king received him at baptism,
and his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore; and he was twelve nights with
the king, and he honoured him much, and feed his followers.’ The ‘fort’
to which Alfred pursued his flying foes was, I think, the Danish lines
at Chippenham; and though high authorities, including Professor Earle,
take a different view[489], I am glad to see that I am supported by our
military historian, Professor Oman[490]. The submission of the Danes
would be furthered by a great disaster which befell another body of
them earlier in the year. A wiking fleet, which had wintered in South
Wales[491], crossed to the opposite coast of Devon; probably intending,
after ravaging the southern coast of the Bristol Channel, as they had
already ravaged the northern coast, to effect a junction with the Danes
at Chippenham. The men of Devon, under their ealdorman Odda, took refuge
in a rude fort[492], probably Kenny Castle near Appledore. The Danes,
under Ubba, the brother of Halfdene and Ingwar[493], expected an easy
victory, but the English, sallying out unexpectedly at early dawn, put
their foes to rout, slaying over 800 of them, and driving the rest to
their ships[494]. The mystic Raven Banner fell into the hands of the
victors. After the ceremony at Wedmore the Danes retired, in accordance
with their promise, to Cirencester[495], and the next year, 879, they
withdrew altogether to East Anglia; while a body of wikings, which had
gathered at Fulham, crossed to the Continent. It would seem that, whether
by formal compact or no[496], not only Wessex and its dependencies but
English Mercia west of Watling Street was cleared of the invader.
[Sidenote: Results of the battle of Ethandun.]
§ 70. I have said elsewhere that Alfred holds in real history the place
which romance assigns to Arthur[497]; and certainly, after this mid-May
victory of Alfred at Edington, his followers might well have sung the
song which our late Laureate places in the mouths of Arthur’s men[498]:—
‘Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May;
Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll’d away!
Blow thro’ the living world—“Let the King reign.”
‘Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May!
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
‘The King will follow Christ; and we the King
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.’
[Sidenote: Loss and gain. The gain outweighs the loss.]
‘The long night has rolled away.’—‘Yea, even like as a dream when one
awaketh, so shalt Thou make their image to vanish.’—Every historian
is agreed that this is the turning-point in the history, not only of
England, but of Western Europe. ‘Wessex was saved; and in saving Wessex,
Alfred saved England; and in saving England, he saved Western Europe from
becoming a heathen Scandinavian power[499].’ In recognising the Danish
occupation of East Anglia, Eastern Mercia, and Northumbria, Alfred was
hardly making a cession, for they had never been his to cede; he was at
most giving up a shadowy overlordship which neither he, nor his brothers,
nor, probably, even his father had ever exercised. The only district
which was in strictness ceded was Essex; and it was a heavy loss that
London remained for some years longer a Danish city. But the gains far
outweighed the losses; and we can but ask in wonder what were the causes
of so great a change. Some light is gained when we have realised that
Alfred at Athelney was not burning cakes, but organising victory. Then,
too, he had good helpers. We have seen what Odda did in Devonshire; and
Ethelwerd lays stress on the co-operation of Æthelnoth, the ealdorman of
Somerset, in the dark days of Athelney[500]. There is nothing like work
in common for a great cause, in face of great difficulties, for cementing
friendship[501], and perhaps it is to these days that Werferth of
Worcester looks back when in one of his charters he speaks of Æthelnoth
as ‘the friend of us all[502].’
[Sidenote: Mobility of the Danes.]
§ 71. Another and very important point is this. The chief difficulties
of our forefathers under Alfred, as of us, their descendants, in South
Africa at the present day, arose from the extreme mobility of the
enemy[503], and the way in which they used the horses which they brought
with them or captured[504], not indeed for fighting (that was never
either the Danish or the Saxon mode of warfare), but for dashing from
point to point, and eluding[505] and surprising the enemy. They were, in
modern phrase, mounted infantry. It would seem as if the English were
learning to copy them in this. You may have noticed that in the extract
from the Chronicle which I read just now, describing the sequel of the
battle of Edington, it is said that Alfred ‘_rode_ after the enemy to
their fort.’ The only other occasion up to this campaign[506], where any
such phrase is used of an English force, is in the preceding year, where
the Chronicler describes the brave but ineffectual dash which Alfred
made to try and intercept the treacherous Danes before they got into
Exeter[507].
[Sidenote: Alfred’s personal influence.]
But after all, the greatest of all human causes of success (though it is
not merely human) is contained in those words of the Chronicler already
quoted, ‘they were fain of him.’ The personality of Alfred was beginning
to tell, and to rally to itself all that was worthiest in the nation. It
has been compared, not unaptly, to the resurrection of France under Joan
of Arc[508].
[Sidenote: Comparative peace. Revolt of the East Anglian Danes.]
§ 72. For the next few years Alfred had comparative peace, the Danes
being mostly occupied on the Continent. There was a small, but
successful, naval engagement in 881 or 882[509], and in 884[510] a body
of the enemy landed in Kent and laid siege to Rochester, throwing up
their usual fortifications round their own positions. But the besieged
defended themselves successfully till Alfred came with the fyrd, and
the besiegers were in their turn besieged, and withdrew, possibly by
agreement, to the Continent once more, leaving their prisoners, and the
horses which they had brought with them from over seas, in Alfred’s
hands[511]. The appearance of their kinsmen in Kent seems to have been
too much for the loyalty of the Danes in East Anglia. ‘They broke
the peace with King Alfred[512].’ Alfred at once sent his fleet from
Kent[513], where it had no doubt been supporting his operations at
Rochester, across the broad estuary of the Thames, and at the mouth of
the Stour, between Essex and Suffolk, the English defeated and captured a
fleet of sixteen sail; but on their way back were met by a superior fleet
of East Anglian Danes, and defeated in their turn. It will be remembered
that it is in reference to this defeat that the earlier writer in Simeon
of Durham gives us the wonderful story based on the corrupt reading in
Asser of ‘dormiret’ for ‘domum iret[514].’
[Sidenote: Alfred wins London.]
§ 73. The next stage in the liberation of England was a very important
one, being nothing less than the acquisition of London by Alfred. This
is placed by the Chronicle in 886. But we have seen that the Chronicle
is here in advance by a year of the true chronology; the true date is
therefore probably 885. It is clear that Alfred did not gain this great
success without the use of force[515]; and I am inclined to see in this
the culmination of the measures which he took to chastise the East
Anglian Danes for their breach of the peace in the preceding year[516].
It is with this that we must associate the document known as Alfred and
Guthrum’s peace[517], often wrongly confused with the settlement of 878.
By this treaty the boundaries of 878 were materially modified in Alfred’s
favour. They now ran up the Thames to the mouth of the Lea, up the Lea
to its source, thence to Bedford, and so up the Ouse to Watling Street.
By this, not only London, but a considerable district east of Watling
Street was made over to Alfred. The Danes had paid heavily for their
momentary treachery. But again it illustrates the fragmentary nature of
our sources, that we hear nothing of the military operations which must
have led up to this success.
[Sidenote: Effect of this on Alfred’s position. Alfred, the second
founder of London.]
It had an immense effect upon Alfred’s position, and made him more
clearly than ever the head of the nation. ‘There submitted to him the
whole Angle-kin that was not in subjection to the Danes.’ The city was
restored and fortified, and committed to the care of Alfred’s son-in-law,
Æthelred, whom soon after 878[518] he had made ealdorman of the part of
Mercia which fell to him by the settlement of that year. Once, in 851,
under Berhtwulf, the Danes had captured London; they had occupied it in
872 under Burgred; it had fallen to their share at the division of Mercia
in 877. But never again, after Alfred’s restoration of it, was it ever
forcibly captured by them or by any other foreign host. Alfred is rightly
called the second founder of London[519].
[Sidenote: Peace.]
Once more, for a few years, Alfred had peace. In 889 or 890 his old
enemy and god-son, Guthrum-Athelstan of East Anglia, died. How far he
had really become a Christian we cannot tell. In spite of his baptism
Ethelwerd uncharitably dismisses him below: ‘he breathed out his soul
to Orcus[520].’ But for the present the Danes of East Anglia made no
movement.
[Sidenote: The final storm.]
§ 74. In 892 the final storm burst on England; but the result was only
to show the strength of the system which Alfred had built up during the
years of peace[521]. The splendid annals 893-7 (892-6 according to the
true chronology), in which, as has been said, we seem to hear the very
voice of Alfred himself[522], and beside which, as the same authority
declares[523], ‘every other piece of prose not in these Chronicles
merely, but throughout the whole range of extant Saxon literature, must
assume a secondary rank,’ give us some insight into the reforms which
Alfred had effected.
[Sidenote: Military reforms; (1) the _fyrd_ divided.]
(1) To counteract the standing weakness of citizen-armies, which made
them liable to melt away at the critical moment, when their short
term of service was expired, he divided the fyrd into two divisions,
which were to relieve one another at fixed intervals, ‘so that always
half were at home, and half on service.’ This measure is particularly
interesting, as it may have been suggested to Alfred by his studies in
Orosius, where a similar institution is attributed to the Amazons, and in
Alfred’s translation is described in language very similar to that of the
Chronicle[524].
[Sidenote: (2) Fortifications.]
(2) Besides the two alternating divisions of the fyrd, the Chronicle
enumerates ‘the men who were bound to keep the burgs[525].’ If the Danes
had taught the Saxons the importance of mobility when in movement, they
had no less surely taught them the importance of fortifications when
stationary. In the first place the towns were encouraged to fortify
themselves—we have a very interesting document, unfortunately without
date, which tells how Æthelred of Mercia, and his wife, Æthelflæd, lady
of the Mercians, ‘bade work the burg at Worcester for the protection
of all the people[526]’; while in 898 there was a formal conference at
Chelsea between Alfred, Æthelred, Æthelflæd, and Archbishop Plegmund on
the fortifications of London[527]. But besides this, fortified camps were
erected at strategic points. The important document known as the burghal
hidage[528], which is only a very little later than Alfred’s reign,
seems to show that certain districts were appurtenant to these burgs,
while ‘the men who were bound to keep the burgs’ would possibly hold
their lands by a tenure analogous to that known under the feudal system
as ‘castle-guard.’ Asser also insists strongly on the importance which
Alfred attached to the construction of ‘castella’ or ‘arces’ (= burgs);
though he also shows that Alfred had considerable difficulty in getting
his subjects to adopt this novel mode of defence[529]. It would seem then
that, in creating the famous lines of forts by which Edward and Æthelflæd
secured the country which they won from the Danes, they were but carrying
out the policy of their father[530].
[Sidenote: (3) Number of thanes increased.]
(3) It seems to have been part of Alfred’s military policy to increase
considerably the number of thanes, by conferring the privileges, and
enforcing the obligations of thanehood on all owners of five hides of
land, an estate analogous to the later knight’s fee. This would give the
king a nucleus of highly equipped troops, whom he could moreover call out
on his own authority, without going through the form of consulting the
Witan[531]. It can hardly be a mere accident that, whereas in the records
of Alfred’s reign, the only mention of king’s thanes hitherto has been
in connexion with the minor military operations of the great ‘year of
battles,’ 871, in the annals 894-7 they are mentioned no less than six
times.
[Sidenote: (4) Greater mobility.]
(4) These annals also furnish abundant evidence of that increased
mobility of the English forces which we have already noticed. They also
show
[Sidenote: (5) Fortified positions carried.]
(5) That the English had learned not only to make fortifications, but to
storm them[532]. After this preamble we return to the history of Alfred’s
last contest.
[Sidenote: Battle of the Dyle. Renewed invasion of England by the Danes.
A concerted attempt to conquer England. Danish plan of campaign. Battle
of Farnham.]
§ 75. On November 1, 891[533], Arnulf, king of the Eastern Franks, had
defeated the Northmen in a brilliant engagement on the Dyle, which
freed the interior of Germany for ever from these foes. This, and the
famine which prevailed on the Continent in 892 in consequence of an
exceptionally severe winter, disgusted them with their continental
quarters; and in the autumn of 892[534] a fleet of 250 sail put forth
from Boulogne, and entered the mouth of the then navigable river
Lymne, drew their ships four miles up the river, and, after capturing
an unfinished[535] fort, entrenched themselves at Appledore. Shortly
after, a smaller detachment of eighty ships under Hæsten sailed into
the estuary of the Thames, entered the Swale, and fortified itself at
Milton. In view of these new encampments on English soil, Alfred, early
in 893 (894), exacted oaths from the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes,
with hostages in addition from the latter, that they would take no part
with the invaders. This is the first time that we have had mention of
any dealings of Alfred with the Northumbrian Danes, and it shows what
new possibilities were opening before him; while, on the other side, the
important part which, in spite of their oaths, the Northumbrian and East
Anglian Danes took in the following struggle, and the fact that the new
invaders brought their wives and children with them, prove that this was
no mere predatory raid, but a deliberate and concerted attempt to conquer
England. Alfred with his fyrd took up a position between the two Danish
camps, so as to watch them both. Numerous small skirmishes took place,
but no general engagement. Meanwhile Alfred was negotiating with the
smaller body of Danes at Milton; whom he may have thought to detach by
making a separate agreement with them. Hæsten entered into negotiations,
and even allowed his two sons to be baptised, Alfred himself and Æthelred
of Mercia acting as sponsors. But on the part of Hæsten the negotiations
were only a blind; if indeed they had not been originally proposed
by him with this object. While they were in progress, he ordered the
Danes at Appledore to send their ships round to Benfleet in Essex, and
themselves to break out in force, and marching through Surrey, Hampshire,
and Berkshire, cross the upper Thames, and then, turning eastwards,
regain their ships at Benfleet, to which he himself now crossed, threw
up a fortification, and occupied himself with harrying the districts,
which had been ceded to Alfred by the settlement of 885 (886). This plan
was put into execution. But though the Danes at Appledore succeeded
in breaking out, they were pursued by the fyrd under Alfred’s eldest
son Edward[536], which overtook them (or, in the Chronicler’s words,
‘_rode_ before them’), compelled them to fight a general engagement at
Farnham, in which the Danes were defeated, and driven in confusion across
the Thames, and up the Hertfordshire Colne, where they took refuge in
an island called Thorney[537], which the fyrd proceeded to blockade.
Unfortunately at this crisis the term of service of Edward’s division of
the fyrd expired, and their provisions being exhausted they were forced
to raise the blockade.
[Sidenote: The Danes in the west.]
Alfred was on his way to relieve them with the other division of the
fyrd, when he heard[538] that two fleets of Northumbrian and East Anglian
Danes were operating in the west, the larger one of 100 ships besieging
Exeter, the smaller one of forty ships besieging an unnamed fort on the
coast of North Devon. Alfred at once hurried westward, detaching however
a small force under Edward to watch the Danes at Thorney. Alfred was
ultimately[539] successful in raising the siege of Exeter; the fate of
the North Devon fort is not recorded.
[Sidenote: Edward reduces the Danes in Thorney. Capture of Benfleet.]
Meanwhile Edward, reinforced by Æthelred from London, renewed the
blockade of Thorney, the Danes having been unable to avail themselves
of his temporary absence, owing to the fact that their chief had been
wounded in the battle of Farnham. They had accordingly to submit and
give hostages, and were then allowed to march off. Edward and Æthelred
returned to London, and collecting reinforcements there and from the
west, marched to Benfleet, which they found garrisoned by their former
antagonists from Thorney; Hæsten himself with his division being away
plundering. The fort was carried, the garrison put to flight, all the
women, and children, and plunder captured; Hæsten’s own wife and sons
were among the captives, though either now or later Alfred chivalrously
restored them, because of the relationship which baptism had created
between them. The ships were burned or broken up, or carried off to
London and Rochester. It was as complete a victory as could well be
imagined.
[Sidenote: The Danes make a dash across England. They are driven
northwards, defeated at Buttington, and retire to Shoebury. They winter
at Chester, and retire to Essex.]
§ 76. The defeated Danes fell back on Shoebury, where they were joined by
Hæsten, and threw up another fortification. They then set out to march
up the Thames, being joined by large reinforcements from Northumbria
and East Anglia. The object of this move was probably to co-operate
with their friends in Devonshire against Alfred’s force. If so, it was
frustrated. The three great ealdormen, Æthelred of Mercia, Æthelnoth of
Somerset, and Æthelhelm of Wilts., ‘with the thanes who were at home at
the forts,’ raised a levy, the extent of which, as Professor Earle has
remarked[540], seems to astonish the Chronicler himself, ‘from every
burg east of Parret, west and east of Selwood, north of Thames, west of
Severn, with some of the North Welsh’; the co-operation of these last
being especially noteworthy. In view of these gathering forces the Danes
were obliged to head off northwards up the Severn valley, being finally
overtaken at Buttington, and blockaded on both sides of the river. The
locality of this place has been much disputed; some authorities placing
it at Buttington Tump, at the junction of the Wye with the Severn,
others identifying it with Buttington on the borders of Shropshire and
Montgomeryshire. Contrary to my former opinion, I am now inclined to take
the latter view; not because of Sir James Ramsay’s objection that the
Severn is too wide to be blockaded at Buttington Tump, for on that theory
the river on which the Danes were blockaded would be the Wye; but because
the phrase of the Chronicler that the Danes marched ‘up along Severn,’
just as they had marched ‘up along Thames,’ seems to imply that they
followed the Severn valley northwards; whereas to reach Buttington Tump
they would have had to cross the Severn and turn south; and moreover,
in that case, their fleets in Devonshire would probably have made some
attempt to relieve them. However this may be, the English blockaded
them for ‘many weeks,’ until they were starved out, their horses having
all died of hunger or been eaten. They then made a desperate attempt to
break through the English lines on the eastern side of the river, but
were defeated with loss; those who escaped returning to Shoebury; then,
leaving their ships, their women, and their booty in East Anglia, and
drawing in large reinforcements from East Anglia and Northumbria, they
made a sudden dash across England, marching ‘without stopping[541] day
or night,’ till they reached the ruined Roman walls of Chester, where
they fortified themselves for the winter. The fyrd failed to cut them
off before they reached Chester, and the approach of winter and the
heavy work already done probably prevented them from attempting another
blockade; they therefore contented themselves with destroying everything
in the neighbourhood from which the Danes could gather sustenance, and
retired. Not since the great year of battles in 871 had there been such a
bustling year in England, and what a different result!
[Sidenote: They fortify themselves on the Lea, but are out-manœuvred.]
§ 77. The measures taken by the English proved effective, for early
in the next year, 894 (895), want of provisions forced the Danes to
evacuate Chester, and withdraw into Wales, whence they retired to Mersea
in Essex; ‘marching through Northumbria and East Anglia, so as the fyrd
might not reach them[542]’; words which give eloquent testimony to the
changed state of things. At Mersea they were joined by the fleet from
Exeter, which had been beaten off with heavy loss in an attempt which
they had made on Chichester. At the end of this year and the beginning
of the next, 895 (896), the Danes drew their ships up the Thames and Lea
to a spot twenty miles above London, and there fortified themselves. An
attempt by the garrison of London with other forces to storm the Danish
lines failed; and so during harvest Alfred encamped in the neighbourhood
to protect the inhabitants of the district, while they were reaping their
corn. One day as he was riding up the river, he noticed a spot where it
seemed to him possible, by constructing obstacles on either side of the
stream, to prevent the Danish ships from getting out[543]. He at once
proceeded to put his plan into execution, but he had hardly begun when
the Danes realised that they were out-manœuvred, and abandoning their
ships once more struck off for the upper waters of the Severn. The fyrd
pursued, but here again no attempt was made to blockade them, and the
Danes wintered at Bridgenorth.
[Sidenote: Break-up of the Danish host.]
The next summer, 896 (897), the Danish host broke up, ‘some to East
Anglia, some to Northumbria. Those who had no property [in England] got
them ships and fared south over sea to the Seine.’ The long campaign was
over. ‘And through God’s mercy,’ says the Chronicler once more, ‘the
[Danish] host had not wholly ruined the Angle-kin, but they were much
more ruined in those three years with murrain of men and cattle, and with
the loss of many of the most excellent king’s thanes who passed away in
those three years.’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s new ships. Not a great success. Alfred’s claim to be
the founder of the English navy doubtful. Earlier naval engagement.]
§ 78. The only thing that remained to be done was to suppress the
predatory raids of Northumbrian and East Anglian ships on the south
coasts of Wessex. With this object Alfred turned the constructive ability
which he undoubtedly possessed to the building of a new type of ship,
just as Caesar did when he invaded Britain[544]. They were much larger
in all their measurements than the wiking vessels, built neither on
Frisian nor Danish lines, but according to the king’s own ideas. To tell
the honest truth, they do not seem to have been a great success. In an
engagement between nine of the new ships and six wiking vessels in the
neighbourhood of the Isle of Wight all the English ships got aground,
‘very uncomfortably,’ as the Chronicler quaintly says, six on one side
of the strait and three on the other. Moreover at the end of the same
annal it is recorded: ‘and the same summer perished no less than twenty
ships on the South Coast, crews and all’; so that the new ships do not
seem to have been very capable of weathering a storm. We have noticed
earlier naval operations of Alfred in the years 875, 877, 881 (882), 884
(885). I am, however, inclined to think that both Alfred’s claims to be
called the founder of the English navy, and also the previous disuse of
the sea by the Saxons have been somewhat exaggerated. The mention of
Frisians as fighting on the English side[545] in the naval engagement
just referred to, shows indeed that Alfred was glad to avail himself
of these skilled mariners, who had probably come over to England in
consequence of the wiking settlements in Frisia[546], just as the Danish
descent on Wessex, in 878, drove many West Saxons to take refuge on the
Continent. And Asser expressly mentions Frisians among those who settled
under Alfred’s rule[547]. There was certainly a naval engagement in 851,
under Æthelwulf[548], in which the English were victorious, if not yet
earlier in 833 and 840[549]. Still it is no doubt true that there was
no fleet capable of safeguarding the English coasts. The silence of the
Chronicle as to any later attacks may indicate that this was effected
in Alfred’s later years. Unhappily, for the last four years of Alfred’s
reign the Chronicle is silent as to almost everything. So the argument is
at best precarious. The stress laid on the description of Alfred’s new
ships shows that he saw in this the necessary completion of his work for
the defence of England; but did it really require such an immense amount
of genius to discern that, as the invaders came by sea, it was desirable
to stop them, if possible, before they got to land?
[Sidenote: The problems of peace.]
§ 79. We are constantly being told that ‘Peace hath her victories not
less renowned than war.’ But the victories of peace are worthy of double
renown when they have to be won, as in Alfred’s case, from the ashes
left by an exhausting war. For, as Alfred says himself, ‘throughout all
England everything was harried and burnt[550].’
The most needful of the works of peace is, as men have often learnt
by bitter experience, to be prepared for war. Not only the works of
peace, but peace itself, are impossible except under the guarantee of
an adequate military and naval force. We have said enough already of
Alfred’s efforts to reorganise his kingdom on this side.
[Sidenote: Civil reorganisation. The shire system. Legislation not very
important in early times.]
Much too would be needed in the way of civil reorganisation, especially
in the non-West-Saxon districts which had been won from the Danes. And
this fact is probably the basis of the legend which makes Alfred the
inventor of shires, hundreds, and tithings[551]. Indeed, in the districts
which previously had formed part of Mercia, it is probable that the
shire system was introduced for the first time, either now or a little
later. For, as Mr. Taylor has pointed out[552], whereas every existing
shire division south of the Thames is mentioned in the oldest MS. of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the first change of hand at the year 892,
there is no mention of any Mercian shire in any MS. of the Chronicle
prior to 1000. Legislation too would be required, though we must always
remember that legislation, as we understand it, played a very small part
in Anglo-Saxon times. The idea of a code or body of statutes covering all
departments of civil life was quite foreign to their notions, and every
attempt to explain the existing Anglo-Saxon laws on any such hypothesis
must be a failure. Into the details of Alfred’s laws I do not propose
to enter. To do so with any profit would require more space than I can
afford, and a minuter knowledge of the earlier and later laws than I can
pretend to. Indeed, I must confess that the study of the Anglo-Saxon laws
often reduces me to a state of mental chaos. I may know, as a rule, the
meaning of individual words; I can construe, though not invariably, the
separate sentences. But what it all comes to is often a total mystery.
The reason (apart from my own shortcomings) is to be sought in the
fact alluded to above, that a very small part of Anglo-Saxon life and
institutions is to be found in the laws, which imply a whole body of
unwritten custom, of which only the most salient changes are registered
in the laws. And as this body of unwritten custom is, to a large extent,
beyond our reach, it is not surprising that the written law, to which it
was the key, should often be obscure.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s laws probably passed late in his reign.]
§ 80. The date of Alfred’s laws is unfortunately nowhere given. But it
must be comparatively late in his reign. The introduction consists, as is
well known, largely of passages taken from the Old and New Testaments,
translated from the Vulgate with a degree of skill and freedom, which
seems to imply some practice in the work of translation and adaptation,
which, as we shall see, Alfred probably did not begin at any rate before
the year 887[553]. We may therefore conjecture that the enactment of
these laws should be placed either just before, or just after the last
great struggle with the Danes, 892-6; for William of Malmesbury’s
statement that while, as a rule, ‘inter arma silent leges,’ Alfred
carried on his legislation amid the din of war[554], need not be taken
for more than the rhetorical flourish which it evidently is.
[Sidenote: Points of interest connected with them.]
One or two points in the preface and in the laws may just be briefly
noted. In the former there is an interesting mistranslation of the fifth
commandment, the feminine relative in the last clause: ‘which the Lord
thy God giveth thee,’ being taken to refer not to land (terra) but to
mother (matrem); ‘honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord gave
thee[555].’ Was it the thankful thought of his own noble mother Osburh
which prompted this mistake?
The insertion among the causes which excuse the non-return of a deposit,
of the case of its having been captured by the enemy[556], throws light
on the circumstances of the time, as does the provision of one of the
laws that, for certain offences, the punishment is doubled when the
‘fyrd’ is out[557]. Characteristic too of the times is the fact that
treason against the lord is ‘boot-less[558],’ i.e. incapable of being
atoned for by money-payment, and the provision against harbouring the
king’s fugitives[559]. Nor is it surprising that Alfred the truth-teller
should be specially severe against falsehood; if any man commits
folk-leasing, i.e. public slander, he is to suffer no lighter punishment
than the loss of the offending member[560].
At the end of the Apostolic letter, which Alfred translates from Acts
xv, is found a version of the golden rule in its negative form, ‘that
which ye would not that other men should do to you, do not ye to other
men[561].’ This is not, as is often alleged[562], an insertion made by
Alfred from the Sermon on the Mount[563], but is an addition to the text
of Acts, found in some Greek and Old Latin MSS., from the latter of which
it passed into some MSS. of the Vulgate[564]. Most characteristic of
Alfred’s thought is the comment: ‘by this one law any one may know how he
ought to judge another; he needs no other law book.’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s administration of justice.]
§ 81. Asser gives a striking picture[565], which there is no reason to
distrust, of the pains which Alfred took to secure a good administration
of justice, and especially to ‘see that such as are in need and necessity
have right.’ From this point of view we can understand Alfred’s recasting
the precept of Exodus xxiii. 3: ‘pauperis quoque non misereberis in
iudicio,’ ‘neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause’ (R.V.). The
warning that justice is no more to be wrested in favour of the poor, than
of the rich, is one not unneeded now. But undue favouring of the poor was
a remote danger in Alfred’s day, when, as Asser says, the poor had few
helpers, or none, besides the king[566]. And so Alfred puts the precept
in a general form: ‘Judge thou very equally, judge not one judgement for
the rich, and another for the poor[567].’ And it would seem from Asser’s
account that he kept a control on the local administration of justice,
not only by constantly hearing appeals himself, but also by a system of
special envoys analogous to the Carolingian ‘missi dominici,’ and to the
later ‘justices in eyre[568].’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s accessibility to suitors.]
Of Alfred’s accessibility as the fountain of justice a very pleasant
picture is given in a document addressed to Edward the Elder detailing
the progress of a suit which had come before his father Alfred: ‘we went
in to the king and told him how we proposed to settle the matter, and
the king stood and washed his hands at Wardour within the bower, and
when he had finished, he asked us[569],’ and so forth. It reminds us of
the sketch which Josephus gives of Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea, almost
the only amiable member of the odious Herod family; how he would stroll
through his little state, with a chariot following him on which was
his curule chair, and if any of his subjects approached him with their
causes, he would at once have the chair brought forward, and sit and give
his judgement there and then[570]. It reminds us still more of the great
Charles, of whom Einhard relates: ‘When he was putting on his shoes or
dressing, he would not only admit his friends, but also, if the Count of
the Palace reported that there was some suit which could not be settled
without his command, he would have the parties brought in at once, and,
as if sitting in his tribunal, would hear the matter, and give his
decision[571].’ The satisfaction given by Alfred’s decisions appears not
only from Asser’s panegyric, but also from the document already cited,
where the writer continues: ‘And, sire, if every judgement which King
Alfred gave is to be upset, when shall we come to any conclusion?’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s laws drawn mainly from earlier sources. Action of the
Witenagemót under Alfred.]
§ 82. The last section of the Preface to the Laws which tells how Alfred
gathered these laws from older sources, and rejected others, with the
advice of his Witan, not daring to add to them many of his own, which
might not be suitable to after ages[572], has been often quoted as
an illustration of Alfred’s wise conservatism. It is also the best
illustration that we have of the action of the Witenagemót in his reign.
Others may be found in the charters, but charters, as we have seen[573],
are not numerous. The most interesting illustration is to be found in
Alfred’s will, which shows how anxious Alfred was not to bring any undue
influence to bear upon his councillors. The will tells us how in a
Witenagemót at Long Dean[574] the provisions of Æthelwulf’s will and the
agreements made between Alfred and his brothers were recited, in order
that the Witan might judge whether Alfred’s proposed disposition of his
property was in harmony with these: ‘Then prayed I them all for my love,
and gave them my pledge, that I would never bear any grudge against any
for what they might conscientiously decide, and that none for love or
fear of me should hesitate to declare the law of the case[575].’ The
Chronicle does not mention a single meeting of the Witan; and though
it would be wrong to argue from this silence, for the same is true of
many other reigns, yet it is probable that the circumstances of the
time, combined with Alfred’s character and ability, would tend to throw
more power into the hands of the king, and to reduce proportionally the
importance of the Witenagemót[576].
[Sidenote: Obscurity of ecclesiastical history under Alfred. Alfred’s
relation to the Church.]
§ 83. Of synods or special ecclesiastical legislation I can find no
trace under Alfred. More than one bishop’s see became temporarily
or permanently extinct owing to the ravages of the Danes[577]. The
monasteries ‘once filled,’ as Alfred says, ‘with treasures and
books[578]’ were favourite objects of attack. In the Preface to the
Cura Pastoralis Alfred thanks God for ‘the learned bishops which we now
have’; but, with the exception of the two archbishops of Canterbury,
Æthelred and Plegmund, Werferth of Worcester, and Asser, it is hard to
say anything about any of them. It is the same with the abbots. Thorne,
the historian of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, gives a list of abbots
about this time, but he can say nothing as to any of them[579]. Beyond
the broad fact of the ruin caused by the ravages of the Danes, the whole
history of the Church under Alfred is most obscure[580]. This does not
mean that there is any truth in Ailred of Rievaulx’ myth[581] that Alfred
regained it as a king’s chief dignity to have no power in the Churches
of Christ. What little evidence there is points distinctly the other
way[582]. There is a curious letter of Pope John VIII to Archbishop
Æthelred[583] in which he says: ‘We admonish you to set yourself as a
wall for the house of God not only against the king, but also against
all who are minded to act perversely.’ There seems some ground for Sir
John Spelman’s remark: ‘The life and ways of Alfred were not perfectly
pleasing to the Fathers of Rome[584].’ A letter, from Archbishop Fulk
of Rheims to Æthelred’s successor, Plegmund[585], shows that clerical
and episcopal marriages were common in England at that time; and there
are traces of something like hereditary succession to ecclesiastical
lands[586]. There is no evidence that Alfred attempted to alter this
state of things; there is some evidence that he disapproved it. In the
Soliloquies of St. Augustine, the Anglo-Saxon translation of which[587]
is almost certainly by Alfred[588], there is a passage in which Augustine
declares that he has no desire to marry. This, which in the original
is purely personal to Augustine, is by the translator extended to all
clergy: ‘I say however that it is better for priests not to marry than to
marry[589].’
[Sidenote: Decline of monasticism.]
Alfred made some attempt to revive the monastic life in England. He built
a monastery for men at Athelney[590], no doubt as a thank-offering for
the deliverance there begun, and a convent for women at Shaftesbury[591];
he also made arrangements, though he did not live to carry them out,
for founding the New Minster at Winchester[592]. But he had but small
success. The taste for the monastic life had almost been extinguished
among men in England; and of the two contradictory causes which Asser
suggests[593] for this fact, viz. the Danish ravages, and the too great
riches of the English, which caused them to despise the monastic life,
there can be no doubt that the former is nearer the truth. Alfred had
accordingly to fill his monasteries with foreign monks. The result was
not always satisfactory, if there is any truth in Asser’s story[594]
how two of these foreign monks at Athelney tried to murder their abbot,
John the Old Saxon. Besides his own foundations, Alfred was a liberal
contributor to other monasteries, not only in England, but also in
Ireland and on the Continent[595]. Yet there is no monastic halo round
the head of Alfred, like that which adorns his great-grandson Edgar.
LECTURE V
CIVIL ADMINISTRATION (_continued_) EDUCATION; LITERARY WORKS
[Sidenote: Finance.]
§ 84. That Alfred would be a careful and exact steward of all the
resources of his kingdom, we may assume without any proof. But, for
my own part, I wholly and entirely distrust the account which Asser
gives[596] of the minute and mathematical divisions and subdivisions of
revenue instituted by Alfred. I regard it as an indication that at this
point of his work Asser was attacked by an acute fit of imagination[597].
Dr. Stubbs has said that there is no point on which we are more in the
dark than on the financial system of the Anglo-Saxons[598]. We must also
remember that since so much of the revenue of an Anglo-Saxon king was
payable in kind, there was much less room for finance, in the strict
sense of the word, than in more modern states.
Of Alfred’s interest and skill in mechanical and artistic inventions
enough has perhaps been said already[599]. Under this head would come the
well-known story of the candles and the lantern shades[600]. I cannot
myself go into raptures over this, as some writers profess to do. But
the mention of tents[601] in connexion with this invention, may perhaps
indicate that it was specially during campaigns that the need of some
such contrivance would be felt. It is one of the many curious parallels
between things English and Frankish, that Pope Paul I sent to Pippin,
the father of Charles the Great, an instrument for showing the time at
night[602].
[Sidenote: Intercourse with other nations. Ireland. Irish love of
pilgrimage.]
§ 85. Of Alfred’s intercourse with foreign nations Asser[603] gives a
‘heightened and telling’ picture, speaking of ‘daily embassies of nations
who dwell from the Tyrrhene Sea to the furthest bound of Ireland.’ Of
relations of Alfred with the Irish princes[604] I have found no evidence.
But an interesting and pathetic instance of accidental intercourse
with Ireland is given in the Chronicle under 891: ‘In this year three
“Scots” (i.e. Irishmen) came to Alfred king, on a boat without oars or
rudder. They had stolen away from Ireland, because they would be for
God’s love on pilgrimage, they recked not where. The boat on which they
fared was wrought of two and a half hides, and they took with them meat
for a sevennight. And at the end of a sevennight they came to land in
Cornwall, and straightway fared to Alfred king. Thus were they named,
Dubslane, and Macbeth, and Maelinmain.’ The story is most genuine, and
redolent through and through of the spirit of Irish History and Saga.
The love of pilgrimage became a passion in the Irish Church[605]; the
Irish Sagas and the lives of the Irish Saints furnish many illustrations
of this desire for exile, this self-abandonment (as they deemed it) to
the will of God involved in committing themselves to the deep in a frail
skin-covered coracle without oarage or steerage, the slender provision of
food for the voyage. In the Book of Leinster is a story how three young
Irish clerics set out on a pilgrimage; ‘they took as provision on the sea
only three loaves. “In the name of Christ” (said they), “let us throw
our oars into the sea, and let us commend ourselves to our Lord.”’ So in
the voyage of Maelduin, the Irish Saga so well known to English readers
through Tennyson’s poem, Maelduin and his companions exclaim: ‘leave the
boat alone, and cease rowing; whither God wills it to be borne, He will
bear it[606].’ According to Ethelwerd[607], these ‘Scots’ after leaving
Alfred went on to Rome and Jerusalem; and if so, it may well be that this
was one of the channels whereby Alfred communicated with the East; for
we have seen[608] that Alfred’s intercourse with Elias III, patriarch of
Jerusalem, rests on very good evidence.
[Sidenote: A ninth century pilgrimage to Jerusalem.]
§ 86. It so happens that we have an account[609] of a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, made just twenty-five years earlier, by a Frankish monk named
Bernard, who, with two companions, a Spanish and an Italian monk, set
out from Rome about the year 865 with the blessing of Pope Nicholas (c.
1). From Rome they went to Bari, then ‘a city of the Saracens,’ from the
‘sultan’ of which they obtained letters to the rulers of Alexandria
and Egyptian Babylon, i.e. Old Cairo (c. 3). From Bari they walked to
Taranto, where they found six ships proceeding to Alexandria with a cargo
of 9,000 Christian captives from Beneventum (c. 4). The admiral refused,
however, to let them land, until they had paid a ransom of six ‘aurei’
(c. 5). And when they presented the letters of the sultan of Bari to
the governour of Alexandria they helped them not a whit; and only on
paying thirteen ‘denarii’[610] apiece were they sent on by water with
letters to the governour of Cairo (c. 6). Here the same fate awaited
them. In spite of all their letters they were thrown into prison, but
on payment of another thirteen ‘denarii’ per head they were released,
and furnished with letters which did really prove effective, though
they had to get them sealed, or, as we should say, they had to have
their passports visaed in every town which they passed through, and this
meant ever fresh exactions (c. 7). From Cairo they turned north by the
Damietta branch of the Nile and proceeded by Tanis (c. 8) to Farama[611],
the traditional abode of the Holy Family, where they procured camels
on which they crossed the desert (c. 9) to El Arisch, and so by Gaza,
Ramleh, and Emmaus to Jerusalem, where the patriarch was Theodosius,
the immediate predecessor of Alfred’s correspondent, Elias III. Here
they lodged in the hospice founded for pilgrims by ‘the glorious Emperor
Charles,’ near which was the church of St. Mary with a noble library of
books, also given by Charles (c. 10). After visiting the holy places
(cc. 11-18), they returned all the way by sea, having an unfavourable
passage of sixty days to Mont’ Auro (c. 19), whence they returned to
Rome, ‘where innumerable bodies of the saints repose’ (c. 20). In some
ways, apparently, a pilgrimage to Rome was more dangerous than one to
Jerusalem. There is good peace, says the writer, between Christians and
pagans both in Egypt and Jerusalem, though they are very strict on all
travellers who have no passports (c. 22). In Romagna, on the other hand,
things were very bad, and brigands so numerous, that pilgrims had to go
in bands and fully armed (c. 23).
I have thought it worth while to give an outline of this most interesting
little tract, because it shows us the route taken, and the difficulties
encountered, by a pilgrim to Jerusalem in the reign of Alfred’s immediate
predecessor[612].
[Sidenote: Earliest recorded instance of intercourse between England and
India.]
But Alfred’s messengers went further East than Palestine. I have already
quoted the passage from the Chronicle which tells how in 883 Alfred sent
alms to India to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, in fulfilment of the vow
which he made ‘when they encamped against the Danes at London.’ On the
route taken by these messengers I can unfortunately throw no light. But
the entry is of transcendent interest. It is the first recorded instance
of a connexion between England and Hindustan, a connexion which has meant
so much to India and to England; for it is, I venture to think, to her
government of India that England largely owes the position in the world
which she holds to-day.
[Sidenote: Intercourse with Rome, and the Frankish empire.]
Of missions and alms sent to Rome by Alfred five instances[613] are
recorded in the Chronicle, and probably there were many others not
recorded, for the omission of a formal embassy seems to be noted as
exceptional[614].
Of intercourse with the Frankish empire we shall have some illustrations
when we come to speak of the foreign scholars imported by Alfred.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s need of trained subordinates.]
§ 87. But of all the objects which Alfred had in view the one probably
to which he attached most importance was, in the words of our University
bidding-prayer, ‘a succession of persons duly qualified for the
service of God in Church and State.’ In a passage in the Consolation
of Philosophy[615] Boethius says to his instructress: ‘Thou knowest
that ambition never was my mistress, though I did desire materials for
carrying out my task’; ‘which task,’ adds Alfred, in his own words[616],
‘was that I should virtuously and fittingly administer the authority
committed to me. Now no man … can … administer government, unless he have
fit tools and the raw material to work upon.… And a king’s raw material
and instruments of rule are a well-peopled land, and he must have men
of prayer, men of war, and men of work.… Without these tools he cannot
perform any of the tasks entrusted to him.’
[Sidenote: Court school.]
It was with a view to providing these necessary ‘tools,’ that Alfred
seems to have established, probably after the example of Charles the
Great[617], a Court school, for the education specially of the sons of
the upper classes, in which books of both languages, Latin and Saxon,
were read, especially the Psalms and Saxon poems, and writing also was
taught; and to these studies the pupils applied themselves, till they
were old enough to learn ‘hunting and other arts, befitting well-born
men.’
This account of Asser[618] agrees well with the wish expressed by Alfred
in the Preface to the Pastoral Care, ‘That all the freeborn youth of
England who have sufficient means to devote themselves thereto, be set to
learning so long as they are not strong enough for any other occupation,
until such time as they can well read English writing. Let those be
taught Latin whom it is proposed to educate further, and promote to
higher office.’ This passage is most interesting; but we must not, on
the strength of it, bring Alfred into court as an advocate either for or
against classical education. On the one hand Alfred clearly wished that
all who had the time and means should be taught Latin; on the other hand
Latin was then, as it is not now, the sole vehicle of Western culture and
science.
[Sidenote: Want of teachers supplied by Mercia, Wales, and the Frankish
empire. John the Old Saxon. Grimbald. Letter of Archbishop Fulk to
Alfred. Question of its genuineness.]
§ 88. But the great difficulty was to find teachers. Of England,
the part which had suffered least from the ravages of the Danes was
Western Mercia; moreover Offa had had a real desire to promote learning
in his kingdom, as Alcuin’s letters show[619]; and from Mercia came
Plegmund[620], whom Alfred ultimately made archbishop of Canterbury in
succession to Æthelred, Werferth, the faithful bishop of Worcester, and
two priests, Æthelstan and Werwulf, whom Alfred made his chaplains. The
fact that Asser applies to these two last the term ‘sacerdotes,’ which,
as I have elsewhere shown, is ambiguous in mediaeval Latin, sometimes
meaning bishops, sometimes priests[621], has led Roger of Wendover not
only to convert these priests into bishops, but to give them sees at
Hereford and Leicester[622]; another illustration of the way in which
myths arise. From Wales Alfred got Asser, as we have seen. But Britain
alone could not supply Alfred’s needs; and the Frankish empire was now
to repay to England some small portion of the debt which it owed for
Boniface and Alcuin, in the persons of Grimbald and John the Old Saxon.
Of the latter not much is known[623]. He was a monk of Corvey, and was
made by Alfred abbot of his new monastery of Athelney. The story of his
attempted murder there has been already alluded to[624]. The date of his
coming to England is not known. The chronology of Grimbald’s life is also
very obscure. Mabillon indeed was led to postulate two Grimbalds, who
both came to England under Alfred. But his perplexity was largely caused
by his acceptance of the Oxford interpolation in Asser as genuine; and
his solution is quite incredible. Grimbald was a monk of St. Bertin’s
in Flanders. He held various offices in that monastery, and in 892, on
the death of Abbot Rudolf, the monks wished him to become their abbot;
but with a view of protecting the monastery against the attacks of
Count Baldwin of Flanders, Fulk, archbishop of Rheims, who had been
abbot before Rudolf, was allowed to resume the abbacy, and hold it with
his archbishopric[625]. If all this is true, Grimbald cannot have come
to England much before 893, and as he is mentioned in the Preface to
the Pastoral Care as one of Alfred’s helpers in that work (along with
Plegmund, Asser, and John), it is obvious that this date for Grimbald’s
arrival in England, if it be regarded as established, will have a very
important bearing on the chronology of Alfred’s writings[626]. There
is a letter extant[627] which purports to be Fulk of Rheims’ answer to
Alfred’s application for Grimbald. Certainly, if Fulk was holding the
abbacy of St. Bertin’s at this time, he would be the natural person to
give permission to a monk of that house to leave his cloister[628],
and Dr. Stubbs thought that the MSS. in which the letter is found
were sufficiently ancient to exclude the suspicion of forgery. Its
authenticity has however been doubted[629], and I confess it presents one
very great difficulty to my mind. The letter throughout is written on the
assumption that Grimbald is to be a bishop in England; he is to be placed
over the care of pastoral rule, he is already a priest, and is worthy of
pontifical honour; if Alfred will send Grimbald’s electors and certain
leading men in Church and State, Fulk will then ordain him (i.e. as
bishop, for he was already priest), and they can escort him to his proper
see[630]. Alfred is represented as having stated in his application that,
owing to the ravages of the Danes, the lapse of time, the carelessness
of prelates, and the ignorance of the people, ecclesiastical order had
much decayed in England[631], which is true enough, whoever wrote it. But
there is no other evidence anywhere of any intention of making Grimbald a
bishop. Dean Hook’s idea[632] that Alfred intended to make him archbishop
of Canterbury, but finding the appointment of a foreigner unpopular,
substituted Plegmund, has not a scrap of evidence to support it; while
if Grimbald did not come to England till 893 the primacy had long been
filled up. Ultimately Grimbald was made abbot of the New Minster at
Winchester, where he died in 903, and became one of the tutelary saints
of that foundation, winning a place in the English Calendar[633]. The
tradition that Asser was one of the embassy sent to escort Grimbald to
England has been already alluded to[634].
[Sidenote: Alfred’s translations; their object.]
§ 89. But it was not only by educational institutions whether in
Court or monastery that Alfred endeavoured to raise the culture of
his people. The art of translation, which he had practised at first
for his own instruction and edification, he came afterwards to use in
order to place within reach of his people[635] the most useful works in
different branches of knowledge. The object which Alfred had in view
is clearly laid down in the oft-quoted Preface to the Pastoral Care.
After tracing the practical extinction of the knowledge of Latin south
of the Thames[636], which made all the knowledge contained in that
language inaccessible to a degree which would have seemed inconceivable
to previous generations, he continues: ‘therefore it seems to me best, if
you agree[637], that we should translate some books, those namely which
are most necessary for all men to know, into the language which we all
understand.’
[Sidenote: Story how Alfred began to translate. The Handbook.]
§ 90. The story how Alfred first began to combine translation with
reading[638] is told in a well-known passage of Asser[639]. He relates
how one day, while the king and himself were reading and talking
together, Alfred was much struck by a passage in the work which Asser was
reading to him, and begged him to write it down for him in the little
book of psalms and prayers which he always carried about with him.
Asser suggested that it would be better to start a separate book for
such extracts, and went and fetched a quire of parchment, and in course
of time the book of translated extracts grew, until it reached nearly
the size of a Psalter. Alfred called it his Encheiridion, Manual, or
Handbook[640], because he always kept it close at hand. This according to
Asser took place in the year 887.
A great deal of unnecessary mystery has been made about this Handbook.
Asser’s account shows that it was simply what we should call a
commonplace book. In the course of years Alfred may have made more
than one such commonplace book. The one started at Asser’s suggestion
contained, according to him, ‘flosculi diuinae scripturae’; that is,
probably, extracts from the Bible and the Fathers. But other parts of
the volume, or, it may be, a later volume of the same kind, contained
historical jottings; for William of Malmesbury quotes Alfred’s
Handbook as an authority for the life of Aldhelm, citing Alfred’s high
appreciation of Aldhelm’s Saxon poems, and adding the beautiful tradition
how by his skill as a minstrel he would gather the people round him, and
gradually turn his song to sacred themes[641]. Florence of Worcester[642]
also cites a work which he calls ‘Dicta regis Ælfredi’ as an authority on
the West Saxon genealogy. Even if we reject the evidence of Malmesbury
and Florence as being so much later than Alfred’s time, it seems to me
quite impossible to identify a theological commonplace book, such as
Asser describes, with the translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies, as
Wülker was once inclined to do[643], partly on the ground that Asser
applies the term ‘flosculi’ to the Handbook, while the translation of
the Soliloquies bears the title ‘Blostman’ or Blooms. But the latter
work, however free in the way in which it deals with its original, is
very much more than a book of extracts. Besides, according to Asser, the
Encheiridion was the very first of Alfred’s works, whereas all critics
are agreed that the Soliloquies are among the last, probably the very
last of his works.
[Sidenote: The translation of Gregory’s Dialogues, attributed by Asser
to Werferth.]
§ 91. Besides the Encheiridion, the only one of the literary works which
owed their origin to Alfred mentioned by Asser is the translation of the
Dialogues of Gregory the Great[644]. The existence of the Chronicle, at
any rate up to 887, is implied in Asser’s use of it, but it is nowhere
mentioned. The easiest explanation of Asser’s silence as to Alfred’s
other works is that they did not then exist. The date at which Asser
professes to be writing is, as we have seen, 894; and this in turn
confirms the view derived from the chronology of Grimbald’s life, as to
the comparatively late date at which Alfred commenced his independent
literary career.
According to Asser, the translation of the Dialogues was not made by
Alfred himself, but by Bishop Werferth at his command[645]; and in the
little preface which Alfred prefixes to the work he makes no claim of
authorship, but merely says: ‘I besought my trusty friends that out of
God’s[646] books of the lives and miracles of the saints they would
write for me the instruction which follows, so that, strengthened in my
mind through memory and love, I may, amid the troubles of this world,
sometimes think on the things of heaven.’ Whether the expression ‘trusty
friends’ is merely an impersonal plural for Werferth, or whether others
really co-operated, I cannot say; but we may take it that Werferth was
mainly responsible, and that in this case the share of Alfred was
confined to furnishing a preface; just as authors nowadays are glad to
get some man of light and leading to commend their works to the public.
[Sidenote: Assistance given to Alfred by his literary advisers.]
The degree in which Alfred made use of the help of his learned advisers
would vary no doubt with the difficulty of the work in hand, and the
degree of the king’s own progress. In the case of the Pastoral Care,
Alfred himself has told us who his helpers were[647]; in other cases,
as we shall see, interesting traditions have been preserved. But I
imagine that in all cases a good deal of the drudgery would be done by
others, Alfred supplying the final literary form. Similar instances of
co-operation have not been unknown in Oxford in the nineteenth century.
[Sidenote: Evidence of the Dialogues as to Alfred’s religious thought.]
§ 92. If any evidence were needed to show that Alfred, with all his true
and earnest piety, was yet in his religious thought the child of his
century, it would be found in the fact that he should have chosen the
Dialogues of Gregory as the first of all books to be translated. The work
was enormously popular in the Middle Ages[648]; but to our thought it is
the least edifying of all Gregory’s writings. In it the principle of St.
James, that ‘the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much,’ is materialised, until the prayers of the saints become a mere
sort of lucky bag or wishing cap for the obtaining of anything that is
wanted, from the raising of the dead, or the punishment of an enemy, to
the supply of the most ordinary articles of domestic economy, such as
oil, and wine, or the mending of a broken sieve; while the fact that
Gregory professes in many cases to have these stories from the mouth of
eyewitnesses[649], illustrates the truth of what Dr. Gore has said[650],
that ‘there are … ages when belief is so utterly uncritical, that it does
seem as if they could not under any circumstances afford us satisfactory
evidence of miraculous occurrences.’
[Sidenote: Relics.]
In this connexion may be mentioned the stress which Asser lays on
Alfred’s veneration for the relics of the saints[651]. In this too, if
it is authentic, Alfred was the child of his age. The natural feeling
of Christian reverence for the body which had once been a temple of
the Holy Ghost, degenerated into an unhealthy passion for collecting
dead men’s bones, which reached its height in the ninth century[652].
And this passion led to a hungry relic-mongering, a system of pious
thefts, and a wholesale manufacture of spurious relics, of which Rome
was the head-quarters, which are among the least pleasant features of
the mediaeval Church. We may be sure that there was nothing unworthy
either in Alfred’s reverence for the relics, or in his belief in the
wonder-working powers of the saints. And for the rest, I think one
realises more and more how a really religious spirit assimilates the
good and is immune from the evil of the particular system in which it is
placed by Providence. There is no one, for instance, who knows anything
of the lives of the devout peasantry, say, of Scotland, or of Roman
Catholic countries on the Continent, but must feel that the somewhat
hard creed of the one, and the somewhat superstitious creed of the other
are absolutely as nothing compared with the effectual power of religion
which is the same in both.
[Sidenote: Double recension of the translation of the Dialogues.]
To return, however, from this digression to Werferth’s translation of
the Dialogues. One very interesting fact about this translation is
that, for the greater part of the first two books[653], it exists in
two recensions, of which the later is not an independent translation,
but stands to the older text in the relation of a revised version[654].
It is, as a rule, much nearer to the original; it retrenches the
redundancies[655], and corrects the mistakes[656] of the earlier
version. Sometimes we can see that the reviser had a different reading
in the Latin text from that adopted in the unrevised translation[657].
Moreover the vocabulary is considerably modified, certain words
being systematically substituted by the reviser for others of like
meaning[658]. This last feature makes it likely that the reviser was
a different person from the original translator. Who he was we shall
probably never know. It is unlikely to have been Alfred himself. For the
rest, both versions keep pretty close to the original without substantial
additions or omissions.
[Sidenote: The Anglo-Saxon martyrology. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.]
§ 93. In the class of works which owe their inspiration to Alfred, though
not actually written by him, we may possibly place the Anglo-Saxon
martyrology alluded to above[659]. We may certainly place in this class
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[660] in its original form, and may inscribe
upon it the legend which encircles Alfred’s Jewel, ‘Alfred bade make
me.’ I have shown elsewhere that all the MSS. of the Chronicle up to
892 are traceable to a common original. From that point they diverge.
The explanation is that at that point copies were made[661] and sent
to different religious houses, where they were continued to a large
extent independently of one another. This view of Alfred’s relation to
the Chronicle is strongly confirmed by the genealogical preface in MS.
A of the Chronicle, in which the West Saxon genealogy is carried down
to the accession of Alfred and no further, showing clearly that it was
drawn up for a chronicle compiled in his reign.
Another fact which points the same way is the strong resemblance between
the phraseology of the Chronicle and that of Alfred’s translation of
Orosius, of which I shall have more to say when I come to speak of that
translation[662]. Gaimar also, as is well known, has a most interesting
passage in which he connects the composition of the Chronicle both with
Alfred and with Winchester. Of course Gaimar is a very late authority.
But his statement harmonises so well with the indications furnished by
the Chronicle itself, and with the inherent probabilities of the case,
that I am inclined to attach much weight to it. Moreover the moderation
of Gaimar’s statement is distinctly in its favour. He does not say that
Alfred wrote the Chronicle, but merely that he caused it to be written.
Of the materials available for carrying out Alfred’s design for a
national Chronicle I have said enough elsewhere.
[Sidenote: Works attributed to Alfred.]
§ 94. It may be convenient to mention here one or two works which have
been attributed to Alfred more or less doubtfully, in order to clear the
way for the consideration of those works as to the authenticity of which
there is practically no doubt.
[Sidenote: Translation of the Psalter. The Paris MS. Partly in prose, and
partly in verse. Arguments for and against Alfred’s authorship of the
prose portion.]
In William of Malmesbury’s account of Alfred’s literary works there
occurs this very interesting statement: ‘He began to translate the
Psalter, but died when he had barely finished the first part of
it[663].’ By the first part is probably meant the first fifty psalms.
The Psalter was frequently regarded in the Middle Ages as consisting
of three divisions of fifty psalms each; so much so, that one of the
regular names for the Psalter in Irish is ‘the three fifties[664].’
Now it is an interesting fact that in the Bibliothèque Nationale
at Paris, there is an eleventh century MS. containing a Latin and
an Anglo-Saxon version of the psalms in parallel columns[665]; each
psalm, with one or two exceptions, being headed by a Latin rubric,
and, in the case of the first fifty psalms, also by an explanation in
Saxon of the circumstances which gave rise to the psalm, and of the
applications of which it is susceptible. The MS. formerly belonged to
Jehan, Duc de Berry (1340-1416), the brother of Charles V of France,
who possibly acquired it during his nine years’ sojourn as a hostage
in England after the peace of Brétigny, 1360. Now it is a striking
fact that in this Psalter the first fifty psalms are translated into
prose, while the remainder are in alliterative verse. The question
therefore arises, did the scribe of the MS. (or of its archetype)
take the latter part of an existing alliterative version, in order to
complete a fragmentary prose translation? or did he, on the other hand,
take part of an existing prose translation to make good a copy of the
poetical version which had been accidentally mutilated at the beginning?
The former is, on every ground, more probable; especially as we have
evidence of the existence of a complete alliterative version of the
Psalter identical with that in the Paris MS.[666], whereas there is no
such evidence available in the case of the fragmentary prose version. It
was therefore an attractive suggestion of Professor Wülker’s[667] that
in this fragment we have the incomplete Alfredian version mentioned by
William of Malmesbury. The question has been elaborately discussed on
the affirmative side by Dr. Wichmann[668], on the negative side by Dr.
J. Douglas Bruce[669]. I cannot say that the arguments of either have
carried any strong conviction to my mind. Dr. Bruce’s reasoning that the
translation and headings imply a knowledge of ecclesiastical modes of
interpretation impossible to a layman, overlooks the possibility that
Alfred might derive that knowledge from his clerical assistants. On the
other hand I cannot attach much weight to Dr. Wichmann’s arguments from
coincidences with the Cura Pastoralis, or from the applicability of
certain interpretations to the circumstances of Alfred’s life. When we
consider that David and Alfred were both kings, that both had enemies
from whom they were both very marvellously delivered, we shall readily
see that an interpretation which would suit the one might very easily be
applicable to the other. The most striking instance of this has not, as
far as I remember, been cited. It is in the introduction to Ps. xxiii
(xxiv), where it is said that in this psalm David was prophesying how his
ealdormen (principes) would be fain of his return from exile[670], words
which recall the expression of the Chronicler how Alfred’s people ‘were
fain of him’ when he emerged from his retreat at Athelney.
On the whole then we must leave the question undecided, until further
evidence or further argument is brought forward.
[Sidenote: Even if not by Alfred, this may be the work alluded to by
Malmesbury.]
§ 95. I would however point out that even if the decision should be
against Alfred’s authorship, it is still possible that the prose
portion of the Paris Psalter may be the work referred to by William of
Malmesbury. The colophon at the end of the MS. gives the name of the
scribe in the Latin form Wulfwinus. In the Cottonian Collection there is
a MS. of the Saxon Gospels with the colophon: ‘Wulfwi me wrat.’ This was
certainly a Malmesbury book, as is shown by the insertion of a Malmesbury
Charter between the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John. If this Wulfwi
could be identified with the Wulfwinus of the Paris Psalter, or its
archetype[671], it would make it likely that that also was a Malmesbury
book. William of Malmesbury was librarian of his monastery[672], and
there may have been a tradition there that the prose translation was the
work of Alfred; a tradition which would be interesting even if it were
not strictly true[673].
[Sidenote: Statement that Alfred translated the whole Bible, probably due
to a misunderstanding.]
There is a statement in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis that ‘Alfred
translated the whole Old and New Testaments for the blessing of the
English nation[674].’ I know no earlier evidence for this, and I believe
the statement to have arisen from a misunderstanding of one of William of
Malmesbury’s rhetorical flourishes in which he says that Alfred ‘gave to
English ears the greater part of the Roman library[675] (bibliothecae)’,
meaning by the last phrase Latin authors. But Bibliotheca is a common
name in the Middle Ages for St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible,
the library of divine books[676]; hence Malmesbury’s statement was
misunderstood as meaning that Alfred had translated the greater part of
the Latin Bible.
[Sidenote: Alleged Domesday Book of Alfred.]
The statement of Ingulf[677] that Alfred made a Domesday Book like
William the Conqueror rests either on a confusion of Dómbóc (Book of
Laws) with Domesday Book[678]; or possibly on a confusion of William’s
Rotulus Wintoniae, as Domesday was sometimes called[679], with Alfred’s
Winchester Book; i.e. the Chronicle.
[Sidenote: Other works.]
Other works which popular tradition has ascribed to Alfred are a
collection of proverbs, a translation of Æsop’s fables, and a treatise on
falconry[680].
[Sidenote: Alfred’s translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care. Its relation
to the original. Omissions and additions.]
§ 96. Very different in value from the Dialogues, according to our
notions, is the other work of Gregory, the translation of which is due
to Alfred, the Pastoral Care. It is a beautiful book, full of wise and
loving spiritual counsel, and of sayings both shrewd and tender. It is
greatly to the credit of the mediaeval Church that it set such store by
this little manual[681]. Alfred sent a copy of his translation to each
of his bishops, to aid them in what Gregory himself[682] so beautifully
calls ‘the art of arts, the care of souls.’ I agree with Professor
Wülker[683] in thinking this the earliest of Alfred’s translations, and
largely for the reason that, as he points out, the Preface, as we have
learnt to know it, is so obviously a preface, not merely to this work,
but to the whole series of translations which Alfred contemplated, of
‘the books which it is most needful for every man to know.’ If what
was said above is correct, the date of it cannot be earlier than 894,
and it may be a little later. It has often been noticed that of all
Alfred’s works (not reckoning among these the Dialogues), this is the
one in which he keeps closest to his original. I attribute this rather
to his reverence for that original, than to any inability on his part
to deal more freely with it, had he so desired. The omissions are few
and unimportant[684]. The additions are much more numerous, but as a
rule they are very slight. They are mostly of the kind which a modern
editor would place on the margin or in a footnote. A very large class
consists merely of the insertion of the names of the various books of
the Bible from which Gregory’s scriptural quotations are taken[685]. In
the case of the psalms the number of the psalm is often given[686],
which is possibly an illustration of Asser’s statements[687] as to the
special fondness of Alfred for the Psalter. Other insertions consist of
brief explanatory notes; an allusion or metaphor is cleared up[688],
a foreign word or custom is explained[689], a quotation or story is
completed[690]. Thus after a reference to the institution of the Levirate
among the Jews, Alfred adds: ‘this was good law under the old covenant,
and to us now it is a parable[691].’ The manna is ‘the sweet food that
came down from heaven[692].’ Shittim wood, we are told, never rots[693].
It does not follow that the explanation is always correct. Thus to
Christ’s denunciation of the Pharisees for scrupulosity in tithing herbs
is added the statement that they left untithed their more valuable
possessions[694].
[Sidenote: Interpretation by Saxon analogies. The original toned down,
expanded and mistranslated. The phraseology bears the stamp of Alfred’s
own experience.]
§ 97. Occasionally Alfred interprets biblical things by Saxon analogies.
Thus the Hebrew cities of refuge become a Saxon ‘frithstow[695],’ as
they do also in Alfred’s preface to his laws[696]. The Doctors among
whom the child Jesus was found were the wisest ‘Witan’ that there
were in Jerusalem[697]. Uriah, whom David murdered, was ‘his own
loyal thane[698].’ In the Soliloquies Alfred speaks of the Apostles as
Christ’s thanes[699]. This process is carried yet further in the sacred
epic poetry both of the insular and continental Saxons, the disciples
becoming Christ’s ‘comites’ or ‘gesiths,’ who are bound to die with their
Lord[700]. Alfred here also, as in some of his other works[701], and in
the Laws[702], lays great stress on the position of the Lord[703]. Once
or twice Alfred tones down his original; thus where Gregory speaking of
the death of impenitent sinners says: ‘they lament that they refused to
serve God now that they can in no wise by service make good the evils
of their former negligence,’ Alfred in his pity inserts the clause:
‘unless they be helped by repentance and God’s mercy[704].’ In one
instance the explanation given is dogmatic, the reception of ‘the spirit
of adoption’ of which St. Paul speaks, being referred to baptism[705].
No doubt for many, if not most, of these additions Alfred was indebted
to his clerical assistants. Often, without any very distinct addition
being made to the text, it is rather freely expanded[706]. Sometimes the
rendering is rather loose[707], as if the meaning of the original had
been imperfectly grasped; sometimes it is distinctly wrong[708]. And
throughout one may say that the translation is made (to use Alfred’s
own expression) rather ‘sense by sense’ than ‘word by word[709].’ And
sometimes, though the phrase may be very close to the original, it seems
to bear the stamp of Alfred’s own experience. The heading of the fourth
chapter must have come straight from his heart: ‘that many times the
business of government and rule distracts the mind of the ruler[710].’
‘What,’ he exclaims in another place, ‘is rule and authority but the
soul’s tempest which is always buffeting the ship of the heart with the
storms of many thoughts, so that it is driven hither and thither in very
narrow straits, wellnigh wrecked among many mighty rocks[711]?’ Or again:
‘the patient must be admonished to strengthen their heart after their
great victory, and hold the burg of their mind against marauding bands,
and fortify it with battlements[712].’ Lastly: ‘every host (_here_) is
the less effective when it comes, if its coming is known beforehand. For
it finds them prepared whom it thought to take unprepared[713].’ In these
two last passages we seem almost to hear the echo of Alfred’s experience
in 878[714].
[Sidenote: Question as to the order of the Orosius and Bede translations.]
§ 98. The next two works of Alfred to be considered are both historical,
viz. the translations of Orosius’ Universal History, and of Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. There has been however
considerable difference of opinion as to the order of these two works.
The earlier critics, however much they might differ among themselves
as to the succession of Alfred’s works taken as a whole, all, with the
exception of Dr. Bosworth, agreed in placing the Orosius before the
Bede[715]. But in recent times Wülker[716], August Schmidt[717], and my
friend Professor Schipper of Vienna[718] have argued in favour of the
other view. The chief ground on which they have based their conclusion is
the greater freedom of the Orosius both in translation and arrangement
as compared with the Bede. In the latter the translation is sometimes
quite unduly literal, so as to be almost unintelligible in places
without a reference to the original[719]; while as to arrangement,
the modifications of the original are, for the most part, limited to
omissions of matters like the Easter Controversy which had ceased
to have any living interest, the additions and transpositions being
very unimportant. The Orosius on the other hand is not only freer in
translation, but is so recast by transposition, addition, and omission,
as to be practically a new work.
[Sidenote: Character of the two originals, and of the translations.]
It is argued that this greater freedom implies a more practised hand, and
therefore a later date. The argument seems to me fallacious. As regards
substantial alterations we must bear in mind the different character
of the two originals. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History has always been an
almost sacred book to Englishmen. It needed no recasting, beyond a few
omissions, to make it suitable for English readers in Alfred’s day.
But Orosius’ work, written with the polemical object of enforcing the
argument of Augustine’s De Ciuitate Dei against the pagan contention that
the troubles of the times were due to the introduction of Christianity,
by showing, in a survey of universal history, that the evils of
pre-Christian days were far greater, and full therefore of ecclesiastical
gloating over the crimes and calamities of pagan history, required much
more drastic treatment. On the occasional over-literalness of the Bede
translation I shall have something to say presently. As regards the
greater freedom of the Orosius, any one who has examined in one of our
Pass Schools will bear witness that there is a kind of free translation,
which is very far from implying a perfect mastery of the original. And I
must confess that Alfred’s freedom in the Orosius is often of the latter
kind[720]. I should say that there are far more serious blunders in
translation in the Orosius than in the Bede; though on the other hand it
must be remembered that Bede’s Latin is a good deal easier than that of
Orosius.
[Sidenote: Arguments in favour of the priority of the Orosius. Argument
on the other side.]
§ 99. In the Introduction to the second volume of my Saxon Chronicle[721]
I argued in favour of the priority of the Orosius, on the ground of the
affinity in diction and expression between it and the Saxon Chronicle.
That argument I need not repeat here; I still think that it has force,
though I possibly laid too much stress upon it, as one is apt to do when
one gets hold of an idea which one fancies to be new[722]. It is however
capable of being reinforced. The second chapter of Bede’s first book
contains an account of Caesar’s invasions of Britain. This is a matter
which one would take to be of great interest to all inhabitants of this
island[723]. Yet in the Bede translation it is, in the older recension,
omitted altogether, and even in the later recension is passed over with
the barest mention[724]. But this chapter is almost wholly taken from
Orosius; and when we turn to the Orosius version, we find that Alfred has
not only translated the passage in question, but has enriched it with
his own local knowledge, telling us that Caesar’s first two engagements
with the natives were ‘in the land which is called Kent-land,’ and that
the third took place ‘near the ford which is called Wallingford[725].’ If
the Orosius translation preceded the Bede, we can understand why Alfred
omitted the corresponding passage in the latter. Again, in chapter v of
the same book, Bede expressly corrects a mistake of Orosius’ as to the
wall of Severus, saying that it was not properly a wall, but a rampart of
sods with a ditch; Alfred not only adopts this correction here[726], but
in another place of the Bede seems to emphasise it[727], where there is
no special emphasis in the original. In the Orosius passage the mistake
is uncorrected[728]. Alfred shows in many ways that he had a good memory,
and that he did not shrink from correcting his authors where he thought
they needed it; he would hardly have ignored Bede’s correction had he
been cognisant of it when he was making the translation of Orosius. The
only serious argument on the other side is one which has not, as far as I
am aware, been previously noticed. I mean the affinity of passages in the
Orosius with passages in the Boethius, which is, as we shall see[729],
almost certainly later than either the Orosius or the Bede. Of these the
most important are two in which Alfred without any hint from the original
protests against the doctrine that all things happen by fate[730], a
subject which occupies a prominent place in the Boethius. There would,
however, be nothing impossible in the supposition that Alfred may
have read the Consolation of Boethius before he undertook the work of
translating it, or the subject may have been suggested to his active mind
in some other way. On the whole the question of precedence as between the
Orosius and the Bede must be left uncertain; though in accordance with my
own view I shall take the Orosius first.
[Sidenote: Relation of the Orosius translation to the original.]
§ 100. It would be impossible to discuss in detail the modifications made
by Alfred in his original. They occur on almost every page. I can only
indicate their general character, and give a few specimens of some of the
more important. And in doing this I very willingly acknowledge the help
which I have derived from Dr. Hugo Schilling’s useful dissertation on the
subject[731].
[Sidenote: Additions. Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan.]
It may give some measure of the extent of Alfred’s changes to note that
whereas the original consists of seven books divided into 236 chapters,
the Saxon version contains six books with only 84 chapters[732]. The most
important additions are to be found in the geographical introduction
which Orosius prefixes to his work. It is here that Alfred inserts
the well-known description of the geography of Germany, which for him
includes all central Europe from the Rhine on the west to the Don on
the east, and from the Danube on the south to the White Sea on the
north[733]. Here too are inserted the yet more famous accounts of the
voyages of Ohthere[734] and Wulfstan[735], on which so much has been
written. Ohthere’s account begins: ‘Ohthere told his lord king Alfred
that of all the Northmen he dwelt furthest to the North’; and this is
the only direct evidence which the work contains as to its authorship.
These accounts and also the description of Germany, which, like them,
must have been carefully derived from oral information, illustrate what
Asser tells of Alfred’s intercourse with strangers and his eagerness
to learn from them[736], a trait which was characteristic also of the
great Charles[737]. In the historical part the chief additions are the
description of a Roman triumph[738], and of the temple of Janus[739].
But there are endless smaller additions; and of these one of the most
interesting is the anecdote, ultimately derived from Suetonius, how Titus
used to say that the day was a lost day on which he had done no good to
any one[740]. This saying is quoted also in the Chronicle, and is one
of the links connecting the two works[741]. We can understand how this
saying of the ‘deliciae generis humani’ would come home to the heart
of England’s darling[742]. Some of these shorter insertions are brief
explanatory notes[743] like those which we have already met with in the
Cura Pastoralis, and, like them, are by no means always correct.
[Sidenote: Editorial explanations.]
§ 101. Sometimes the explanations are longer; and many of these are due
entirely to Alfred’s imagination, and are intended to make clear to us
how, in his view, the event narrated came about. It is not in accordance
with our modern notions that editorial explanations of this kind should
be incorporated in the text of an author. But the idea of literary
property is a comparatively modern one, and footnotes and appendices had
not then been invented. It is more questionable when the phrase ‘cwæð
Orosius’ which Alfred frequently[744] uses to indicate that a sentiment
or a statement is his author’s, not his own, is used, as is the case
in one or two instances, to introduce something for which there is no
warrant in the original; for instance, one of the passages about fate
alluded to above[745].
[Sidenote: These frequently relate to military matters.]
Of these editorial explanations the most interesting perhaps are those
which relate to military matters; because they seem in some cases to
reflect Alfred’s own military experience—a point which Schilling has not
noticed. For instance, when Alfred gives as Hannibal’s reason for his
terrible winter march over the Apennines, that ‘he knew that Flaminius
the consul was fancying that he might remain securely in his winter
quarters, … being fully persuaded that no one would attempt such a march
by reason of the intense cold[746],’ we think of the sudden swoop of the
Danes on Alfred at Chippenham that Epiphany tide 878[747]; the stratagem
of a simulated flight, by which he explains the defeat of Regulus[748],
is one which there is reason to believe that the Danes more than once
resorted to[749]; as also the device which he attributes to Hannibal,
without any warrant from the original text, of sending out parties to
ravage in various directions in order to make the enemy imagine that his
whole force was occupied in this manner[750]; though this also closely
resembles the feigned attacks which Alfred himself made from Athelney, in
order to mask his advance in force to Ethandun[751].
[Sidenote: Passages in Orosius illustrated by Alfred’s own experience.
Anecdote of Nelson.]
§ 102. The same is true of some things for which there is a basis in
Orosius himself; for instance, the story how, within sixty days from
the felling of the trees, Duilius had a fleet of 130 ships ready ‘both
with mast and sail[752]’ recalls Alfred’s own shipbuilding efforts; the
story how Dercyllidas dealt with the opposing forces of Pharnabazus and
Tissaphernes is extraordinarily like Alfred’s attempt to detach the Danes
of Milton from those at Appledore in 893 [894][753]: ‘As soon as the
Lacedemonian general knew that he had to deal with two hosts (_heras_),
he thought it more advisable to make peace with the one, in order that
he might the more easily overcome the other[754]’; while I have already
suggested that the twofold division of the Amazonian host[755], one to
remain at home while the other was on active service, may have even
suggested Alfred’s similar division of the native fyrd _or_ militia. And,
indeed, if the workings of the human mind were always traceable, I fancy
we should find, more often than is commonly supposed, that what seem
like brilliant intuitions on the part of great commanders and statesmen,
had really been suggested by their reading. Nor is this any detraction
from their originality. To remember at the right time, and apply in the
right way, the hints furnished by previous experience, is as much a mark
of genius as invention. There is an interesting tradition that Nelson’s
manœuvre of anchoring his vessels by the stern at the bombardment of
Copenhagen in 1801, was suggested by the fact that he had that morning
been reading the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts, which tells how St.
Paul’s shipwrecked companions ‘cast four anchors out of the stern, and
wished for the day[756].’
[Sidenote: The alterations sometimes illustrate Alfred’s own sentiments.
Mistakes. Alfred’s character displayed.]
§ 103. Often the additions and expansions let us see Alfred’s own
sentiments; his religious feelings[757], his admiration for genius,
patriotism, and courage, as exemplified in such men as Alexander[758],
Scaevola[759], Regulus[760], the two Scipios[761] and Caesar[762];
his disgust at ingratitude to God[763] and man[764], at cruelty[765],
treachery[766], or sloth[767]. The omissions are often dictated by
similar motives. He leaves out or abridges many of the civil wars, the
calamities, the crimes, the unclean mythologies[768], over which Orosius
gloated as proofs of heathen depravity; though often the omissions have
no special motive beyond the necessity for shortening the work. It must
be confessed that these omissions frequently have the effect of wholly
dislocating the succession of events. And it may be said generally that
Alfred, though he apprehends individual incidents with extraordinary
vividness, is by no means clear as to the connexion of events. For the
latter quality greater knowledge was required than was accessible in
his day. In regard to the additions, moreover, we must bear in mind the
possibility that some of them may be due, not to Alfred himself, but
to interpolations or glosses in the MSS. which he used. This, as we
shall see[769], is a consideration of great importance in the case of
the Boethius, but it has been proved to apply to one or two passages
of the Orosius also[770]. That there are many errors as to persons
bearing the same or similar names[771], many confusions of personal and
geographical appellations[772], many quaint mistakes of translation[773]
and of fact, as when he says that Augustus took his name from the eighth
month of the year instead of vice versa[774], turns the snake-charming
tribe of Psylli[775] into a kind of serpent, and infers from Augustus’
heart-broken exclamation, ‘Vare, redde legiones,’ that that ill-fated
commander had escaped alive from his defeat[776]; this is only what we
might expect, and it would be ungracious to dwell upon such things[777].
Dr. Schilling has truly and excellently said[778] of the Orosius: ‘We see
Alfred here weak in historical and linguistic knowledge; but we see him
also simple, high-hearted, and earnest; full of warm appreciation for
all that is good, and of scorn for all that is evil; putting himself to
school that he may educate and raise his people.’
LECTURE VI
LITERARY WORKS (_continued_); SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
[Sidenote: Authorship of the Orosius translation undisputed. Recent
doubts as to the Bede translation. Ælfric distinctly attributes it to
Alfred, which he does not do in the case of the Dialogues.]
§ 104. We have seen[779] that in the case of the Orosius, the only
direct hint of authorship contained in the book itself is the address of
Ohthere to ‘his lord King Alfred’; and the earliest external testimony
on the subject is to be found in William of Malmesbury in the early
part of the twelfth century. But no one has ever doubted King Alfred’s
authorship. Till recently the same might have been said of the Bede; in
1877 Professor Wülker spoke of Alfred’s authorship of the Bede as ‘a
fact which no one hitherto has doubted or could doubt[780].’ Since then,
however, Mr. Sweet, in his Anglo-Saxon Reader[781], and Dr. Thomas Miller
in his edition of the Bede translation, published by the Early English
Text Society[782], have tried to overthrow the traditional view; the
former, mainly on the ground of that occasional over-literalness of the
version already alluded to[783]; the latter, because he thinks that it
shows Mercian characteristics incompatible with a West Saxon origin. Now
we must admit at once that the book itself contains no direct evidence
of authorship, not even such a hint as is dropped in the Orosius. On
the other hand the external evidence is very much earlier. Ælfric, the
homilist, distinctly quotes the book as Alfred’s. In his homily on St.
Gregory he says: ‘Many books tell of his conversation and holy life,
as does Historia Anglorum, which King Alfred translated out of English
into Latin.… We will however tell you something about him because the
fore-said book is not known to all of you, although it is translated
into English[784].’ This was written within a hundred years of Alfred’s
death. For many books of which the authorship has never been doubted we
cannot produce evidence anything like as early. I may note in passing
that in speaking of the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues Ælfric makes
no assertion as to the Alfredian authorship, merely saying ‘the book
has been translated into English, and in it any one who will read it
may learn profitably of these matters[785].’ In another place he gives
interesting evidence that, till he himself took pen in hand, Alfred’s
translations were the only books accessible to those who did not know
Latin[786].
[Sidenote: Evidence of MSS.]
Moreover the Cambridge University MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Bede, which is
said to be of the middle of the eleventh century, has at the beginning
and end the following distich:—
‘Historicus quondam fecit me Beda Latinum,
Alfred, rex Saxo, transtulit ille pius.’
The same MS. contains, between Bede’s Preface and the History proper, a
copy of the West Saxon genealogy in the exact form in which it appears
in MS. A of the Saxon Chronicle; i.e. it comes down to the accession of
Alfred, and no further. This again connects the work with Alfred. The
Cambridge MS. is, as far as we can test it, an undoubted copy of one
which exists in the library of my own college. This is unfortunately
imperfect, both at the beginning and the end. But if, as is likely, it
also contained originally the distich and the pedigree, the evidence is
thrown yet further back[787].
Curiously enough both Laȝamon[788] and Rudborne[789] speak of the Saxon
version as if it were Bede’s own.
[Sidenote: The negative arguments inconclusive. The argument from
dialect.]
§ 105. The question of its authorship must not be regarded as outside
the pale of discussion. Only I do not think that the arguments hitherto
advanced are sufficient to establish a negative conclusion. As to Dr.
Miller’s Mercian theory, I may say at once that I have no pretensions to
pose as an expert in early English dialects. I can get up no enthusiasm
for the minute distinctions of form and spelling which form their
criteria. They have for me only the practical and unpleasant interest
that they oblige me often to look up a word in three or four different
places in the dictionary before finding it. I may however mention that
Professor Schipper, the latest editor of the Anglo-Saxon Bede[790],
does not regard the Mercian theory as established[791]. But even if
it were established, it does not seem to me incompatible with Alfred’s
authorship. It is agreed that all our existing MSS. go back to a single
archetype, though they branch off into two groups which form to some
extent a twofold recension[792]. The scribe of that archetypal MS.
may have been a Mercian, and there may have been other MSS. in which
these Mercian peculiarities were wanting. Even if it be assumed (for
it certainly could not be proved), that this Mercian archetype was
the original MS. of all, it is equally open to us to suppose that the
scribe to whom Alfred dictated his translation in the first instance
may have been a Mercian. Or again it is quite possible that the Mercian
characteristics, if they exist, may be due to the influence of the
Mercian scholars who assisted Alfred in his work—Plegmund, Werferth,
and the two Mercian chaplains mentioned by Asser[793]. And it is some
confirmation of this that there is a certain affinity noticeable between
the diction and style of the Bede translation and that of the earlier or
unrevised version of the Dialogues, which, as we have seen, there is good
reason to attribute to Werferth[794].
[Sidenote: Argument from style. Influence of Latin on early prose. The
Bede may never have been finally revised.]
§ 106. As to the over-literalness of the translation in places, the
fact must be admitted, though the extent of it has been, I think,
somewhat exaggerated. The cases fall under three heads: (1) where a
Latin construction is unidiomatically imitated in the Saxon[795]; this
applies especially to constructions with the ablative absolute[796], the
accusative and infinitive[797], and the use of the passive voice[798],
the range of which is much more restricted in Saxon than in Latin[799];
(2) where a Latin word is translated by a Saxon one which may correspond
fairly well with the general meaning of the Latin word, but does not give
its sense in the particular passage[800]; (3) where a phrase or sentence
is translated, to use Alfred’s own expression, ‘word by word,’ instead
of ‘sense by sense[801].’ To all these classes the explanation suggested
by Professor Schipper would often apply, viz. that the translator may
have embodied in his work interlinear glosses which had been made to
assist him; and he cites in illustration the difference between the
West Saxon and Northumbrian versions of the Gospels, the former of
which is a genuine translation, while the latter is an interlinear
gloss made word for word[802]. Some however of the cases where Latin
constructions are reproduced, and also one or two of the second class,
give me the impression, not that the translator could not have translated
more idiomatically if he had pleased, but rather that he was trying
experiments with the language. The development of early prose in almost
all European languages has been largely influenced by Latin models,
and it was only experience which could show how far the process of
assimilation might be carried. Similarly for some two centuries after
the Renaissance English prose literature is full of experimentally
transplanted Latinisms, of which a large proportion failed to make good
their footing in the language. Another possibility must also be borne
in mind; that the Bede may never have received Alfred’s final revision.
We have seen that in the case of the Dialogues an extensive revision
was found desirable at a later time, and we seem to have traces of a
partial revision of the Bede in the younger group of MSS. mentioned
above, in which not only does the translation vary, at times very
considerably[803], but a passage is inserted which the earlier recension
omits[804], and conversely[805]. When this partial revision was made I
cannot say, but probably not by Alfred himself. On the whole, then, I do
not regard Mr. Sweet’s or Dr. Miller’s argument as conclusive, either
against Alfred’s authorship of the Bede translation, or against the
priority of the Orosius.
[Sidenote: Omissions made by Alfred in the Bede. The Easter Controversy.]
§ 107. I have already said[806] that the principal changes made by Alfred
in the Bede are in the way of omission, the additions being comparatively
slight. It is worth while to see what considerations guided him in this.
First of all he omits almost all documents[807], in two instances he
just gives a brief summary of a letter in oratio obliqua[808]. He seems
at first to have intended to omit the interrogations and responses of
Augustine and Gregory, but afterwards to have changed his mind, as
in all the MSS. they occur after the third book instead of in their
proper place near the end of the first[809]. He also omits all the
metrical compositions, epitaphs, &c.[810], which occur in the course
of the work. Then, too, he omits almost everything bearing on the
Easter Controversy[811]; partly no doubt because he felt, as modern
readers feel, the intolerable tediousness of the whole thing; but
partly also, we may well believe, because he disliked the bitterness
which even the gentle Bede shows on this question[812], for there are
little touches which seem to prove that the piety and self-devotion of
the Celtic missionaries had made a deep impression on his heart[813].
The early history prior to the conversion of the Saxons is also a good
deal abbreviated[814], no doubt as having less direct interest for his
readers. So the description of the sacred places which Bede largely
borrowed from Arculfus is omitted, probably for similar reasons[815].
[Sidenote: The additions unimportant.]
§ 108. It has often formed a subject both of wonder and regret that
Alfred should not have enriched the Bede with additions drawn from his
own knowledge of the traditions of his people, as he might so easily have
done. Reverence for his original may have had something to do with this;
but I agree with Professor Wülker[816] that the main reason probably
was, because all that Alfred desired in this line had already been done
in the compilation of the Saxon Chronicle. It is confirmatory of this
that the chronological summary appended to his history by Bede, which
had, as I have elsewhere shown[817], such an important influence on the
development of annalistic writing in general, and of the Saxon Chronicle
in particular, is omitted in the Bede translation.
Smaller additions and expansions there are, but they seldom really add
anything to the narrative. They are as a rule merely inserted to make
it a little more clear[818], or a little more vivid, or a little more
in accordance with the translator’s ideas[819]. Occasionally, though
rarely, they show a touch of personal feeling; as where Diocletian
is characterised as the bad emperor[820], Constantine as the good
emperor[821], and Aidan as the good bishop[822]. Sometimes, as in the
other works, they are brief explanations of things which the readers
might not know[823]. Occasionally statements of Bede’s are altered[824],
or omitted[825], because they were no longer applicable, or they are
marked distinctly as being Bede’s and not Alfred’s[826]. But in other
cases similar statements are retained, though it would not be safe to
argue from this that the state of things indicated still subsisted in
Alfred’s day[827].
[Sidenote: Mistakes.]
Here too there are mistakes[828], though fewer and less serious than in
the Orosius. In some cases they may be due to erroneous readings in the
MS. which Alfred used[829]. In one or two instances Alfred’s version
shows a remarkable divergence of historical fact, which can hardly arise
wholly from misunderstanding[830].
[Sidenote: Merits of the translation.]
But on the whole the translation is a worthy one, preserving, and in one
or two instances enhancing[831], the beauty of the original, the most
beautiful historical work which the Church had produced since Luke and
John wrote their Gospels.
One incidental merit of the translation, as Stubbs has remarked[832], is
that it enables us to equate the Saxon technical terms of officers and
institutions with the corresponding Latin ones[833].
[Sidenote: The translation of Boethius. Fame of the original in the
Middle Ages. Causes of this popularity; its form. Sympathy with the
author.]
§ 109. We come now to what is in many respects the most interesting
and important of all Alfred’s literary works, viz. the translation of
Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy. It is here that the additions
made by Alfred to his original give us the clearest insight into his
own character and modes of thought. And the original is in itself one
of the most noteworthy books of the Middle Ages. Just as Orosius was to
those ages the accepted manual of universal history[834], and the Cura
Pastoralis their accepted manual of Spiritual Counsel, so the Consolatio
of Boethius was their accepted manual of practical and speculative
philosophy; the one channel through which some tincture of ancient
speculation passed into the popular thought of the early Middle Ages.
Perhaps no book except the Bible and the Imitatio has been translated
into so many languages; and in more than one European country the early
translations of the Consolatio have had an important influence on the
development of a vernacular literature[835]. For this popularity several
reasons may be given. Something was probably due to the form of the
work, which is written in that mixture of verse and prose known as the
Satura Menippaea[836]. The lyrics of the Consolatio won the enthusiastic
admiration of the great Renaissance scholar, F. C. Scaliger[837], and
I must confess that to me they seem extremely beautiful, though their
beauty is of a somewhat frosty order. But if they have something of the
hardness and coldness of marble, they have also its purity and high
polish[838]. But the chief reason was, no doubt, sympathy with the
author’s misfortunes, whose sudden fall, from being the favourite and
chief minister of Theodoric, to prison and to death, made him one of
the most signal examples in that ever-lengthening treatise De casibus
illustrium uirorum, on which the Middle Ages pondered with intense and
morbid interest, feeding that contempt for the world[839] and all things
human, which finds such passionate expression in many mediaeval writings:—
‘O esca uermium, o massa pulueris,
O ros, o uanitas, cur sic extolleris?[840]’
[Sidenote: Was Boethius a Christian? The Consolatio not distinctively
Christian.]
To this power of the work as a record of human suffering pathetic
testimony is borne by the title of an anonymous French translation
of the fifteenth century, which announces itself as the work of ’un
pauvre clerc désolé, quérant sa consolation par la traduction de cestui
livre[841]’; it is the book to which Dante resorted for comfort after
the death of Beatrice[842]; and our own Sir Thomas More while in prison
wrote an imitation of Boethius, which he calls ‘Three Books of Comfort
in Tribulation[843].’ ‘Dost thou think,’ asks Philosophy of Boethius
in Alfred’s translation, ‘that to thee alone such change of state and
sorrow have come[844]?’ And, in spite of Tennyson, the fact ‘that loss is
common’ does ‘make Our own less bitter[845]’; and the ‘sense of tears in
mortal things[846]’ knits mankind together in bonds of sympathy which do
make the common burden lighter. And in the case of Boethius this natural
feeling was heightened by the erroneous impression, which prevailed in
the Middle Ages, that the sufferings of Boethius were due to the rage
of an Arian ruler against his Catholic servant[847]. A superficial
inspection of dates is sufficient to dispel this illusion[848]; and how
little support it derives from the work itself is shown by the fact,
that few questions in literary history have been more keenly debated
than the question, whether the author was a Christian at all[849]. The
question turns largely on the authenticity of certain theological tracts
which bear the name of Boethius, and do not concern us here[850]. On the
whole it is probable that Boethius was by profession a Christian, though
it would seem that his Christianity did not go very deep. Certainly in
the hour of trouble, which generally shows the real basis of a man’s
thought and character, he turns for consolation, not to the doctrines
of Christianity, but to the teachings of Neo-platonic philosophy;
and I unhesitatingly affirm that there is far more of the spirit of
Christianity in the writings of acknowledged pagans like Seneca and
Marcus Aurelius, than in this work of a nominal Christian, who enforces
the duty of prayer, not by the authority of Christ and His Apostles, but
by that of Plato in the Timaeus[851].
[Sidenote: This non-Christian character concealed by glosses and
commentaries, from which many of Alfred’s additions are derived.]
§ 110. It might have been thought that this absence of any distinctively
Christian character would have militated against the popularity of the
Consolatio in the Middle Ages. That it did not do so was due partly to
causes already enumerated, partly to the fact that the non-Christian
character of the work was to some extent concealed by the Christian
interpretation given to various passages in the commentaries and glosses
on Boethius; which interpretations were in turn embodied in the different
translations of the Consolatio, at the head of which stands Alfred’s
version.
[Sidenote: Yet the additions illustrate Alfred’s thought.]
This interesting fact, that many of the additions in Alfred’s Boethius,
especially those of a distinctly Christian character, are not really
due to Alfred himself but to the glosses and commentaries which were
used by him or his learned assistants, was first pointed out by Dr.
Schepss in a very suggestive article in the Archiv für’s Studium der
neueren Sprachen[852]. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Schepss’
death prevented him from pursuing this line of investigation further.
Till this field has been fully explored, we incur the danger of citing
as specially characteristic of Alfred something which he only borrowed
from others. In some instances I have noticed that the additions made by
Alfred are really taken from, or at least suggested by other passages
in the text of Boethius[853]. But, when all deductions have been made,
there remains enough that we may safely take as evidence of Alfred’s
thought and feeling. I have already cited the passage bearing on the
needs and instruments of a king[854]. This was to some extent suggested
by a commentary, but it is instinct with the mind of Alfred, as is the
oft-quoted sentence with which the chapter closes: ‘My will was to live
worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that
should come after my memory in good works[855].’ Very Alfredian too are
the thoughts that reward should not be looked for in this world[856],
but should be sought from God alone[857]; that a good name is better than
any wealth[858]; that true nobility is of the mind, not of the body[859];
that an honest purpose is accepted, even though its accomplishment be
frustrated[860]; that a king without free subjects is nothing worth[861];
that no one should be idle[862], or wish to live a soft life[863]. But
perhaps the noblest passage is that in which by a splendid metaphor
Philosophy is made to say: ‘When I with my servants mount aloft, then do
we look down upon the stormy world, even as the eagle when he soars above
the clouds in stormy weather, so that the storms cannot hurt him[864]’;—a
metaphor which so strikingly expresses Alfred’s own soaring superiority
to what he elsewhere calls ‘the wind of stern labours, and the rain of
excessive anxiety[865].’
[Sidenote: Wealth of similes in the translation.]
And this brings me to another point. If any one will look through
the additions made by Alfred to the text of Boethius, which are very
conveniently distinguished by italic type in Mr. Sedgefield’s handy
rendering of Alfred’s version into modern English[866], he can hardly
fail to notice how many of them consist in metaphors and similes; none
perhaps so fine as that just quoted, but often of great interest and
beauty[867]. Even where the simile was suggested by something in the
text or commentary which Alfred had before him, it is often developed at
much greater length. This is a point of some interest, because it shows
that Alfred’s mind was of the class which delights in parable and figure,
and makes it not unreasonable to look for deeper meanings in what he
wrote and wrought[868].
[Sidenote: Discussion on Fate and Freewill.]
§ 111. I have said that the subject of fate occupies a prominent place
in the Consolatio and in Alfred’s translation of it[869]. The relation
of fate to providence, of divine foreknowledge to human freedom, the
nature of evil, the existence of chance, these are the high themes round
which much of the latter part of the argument circles. They are the
themes which occupied the more intellectual spirits among Milton’s fallen
angels:—
‘Others apart sat on a hill retired
In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix’d fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost[870].’
And fallen man has succeeded as little as fallen angel in solving these
high doubts. Alfred realises, as indeed does Boethius, the arduous
nature of the inquiry; and his conclusion is, as we should expect, much
more than is the case with Boethius, the conclusion of Christian faith
and practical Christian piety: ‘I say, as do all Christian men, that
it is the divine purpose that rules, and not Fate[871].’ He sees, as
all moralists have seen, that morality is only possible on a basis of
freedom, that fatalism reduces vice and virtue, punishment and reward to
unmeaning terms[872]. ‘To men and to angels God gave the gift of freedom
that they might do good or evil, whichever they pleased[873].… But if
it be true that the good and the wicked are so made as to be unable to
act otherwise than they do, then vain is our labour when we pray, and
fast, or give alms, if we have no more thank therefor than those who
in all things … run after their fleshly lusts[874]; … and vain too is
the commandment which God gave to man that he should eschew evil and do
good[875].’ God knows all our works, before we even conceive them in our
thought; but this knowledge is not a cause compelling us so to act, any
more than the knowledge of the steersman that a storm is coming, is the
cause of the storm[876].
[Sidenote: Other points characteristic of Alfred.]
There are other points which illustrate Alfred’s studies, tastes, and
circumstances; the saying that in the golden age no one had heard of a
pirate host[877]; the allusion to the wise goldsmith, Weland[878]; the
explanations about India and Thule[879].
And there are things in the text itself which evidently come home to
Alfred; the beauty of gems[880], the fairness of the country-side—the
fairest of all God’s creations[881], the song of the birds in the
woods[882], the worth of friends[883]; the stories of kings reduced to
poverty[884], of the sword of Damocles[885], the joy of a calm haven
after storms[886].
[Sidenote: Omissions.]
Here too, as in the case of the Orosius, Alfred has modified his original
by omissions as well as additions; but it is unnecessary to go minutely
into this point, as Mr. Sedgefield has prefixed to his edition of
Alfred’s version an elaborate table showing the relation of that version
to the original[887].
[Sidenote: No doubt as to Alfred’s authorship of the prose translation.
Did he also write the alliterative version of the Metra? The negative
arguments for the most part purely subjective.]
§ 112. In regard to the translation as a whole no doubt has ever been
expressed as to the authorship of Alfred[888]; and it is the only one of
Alfred’s works which is mentioned by name by Ethelwerd, who wrote towards
the end of the tenth century[889]. There is, however, an interesting
literary question connected with it, which is this. The translation
exists in only two MSS., one in the Cottonian Collection[890], the other
in the Bodleian[891]. In the older or Cottonian MS. the metrical parts
of Boethius are, with three exceptions[892], rendered into alliterative
Saxon verse; in the later or Bodleian MS. they are rendered into
prose. It is as to Alfred’s authorship of the alliterative poems that
the controversy has raged; and those who deny their authenticity are
compelled to deny also the authenticity of the two proems in prose
and verse[893], in both of which the poems are distinctly ascribed to
Alfred. The question, though interesting as a literary problem, is not
intrinsically of great importance. The poems are not of the highest
order, though they have been, I think, unduly depreciated. Alfred’s fame
will not be much exalted if he wrote them, or much depressed if they
should be adjudged to another. I must confess, however, that a great deal
of the argument on the negative side seems to me to be of that purely
arbitrary and subjective kind which in its ultimate analysis amounts to
this: ‘it can’t have been so, because I don’t think that it was[894].’
[Sidenote: Logical result of this style of criticism.]
§ 113. One thing is agreed on all sides; the verse translation is made
from the prose translation, and is not an independent rendering made
direct from the Latin; and the main argument of the negative critics
is that it is impossible to suppose that a man like Alfred can have
occupied himself in turning his own vigorous prose into indifferent
verse. On this I would remark: first, does it follow, because Alfred
was a great man and a great prose-writer, that he was also necessarily
a considerable poet[895]? Secondly, if Alfred wrote the verses, does
it necessarily follow that _he_ thought them poor and unworthy of
the trouble of making? Great writers are not always gifted with the
faculty of self-criticism; otherwise we should not have Wordsworth
taking apparently equal pleasure in the composition of Betty Foy and of
Laodamia. Indeed, on my conscience, I believe that he liked Betty Foy
the better of the two[896]. Thirdly, even if Alfred were conscious of
his limitations as a poet, is it not possible that his conscientious
spirit may have felt bound to give as true a representation of the
original as possible, by reproducing one of its most salient features,
the alternation of verse and prose? In truth this style of criticism,
if logically carried out, would lead us very far. It would prove, for
instance, that at least two hands were concerned in the composition of
the third book of Wordsworth’s Prelude. That book contains the glorious
and well-known lines:—
‘And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of Moon or favouring Stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.’
But it also contains the no less well-known, but most inglorious line:
And at the _Hoop_ alighted, famous Inn.
It would also prove (to take a closer parallel) that the late Professor
Conington never wrote a verse translation of the Aeneid. Unlike Alfred,
Mr. Conington was, as we all know, a very considerable Latin scholar;
but I must be pardoned for saying that, like Alfred, he was not a very
considerable poet. He wrote a prose translation of the Aeneid, of which
he thought so little that it was not published till after his death; he
wrote a verse translation of the same poem, of which he evidently thought
a good deal. Yet can we not imagine a German critic a thousand years
hence arguing that the author of the prose translation could never have
penned a couplet like the following?—
‘Three calves to Eryx next he kills,
A lambkin’s blood to Tempest spills[897].’
[Sidenote: Probability that the prose version of the Metra was intended
merely as a basis for the verse translation. Illustration from the Old
High German version. Mutual relations of the two editions. Illustration
from two French versions.]
§ 114. For my own part, so far from regarding the existence of the prose
translation of Boethius’ Metra as inconsistent with Alfred’s authorship
of the alliterative version, I am inclined to regard the former as
intended from the first to serve as the basis of the latter. I would
bring into connexion with this the interesting statement of William of
Malmesbury, that Asser, for Alfred’s benefit, unravelled the meaning
of the De Consolatione in plainer words; ‘a labour,’ says Malmesbury,
with the sniff of the superior person, ‘in those days necessary,
in ours ridiculous[898].’ Zimmermann understood this as meaning a
preliminary translation made by Asser. ‘Entschieden falsch,’ cries
Professor Wülker[899], with the usual brusqueness of a German critic.
But the criticism may be retorted on his own explanation that Asser
glossed a manuscript for the king’s use. The passage clearly refers to a
paraphrase of the original in simpler language, and more natural order,
like that which occupies the margin of some of the Delphin Classics, an
illustration which had occurred to myself before I knew that Dr. Schepss
had also made use of it in his admirable essay referred to above[900]. It
is an interesting fact that in the case of early High German we possess
just such a paraphrase of this very work. This is how Mr. Stewart, in
his excellent monograph on Boethius, describes the translation of the
Consolatio made by Notker III of St. Gallen, about a century after
Alfred’s time: ‘His method of translation is to give a sentence or group
of words of the original, which he arranges for the sake of his pupils in
as simple and straightforward a form as possible, followed by the German
equivalent. This last is expanded, as the occasion seems to require, by
passages of explanation and paraphrase of varying length[901].’ Except as
to the ‘German equivalent,’ this illustrates very aptly what I conceive
to have been Asser’s procedure. It also illustrates the way in which many
of Alfred’s additions may have found their way into his translation. And
it would be especially in the poetical portions of the work that such a
paraphrase, giving the words of the original in a less intricate order,
would be required. So that while Asser paraphrased Boethius’ poetry in
prose, Alfred, by a reverse process, first translated Asser’s prose
into prose, and then at a later time paraphrased his own prose version
in verse. That, in the interval which elapsed between the two versions,
the earlier edition should have been copied and circulated, that at a
later time scribes should have prefixed to copies of the first edition
the prose proem which in strictness is only applicable to the second, is
easily intelligible[902]; and it is curious that to this also an almost
exact parallel can be produced from the fortunes of the Consolatio in
another European country. There exist in French two thirteenth-century
translations of the Consolatio. To quote Mr. Stewart once more: ‘The one
is in prose, a word-for-word rendering; … the other, a more scholarly
performance, follows the scheme of the Latin original’; i.e. in the
alternation of verse and prose. Yet to both versions the same prologue
is prefixed, in which the translation which follows is in each case
attributed to Jehan de Meun[903]. That Alfred intended from the first to
give a verse rendering of the Metra, and that he did not see his way at
once to carry out his intention, seems to me to be hinted at in a passage
near the end of the book, which has very little corresponding to it in
the original: ‘It is nigh unto the time when I had purposed to take other
work in hand, and I have not yet done with this; … I cannot now so soon
sing it, nor have I leisure therefor[904].’
Another point which, as Hartmann showed[905], tells in favour of Alfred’s
authorship is the way in which in the poems references are made to the
prose portions of the work.
[Sidenote: The attack has broken down.]
On the whole I regard the attack on Alfred’s authorship of the Metra
as having decidedly broken down[906]; and in this opinion I am glad to
have the concurrence of a very competent critic in the Times of August
20, 1901. I am breaking no confidence in identifying that critic with my
friend and teacher Professor Earle.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s last work, the Soliloquies, or ‘Blooms.’]
§ 115. The last undoubted work of Alfred’s that has come down to
us is one which bears the title ‘Blooms,’ or, as we might say,
‘Anthology[907].’ The first two books are derived mainly from St.
Augustine’s two books of Soliloquies. The first book and part of the
second follow the original fairly closely, but the remainder of the
second book is very free, and is mainly Alfred’s own. The third book is
based to some extent on St. Augustine’s Epistle to Paulina on the Vision
of God, with additions from the De Ciuitate Dei, St. Gregory’s Dialogues,
the Moralia, together with reflexions of Alfred’s own[908]. The use of
the De Ciuitate Dei is especially interesting, as it was the favourite
book of Charles the Great[909]. It is a noteworthy proof of Alfred’s
advance in literary art, that whereas in this third book his materials
were not originally in dialogue form, he has very skilfully thrown them
into that form in order to make them harmonise with the first two books.
[Sidenote: Bad state of the text.]
The work has come down to us in a pitiable condition, in a single late
and corrupt manuscript, mutilated both at the beginning and end, and with
evident lacunae in other places. At the beginning part of the preface
is gone; at the end I do not myself think that more is lost than part
of the final colophon; the concluding words of the actual text seem to
me to mark undoubtedly the close of the work. Professor Wülker indeed
thought otherwise; but he was led to his conclusion partly by the wish
to give greater probability to his theory which would identify this work
with Alfred’s Encheiridion or Commonplace Book; a theory from which,
as already stated[910], I strongly dissent, and which Wülker himself
has since withdrawn[911]. Still even in its ruin the work reflects
clearly the features of its author. The Preface in particular is so
characteristic that, as it is comparatively little known, I give it here:—
[Sidenote: The Preface.]
‘I gathered me then staves, and props, and bars, and helves for each of
my tools, and boughs; and for each of the works that I could work, I took
the fairest trees, so far as I might carry them away. Nor did I ever
bring any burden home without longing to bring home the whole wood, if
that might be; for in every tree I saw something of which I had need at
home. Wherefore I exhort every one who is strong and has many wains, that
he direct his steps to the same wood where I cut the props. Let him there
get him others, and load his wains with fair twigs, that he may weave
thereof many a goodly wain, and set up many a noble house, and build
many a pleasant town, and dwell therein in mirth, and ease, both winter
and summer, as I could never do hitherto. But He who taught me to love
that wood, He may cause me to dwell more easily, both in this transitory
dwelling … while I am in the world, and also in the eternal home which
He has promised us through … the holy fathers. And so I believe He will
do for their merits, both make this [earthly] way better than it was ere
this, or at least enlighten the eyes of my mind, that I may find the
right way to the eternal home, and to the eternal country, and to the
eternal rest, which is promised to us through the holy fathers. So be it.’
[Sidenote: Significance of this Preface. It is the Epilogue to Alfred’s
literary works.]
§ 116. It is Alfred looking back over the whole of his storm-tossed life,
and realising that the calm haven is close at hand[912], and that he must
leave it to others to carry on the work which he had begun. Professor
Wülker, in the interest of the theory alluded to above, says that this
preface refers to a larger collection than any to be found in these three
books of ‘Blooms[913].’ True; most true. But the larger collection to
which it refers is not this, or any other single work of his, however
hypothetically enlarged; but the whole of his literary works. And just as
the Preface to the Pastoral Care is in some sense a Prologue to the whole
collection, so this is, in a very real sense, the Epilogue. We may not,
here in Oxford, claim Alfred as our founder; but surely our hearts may
be uplifted at the thought, that in all that we do here in the cause of
true learning and of genuine education, we are carrying on the work which
Alfred left us to do.
[Sidenote: The most mature of Alfred’s works.]
The book is in other ways also the most mature of Alfred’s works. It is
very closely related to the Boethius both in thought and diction[914].
And just as in the Orosius we had a foretaste of the discussion on fate
which holds so prominent a place in the Boethius[915], so the subject
of the immortality of the soul, which is only just touched on in the
Boethius[916], is here developed at length[917]. And here, as in the
Boethius, Alfred’s conclusion is much more distinctly Christian than that
of his original. The Soliloquies is one of Augustine’s earliest works,
written at a time when a good deal of the gentile rhetorician still hung
about him[918]. It must be confessed that his philosophical arguments on
this subject are not very convincing, but in Alfred they are strongly
reinforced by the authority of Scripture and of the fathers.
[Sidenote: Wealth of similes.]
Here, too, many of the additions which Alfred makes to his original
consist of those similes and parables[919] which he loved so well; the
most beautiful perhaps being one in which the soul made fast to God is
compared to a ship riding securely on her anchor[920].
[Sidenote: Confusion of author and translator.]
§ 117. I have said that in the third book Alfred casts into a dialogue
form materials which have not that shape in the original. The
interlocutors still remain as before, Augustine and Reason. It is a
quaint proof of the completeness with which Alfred lost the sense of
translation in the consciousness of authorship, that in a passage where
the De uidendo Deo is spoken of, the Augustine of the dialogue is made to
say: ‘I have not now leisure to go through all that book[921],’ although
the historical Augustine was the actual author of it.
[Sidenote: Characteristic thoughts.]
Of thoughts characteristic of Alfred I will quote but two. The first is
this: ‘No man may do aught of good unless God work with him. And yet no
one should be idle and not attempt something in proportion to the powers
which God gives him[922].’ The other is contained in the last sentence of
the book[923]. And I think you will feel with me that we have here ‘the
conclusion of the whole matter’; that anything added to this would be of
the nature of an anticlimax: ‘Therefore he seems to me a very foolish
man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he
is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where
all shall be made clear.’
[Sidenote: Alfred’s last words.]
They are the last words not merely of this book; they are the last words
of Alfred to us all across the chasm of a thousand years. We have seen
some reason for thinking that the earliest of Alfred’s own works, the
Pastoral Care, cannot be earlier than 894[924]; and as the years 894-6
were largely occupied with warfare[925], it is probable that Alfred’s
literary activity falls mainly into the last four years of his reign,
those four silent years for which our authorities fail us almost wholly,
but in which Alfred had something of that ‘stillness’ for which he wishes
in the Preface to the Pastoral Care.
[Sidenote: Alfred and his grandson Athelstan.]
One little glimpse we do get of him during his later years. William of
Malmesbury, who had special materials for the life of Athelstan[926],
tells us how he, a child, like Alfred himself, of singular beauty and
attractiveness, was invested by his famous grandsire, who discerned his
early promise, with a scarlet cloak, a jewelled belt, and a Saxon sword
with golden scabbard[927]. And thus Alfred inherited the twofold blessing
of the Psalmist: ‘Thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon
Israel.’ Nor was it least among Alfred’s blessings that he left a son
like Edward, and a grandson like Athelstan, to carry on his work.
[Sidenote: Death and character of Alfred.]
§ 118. It was while he was occupied with these high thoughts of
Providence and immortality, that he passed away. How the call came to him
to quit these shadows for the ‘life where all things are made clear’ we
do not know. We only know that it came on October 26, and probably in the
year 900[928]. He was only fifty-two. But even if the tradition of his
constant illness be rejected, he had been through what might well have
worn out even a strong man in a shorter time. Those who witnessed the
extinction of so great a light might have exclaimed with Shakespeare’s
tawny queen:
‘And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon[929].’
Florence’s noble panegyric on Alfred is well known, where he tells how
there passed away ‘Alfred the king of the Anglo-Saxons, the son of the
most pious king Æthelwulf, the famous, the warlike, the victorious, the
careful provider for the widow, the helpless[930], the orphan and the
poor; the most skilled of Saxon poets, most dear to his own nation,
courteous to all, most liberal; endowed with prudence, fortitude, justice
and temperance; most patient in the infirmity from which he continually
suffered; the most discerning investigator in executing justice, most
watchful and devout in the service of God[931].’ Even the turgid,
tasteless Ethelwerd becomes simple and dignified in the face of this
great event. ‘There passed from the world,’ he says, ‘the high-souled
Alfred, the immovable pillar of the West Saxons; a man full of justice,
learned in discourse, imbued especially with the sacred Scriptures,
… whose body rests at Winchester in peace. O reader, breathe the
prayer “Christ, the Redeemer, save his soul[932].”’ He must be a stern
Protestant who would refuse to obey Ethelwerd’s behest.
[Sidenote: Lessons of Alfred’s life.]
§ 119. Some of us probably know the story of the little boy who, when
asked in an examination paper a foolish question as to what Alfred, if
he were alive now, would think of certain present-day problems, made the
sage reply: ‘If King Alfred were alive now, he would be much too old
to take any interest in politics.’ It was an instance, sublime, though
unconscious, of answering a fool according to his folly. And yet we
should surely be wrong if we thought that, because Alfred died a thousand
years ago, his life and work have therefore no lessons for ourselves.
[Sidenote: Army. Navy. Learning. Education.]
The question may not be of dividing the national militia into two parts,
one to be at home and one out; but the problem still confronts us how
to provide an army which shall both defend our shores at home, and also
be adequate to the needs of the empire abroad. The question may not be
whether our ships shall be built on Frisian or on Danish lines; but there
are problems of naval construction on the right solution of which the
safety of England may very largely depend. The knowledge of Latin is
happily not extinct among us now, as it practically was in Alfred’s day;
but the necessity still exists, which he felt so strongly, to mediate
between the best thoughts of the past and the needs and aspirations of
the present; while in education we have hardly perhaps fully realised
even Alfred’s modest wish that ‘all the youth of England of free men
… be set to learn … until that they are well able to read English
writing[933].’
[Sidenote: Unity of administration. Faith in God, and in England.]
Again, few things are more striking in Alfred, than the way in which he
keeps an equal hand on all branches of the national life, army, navy,
church, justice, finance, education, learning. It is no doubt a harder
task to co-ordinate the administration of an empire with world-wide
possessions and world-wide responsibilities, than of a little state like
Wessex. But we need something of this unifying guidance from above,
if our government is not to fall apart into a chaos of independent,
and possibly jealous and hostile departments. But above all we need
Alfred’s high faith; a faith first of all, unswerving, unfaltering, in
an over-ruling Providence, the guidance of a Higher Hand; but faith also
in the destiny of his country and his people. Had he, like Burgred of
Mercia, given up the struggle in despair, and gone as a pilgrim to Rome,
no one in his own day would have thought the worse of him; and he might
have won that pale halo of mediaeval saintship, which, as it was, he did
not gain[934]. But England would have been lost to Christianity[935]; and
Alfred had faith that it was not in the purposes of God so far to roll
back the tide of progress, as to let England become once more a heathen
land. Surely Alfred stands high in the muster roll of those ‘Who through
faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, … turned to flight the
armies of the aliens[936].’
[Sidenote: Personal character.]
And we need scarcely less that force of individual character which was
the secret, as we have seen, of so much of Alfred’s power. To realise
this, we have only to compare him for instance with Henry II, a man who
in mere intellectual capacity was possibly his superior, and whose reign
conferred incalculable benefits upon England. But his aims were merely
selfish, and his life impure; and so the greatness of his achievement is
known to few beyond professed students of history[937].
[Sidenote: Comparison with other sovereigns; Queen Victoria, Marcus
Aurelius, Charles the Great.]
§ 120. Of some points in which our late Queen resembled her great
ancestor I had the honour of speaking before the University in another
place[938]. But when we think of kings and emperors worthy to be compared
with our own Alfred, the four names which perhaps most readily occur to
us are Marcus Aurelius, the imperial saint of paganism, Louis IX, the
royal saint of mediaevalism, Charles the Great, and our own Edward I. But
the sad self-suppression of Marcus Aurelius, the melancholy refrain which
seems to sigh through the golden book of his thoughts,
‘Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren[939],’
is as unlike Alfred’s glad and willing service as anything can be.
Charles the Great is of course one of the most towering figures in the
whole of history. Alike in physical and intellectual strength he is head
and shoulders above all his predecessors and successors. We have noticed
several points of taste and character in which Alfred resembled him[940],
and they were alike too in the large and generous activities of their
many-sided natures. Charles worked no doubt on a gigantic scale, to which
Alfred can make no pretence. But this very fact has given to Alfred’s
work a permanence which is wanting to that of Charles. Every succeeding
century has but verified more and more Alfred’s vision of a united
England, and has led her on gradually to an empire of which neither
Charles nor Alfred could have dreamed[941]. Every succeeding century has
given the lie to Charles’s system of a united Germany and France:
μέγα ἔργον, ὃ οὐ δύο γ’ ἄνδρε φέροειν,
οἶοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσ’, ὁ δέ μιν ῥέα πάλλε καὶ οἶος[942].
But, apart from this, there are stains on Charles’s character, from which
Alfred is free; the lax morality for which Walafrid Strabo in a curious
passage places him in purgatory[943], the occasional outbursts of cruelty
which on one occasion led him to execute 4,500 rebel Saxons on a single
day[944], have no counterpart in our English hero-king.
[Sidenote: Edward I.]
Edward I is one of the noblest monarchs who ever sat upon an earthly
throne; brave, and dutiful, and true. But we have only to think of his
lawyerlike, almost tradesmanlike, way of suing for his pound of flesh on
the letter of his bond, and then recall Alfred’s comment on the golden
rule: ‘by this one law every one may know how he ought to judge another,
he needs no other law book[945],’ in order to feel the difference between
them.
[Sidenote: St. Louis.]
It is only when I think of St. Louis that my heart becomes a little
divided. St. Louis is, to my thinking, one of the most beautiful
characters in the whole of history. His saintliness is no doubt of the
mediaeval type. But this is not surprising, seeing that he lived in the
thirteenth century, the central and culminating period of the Middle
Ages. Dante, and Joan of Arc, and Thomas à Kempis are mediaeval too.
And he went on Crusade, when, according to every utilitarian standard,
he would have been better employed in governing his own kingdom. Yet
I, at least, cannot love him less, because as a ‘young man’ he ‘saw
visions,’ and went on the quest of the Holy Grail. And he was fortunate
in his biographer. What would we not give to have, instead of Asser’s
stilted and confused Latin, a memoir of Alfred in our native tongue which
might rank with Joinville’s picture of his master? And yet in some ways
the very saintliness of Louis became a curse to France; for it shed a
consecration on an evil despotism, which finally exploded in one of the
most hideous convulsions in history:
‘Sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws[946].’
It seems a hard thing to say, but there is a very real connexion between
St. Louis and the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: No deductions to be made from Alfred.]
Alfred on the other hand is one of the very few rulers whose work in
life, and whose memory after death have been, as far as may be said of
anything here below, an unmixed blessing to their peoples. Alfred’s
aspiration has indeed been abundantly fulfilled: ‘My will was to live
worthily as long as I lived; and after my life to leave to them that
should come after my memory in good works[947].’ If I have done something
in these lectures to place so great a memory in a clearer light, and to
sweep away some of the false traditions by which it has been obscured, I
shall regard myself as having done a real, if humble, service, not only
to historical truth, but also to the national life. We need to keep our
historical memories not only fresh but true. For, in the words of the
great historian, with the remembrance of whom I began these lectures:
‘The healthy nation has a memory as well as aspirations involved in the
consciousness of its identity; it has a past no less living than its
future[948].’
_Subjection to the Higher Powers_
A Sermon
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 1901
BEING THE SUNDAY AFTER THE DEATH OF OUR LATE
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN
QUEEN VICTORIA
BY THE
REV. CHARLES PLUMMER, M.A.
FELLOW AND CHAPLAIN OF
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD
APPENDIX
‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is
no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.…
Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is
due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom
honour.’—ROM. xiii. 1, 7.
It is impossible, I think, to read the Epistles of the New Testament
with any degree of attention, and not to see how anxious the writers
are that the Christianity which they preach should not be regarded as
a revolutionary and explosive force, upsetting and destroying existing
institutions, social and political; how concerned they are that their
converts should give no offence (beyond what was involved in the fact of
their religion) to the heathen neighbours among whom they lived; that
they should ‘Walk in wisdom toward them that are without[949],’ and have
their ‘conversation honest among the Gentiles[950]’; how careful they are
to say no word which should disturb the existing relations of slaves and
masters, of wives and husbands, of subjects and sovereigns; even though
the sovereign, the husband, the master might be heathen, and the slave,
the wife, the subject might be Christian. If there must be a breach, let
it come from the heathen member of the bond. The rule for the Christian
was: ‘let him not depart[951].’
And, in thus writing, the Apostles were but following out the teaching
and example of our Lord Himself. When He compares the kingdom of Heaven
to leaven[952], He means, I suppose, that the working of His doctrine
was to be, as a rule, gradual and assimilative, not sudden and explosive.
And He Himself always refused to assume the part of a political agitator,
or even of a social reformer, which His followers sometimes wished to
thrust upon Him. ‘He withdrew Himself,’ when the multitudes threatened to
‘take Him by force, to make Him a king[953]’; He would not be ‘a judge
or a divider’ in matters of inheritance[954]. All social and political
problems He left men to work out for themselves with the powers which
God has given them, under the guidance and control of God’s ordinary
providence; and to apply for themselves to the solution of these problems
the principles of His teaching, under the ordinary operations of the
Holy Spirit. And this refusal to interfere with the normal development
of human society emphasises all the more, as has been remarked[955]. His
uncompromising vindication of the law of marriage, as the one social
institution the sanctity of which is above all human laws: ‘God made them
male and female[956].’
He would not agitate against the tribute[957]; though the refusal
probably cost Him the popularity which had manifested itself so noisily
in the triumphal entry. And, in His trial before Pilate, He distinctly
recognised the Roman provincial government of Judaea, heathen and foreign
though it was, as being divinely ordered: ‘Thou couldest have no power at
all against me, except it were given thee from above[958].’
When the publicists of the middle ages, with Dante at their head, laid
stress on the birth and death of Christ under the Roman Empire as giving
a divine authority to that Empire, and to the mediaeval Empire which
claimed to be its successor[959], they were but carrying to somewhat
fanciful extremes an argument based upon undoubted facts.
And so St. Paul, in the passage which I have taken for my text, claims no
less than a divine sanction for the civil power: ‘The powers that be are
ordained of God.… Render therefore to all their dues.’ And the magnitude
of the claim is enhanced, if we remember that this was written, not
under any of the better Roman emperors; not under Trajan, whose virtues
so touched the heart of the Middle Ages, that they represented his soul
as transferred to Paradise through the intercession of St. Gregory, the
apostle of the English[960]; not under a philosophic saint like Marcus
Aurelius; but, probably, under the vain and vicious Nero.
If then such was the claim on the duty of subjects then, how much greater
the claim on us, who, for more than sixty years, have lived under one of
the very best of Christian sovereigns.
We can most of us remember the kind of thought and speech which was
prevalent not so many years ago. It was a common impression then that the
part to be played by the institution of Royalty in the future history of
the world was a very slight one. The growth of popular power, the spread
of education, and other causes, would reduce it to be nothing more than
the veil, and a very transparent veil, of a Democracy.
The history of the last quarter of a century has signally falsified
this forecast; and the present state of Europe gives it an emphatic
contradiction. At the present moment the question of war or peace, that
is for thousands, if not millions, the question of life or death, hangs
upon the fiat of some four or five men.
Nor is the view of the insignificance of Royalty borne out by the history
of England as a whole.
The story of English Royalty reaches back some fourteen hundred years. In
519, according to the traditional account, Certic and Cynric assumed the
kingship of the West Saxons; and the reflexion of the compiler of the
Saxon Chronicle, writing probably under Alfred, that ‘the royal house of
the West Saxons has ruled ever since that day,’ has, with the exception
of the Norman period, remained almost literally true down to the present
time. For it was Wessex which grew into England; and the first idea of
union, loosely and imperfectly realised under Egbert, was gradually
wrought out in many years of suffering. Alfred saved England from the
Danes, though at a tremendous sacrifice, and holds in real history the
place which romance assigns to Arthur; a Christian king,
‘Scarce other than my own ideal knight,’
who rolls back the tide of heathen conquest from his native land. We call
him, and we call him rightly, ‘Alfred the Great.’ But in days nearer
his own he was known as ‘England’s Darling.’ Will not the historian of
the future see a certain sad appropriateness in the fact that the Queen
should have died in the year which is to celebrate the millenary of the
death of this, the greatest of her ancestors, the one whom she so much
resembled in her unswerving loyalty to duty, her constant labour for
the good of her people, her unfaltering allegiance to truth? ‘The most
thoughtful provider for the widow, the defenceless, the orphan, and the
poor, … most beloved by his people,’ says Florence of Alfred. Asser calls
him ‘Alfred the truth-teller’; and we all remember how the great tribune
of the people, as he was sometimes called, declared that the Queen was
the most truthful person he had ever known.
So too after the fierce suffering of the Norman Conquest, it was Henry
II who knit the framework of the country together by an administrative
system, under the forms of which we, to a large extent, still live;
while Edward I, taking up the idea, which Simon de Montfort seemed to
have lighted upon almost by accident, made popular representation the
permanent basis of our constitution, on the express ground that ‘what
touches all, should be approved by all.’
Once more, in the religious crisis of the sixteenth century, Henry VIII
and Elizabeth, whatever their shortcomings, did much to impress upon the
English Church that sane and sober character of a via media, which, in
spite of extremists on either side, it has kept ever since.
We do not, at this stage of our national history, expect services
quite of this kind from the Crown. And yet the services which it has
rendered during the late reign have been simply immense. To take only
two of the most obvious; two, on which the late Mr. Bagehot was fond of
dwelling:—(1) It has been the symbol and sign of our unity, not only
as a nation, but as an empire. In every quarter of the globe, millions
upon millions of her subjects, who knew little or nothing of the nature
of Parliaments, of the theory of constitutional government, of the
responsibility of ministers, of the rise and fall of parties, looked up
to the Queen as the bond of union between them, the mother and head of a
vast family dispersed throughout the whole world; and this feeling had
been deepened and strengthened to an extraordinary degree by the events
of the last fifteen months.
(2) And closely connected with this is the second point. The experience
of more than three-and-sixty years has taught us to look up to the Crown
as the head of our home and family life. This has not always, indeed has
not often been the case, in English, or in any other history. The feeling
in our own case has owed something to the homely virtues of King George
III, but almost everything to the unfailing love and sympathy of the
Queen. In joy and sorrow, the humblest of her subjects might feel that
they had a share in her sympathy and care. And this sympathy was not of
that easy kind which stoops from painless heights to look upon the woes
of others, but had been won through depths of suffering and sorrow; and
the comfort which she gave to others was, in the Apostle’s words, ‘the
comfort wherewith’ she herself had been ‘comforted of God[961].’
Perhaps it is these two elements which come out most strongly in the
universal grief called forth by the heavy blow which has fallen upon us.
We have lost our mother, the head of our vast family; and we go forth,
like orphans in the night, to meet the unknown trials of a new century,
without the guidance of that wisely moderating hand, without the sympathy
of that feeling heart, to which we had learned to turn with a habit which
had become an instinct.
‘Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due;
… fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.’ May we not add, what was
hardly possible in the then circumstances of the Roman world, ‘love to
whom love’?
‘I exhort therefore,’ says the Apostle in another place, ‘that, first
of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be
made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we
may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty[962].’
Surely we have need, at the present time, to obey this exhortation.
‘Supplications, prayers, intercessions,’ shall we not offer these for our
new ruler and all his subjects? One of the earliest Christian prayers
which has come down to us is a prayer for rulers in the Epistle of St.
Clement of Rome[963]:—‘Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel, according to
that which is good and well-pleasing in Thy sight; that, administering
in peace and gentleness, with godliness, the power which Thou hast given
them, they may obtain Thy favour.’ Eighteen centuries have not made that
prayer obsolete, or unnecessary. If there is much that is hopeful and
encouraging in the opening of the new era, there is also not a little to
cause anxiety even to the most buoyant; and problems have to be faced,
which may affect not merely the well-being, but the very existence of our
Church and Empire.
‘And giving of thanks.’ Shall we not render that too? Shall we not thank
God that for more than three-and-sixty years He gave us such a Queen?
I dare say many of us read with absorbing interest those extracts,
covering the past century, which the _Times_ reprinted from its own
columns at the end of the year. But, among all those extracts, there
was nothing, I think, more interesting than to read the proclamation
issued by the Queen at her accession, three-and-sixty years before, and
to note how exactly her hopes and promises were fulfilled. It is one of
the sternest tests which can be applied to a life of any length. To most
of us, if confronted in middle or declining years with the hopes and
resolutions of our youth, would they not sound more like sarcasms than
like prophecies?
Lastly, let us remember, that every great life, and every great example
which is lived before us, brings with it a corresponding weight of
obligation and responsibility. Let us pray with St. Ignatius that it may
not turn to a witness against ourselves: εὔχομαι ἵνα μὴ εἰς μαρτύριον
αὐτὸ κτήσωνται[964].
ADDENDA
Page 19. If the view taken in the text is correct, we might borrow a
phrase from the Saxon Chronicle, and say that Asser was bishop _at_
Exeter, rather than bishop _of_ Exeter. See Chron. 897 and note.
Page 28. The medical friend who is cited on p. 21 has also given me his
opinion with reference to the passage in Asser describing the mysterious
disease with which Alfred was said to have been attacked during his
marriage festivities. He thinks the malady indicated was probably stone
in the bladder; and that it possibly _was_ connected with the ‘ficus’
from which Alfred is said to have suffered. The latter was either piles
or prolapsus of the rectum, conditions often caused in the young by the
straining induced sympathetically by the presence of a stone in the
bladder. This makes the medical aspect of the case more intelligible. It
does not, however, affect the literary and historical inconsistencies of
the account which I have pointed out in the text.
Page 52. Opponents of the genuineness of Asser endeavour to meet some
of the arguments advanced in the text, by saying that the forger made
use of genuine documents. This does not touch the argument from the
unity of style and diction. Waiving this, the difference between us is
reduced to the question: Is Asser a genuine work which has been largely
interpolated? or is it a spurious work embodying many genuine elements?
The former seems to me more probable. But thus stated, the question
rather resembles the famous problem in the _Oxford Spectator_, whether
a certain College ribbon was a blue ribbon with two white stripes, or a
white ribbon with three blue stripes. And there I am content to leave the
matter.
FOOTNOTES
[1] What is stated above is, I believe, quite correct. I am however
informed that the first suggestion of my name came from another member of
the electoral board, to whom also I am indebted for many kindnesses.
[2] Benedict of Peterborough, II. vii.
[3] Hoveden, II. lxxviii.
[4] Const. Hist. ii. 621.
[5] Alfred the Great, by Warwick H. Draper, with a Preface by the Lord
Bishop of Hereford, p. 12.
[6] Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society.
[7] Mr. Macfadyen’s Work seems to me a little tinged with this view;
Alfred the West Saxon, by Dugald Macfadyen, cf. especially pp. 161 ff.
[8] This seems to be the Bishop of Bristol’s view: Alfred the Great,
containing chapters on his Life and Times, … edited by Alfred Bowker, pp.
107-112. I refer to this work in future as ‘Essays.’
[9] Alfred in the Chroniclers, by Edward Conybeare, pp. 17, 27, 36. Pauli
had already protested against this view, König Ælfred, p. 209.
[10] See Saxon Chronicle, ii. 75, 76. Two charters, Birch, Nos. 445,
446; K. C. D. Nos. 256, 1047, cited by Pauli, u. s. p. 53, support the
view that Athelstan was the son of Æthelwulf; but, though they are not
asterisked by Kemble, I doubt their genuineness.
[11] The tradition about Erigena has been investigated by Huber, Johann
Scotus Erigena, … München, 1861, pp. 108 ff., who rightly regards it as
baseless. Yet it still hovers about; e.g. Draper, pp. 48, 49; Macfadyen,
pp. 47-49. The Bishop of Bristol seems to me a little inconsistent,
Essays, pp. 107 ff. Huber himself u. s. makes the extraordinary statement
that the Preface to Alfred’s version of the Pastoral Care is not extant.
As it had been printed at least ten times before Huber’s book appeared,
he might have known of its existence. On Erigena there is an interesting
letter by William of Malmesbury, printed in Stubbs’ edition, I. xliii ff.
[12] Essays, pp. 96, 165.
[13] Ed. Arnold, p. 145; Mr. Macfadyen cites the statement from Hoveden,
without definitely accepting or rejecting it, p. 4. This is a nice
instance of the growth of legend. In William of Malmesbury, G. P. pp.
160, 161, Æthelwulf before his accession is a subdeacon; in H. H. he
becomes a bishop; finally Harding’s rhyming chronicle makes him a
cardinal, cited by Pauli, König Ælfred, p. 54. Pity that no one had the
courage to make him Pope!
[14] Essays, pp. 83, 89.
[15] ibid., p. 11.
[16] Conybeare, p. 58.
[17] For the St. Gallen MS. of Orosius, cf. Zangemeister’s edition
(Teubner), pp. 302 ff. For the Donaueschingen MS. cf. Schilling, Ælfred’s
angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Weltgeschichte des Orosius (1886).
[18] See Schepss, Archiv für’s Studium der neueren Sprachen, xciv. 156.
[19] On p. 129 Mr. Conybeare suggests an emendation of the Chronicle
which shows that he has not mastered the Saxon declension of adjectives.
In the same passage of the Chronicle, Mr. Draper confuses Legaceaster
(Chester) with Legraceaster (Leicester), p. 16.
[20] Mr. Conybeare’s knowledge of the sources of English history seems
to stop with the Monumenta Historica Britannica, 1848. He never even
mentions the Rolls Series. He says, e.g., that the Liber de Hyda ‘has
never been printed in full,’ p. 216. It was edited for the R. S. by Mr.
Edward Edwards in 1866; cf. also pp. 120, 144, 161, 173, 177.
[21] Cited by Ebert, Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, ii. 96.
[22] In regard to the Orosius, Schilling’s dissertation, cited above,
brings this out very well. See below, §§ 99-103.
[23] Essays, p. 187.
[24] Lectures v, vi.
[25] § 93, below.
[26] Saxon Chronicle, II. civ.
[27] Hoveden, I. xc.
[28] Essays, p. 202.
[29] Bede, ii. 28; Saxon Chron. II. cxii.
[30] 892, 899, 900.
[31] 869, 872, 873, 879, 880, 881, 883, 884.
[32] 889, 898.
[33] At 901.
[34] Cf. Ethelred’s Laws, viii. 43: ‘uton niman us to bysnan … Æðelstan ⁊
Eadmund ⁊ Eadgar,’ Schmid, p. 248.
[35] See § 118 below.
[36] Const. Hist. i. 28 (ed. 1854).
[37] Birch, No. 537; K. C. D. No. 304.
[38] Birch, No. 574; K. C. D. No. 1074; cf. Green, C. E., p. 133.
[39] See below, §§ 63, 64, 82.
[40] e.g. Ebert, u. s. iii. 250; Pauli, u. s. p. 4.
[41] 473 C [15], 484 B [39], 485 A [41]; cf. 491 E [56]. For Asser I give
references to M. H. B., adding the pages of Wise’s edition in brackets.
[42] Echoes from the Oxford Magazine, p. 29.
[43] 474 A [16].
[44] 474 B [17].
[45] 475 B [19].
[46] 477 A [23].
[47] 481 C [32].
[48] 484 C [40].
[49] 492 D [58].
[50] 494 A [61].
[51] 470 D [8].
[52] 472 B [12].
[53] 471 C [10].
[54] 476 C [22].
[55] 494 D [63].
[56] Vasallus, 480 B, 481 D [30, 33]; senior, 471 A, B [9, 10], cf. 494
E [64]; indiculus, 487 E _bis_ [48]; comes (= ealdorman), 469 B, D, 470
A, D, 476 A, B, 473 B _bis_, 491 B [5, 6-8, 14, 21 _bis_, 55]. Comes is
also used of the Danish jarls, 476 A-477 B [21-23]. For Frankish use of
vasallus see S. C. H. i. 205; for senior, ib. 193.
[57] 471 E [11]; the circumstances of the anecdote are possible. Charles
the Great’s last wife Liutgarde died in 800. His sons Charles and Pippin
seem never to have married. Beorhtric died in 802.
[58] 472 D [13].
[59] See Chronicle, ii. 80, 81. Prudentius and Hincmar are strictly
contemporary.
[60] 491 A [54].
[61] 483 D [38].
[62] 470 C [8]; Chron. 855.
[63] Writing to Æthelwulf Lupus says: ‘uestrum in Dei cultu feruorem ex
Felice didici, qui epistolarum uestrarum officio fungebatur,’ Migne, Pat.
Lat. cxix. col. 459. Writing to Felix himself, he says that he had known
him formerly in the monastery of Fara [Faremoûtier-en-Brie, see Bede,
ii. 148], which seems to show that Felix was a Frank, ib. col. 462. The
object of these letters was to get the pious Æthelwulf to subscribe to
roofing the monastery of Ferrières with lead.
[64] e.g. for vasallus cf. Pauli, König Ælfred, pp. 12, 13; S. C. H. i.
156, and the charters there cited of the ninth and tenth centuries; for
comes = ealdorman, ib. 158, 159.
[65] Cited in Dict. Nat. Biog. s. v. Grimbald.
[66] ‘Legatos ultra mare … direxit,’ 487 B [46]. Cf. the letter of Fulk
of Rheims to Alfred, Wise, p. 128 (if this is genuine, see § 88 below).
[67] 489 B [51], an addition to the Chron.
[68] ‘Dedit mihi Exanceastre, cum omni parochia quae ad se pertinebat
in Saxonia et Cornubia,’ 489 A [51]. On the meaning of Saxonia see § 30
below.
[69] T. Wright, Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period
(1842), pp. 405 ff.
[70] Annales Cambriae, and Brut y Tywysogion, sub anno. (I shall cite the
latter work as Brut.)
[71] MS. D of the Chron. mentions a king of the West Welsh (i.e.
Cornwall) as late as 926. See Chron. II. viii.
[72] 488 A-C [49 f.].
[73] Ann. Cambr. and Brut., sub anno.
[74] Ed. J. Gwenogfryn Evans, pp. 212, 213.
[75] Cf. Lingard, Anglo-Saxon Church, ii. 384 (ed. 1858).
[76] Ann. Cambr. and Brut, s. aa. 840, 873; cf. Ang. Sac. ii. 648. The
Brut calls him ‘Meuruc escob bonheđic,’ i.e. ‘M. a noble bishop.’ The
origin of this curious mistake is as follows. The Ann. Cambr. at 873 say
‘Nobis episcopus et Meuruc moritur.’ The compiler of the Brut misread
this as ‘Nobilis episcopus Meuruc moritur.’
[77] Ann. Cambr. and Brut, 874.
[78] A Lumberth, bishop of Menevia, dies in 944, Ann. Cambr., or 942,
Brut; but if this is the same person it would give him a tenure of
seventy years.
[79] My friend Bodley’s Librarian has kindly called my attention to an
interesting inscription found in St. Lawrence’s Church at St. Helier’s,
Jersey, about ten years ago, which he thinks confirms the idea of the
existence of a see at Exeter in early times. The interpretation of the
inscription seems to me, however, too uncertain to justify me in making
use of it. Lingard, u. s. suggests that by the grant of Exeter, &c.,
Asser received the western portion of the diocese of Sherborne, and that
on the death of Wulfsige he succeeded to the whole.
[80] ‘Ad patriam remeauimus. Sed cum ab eo discesseramus in Wintonia
ciuitate febris infesta me arripuit; in qua sedulo per duodecim menses et
unam hebdomada die noctuque … laboraui,’ 487 D [48]. A medical friend, to
whom I showed this passage, thinks that this prolonged febrile condition
was probably due to gastritis.
[81] Chronicle, II. ciii. f.
[82] Theopold, Kritische Untersuchungen, p. 32.
[83] e.g. ‘insiliariis’ for ‘insidiariis,’ 470 D [9].
[84] 477 B [24], Flor. i. 85: [‘Pagani uictoria potiuntur. Rursus, duobus
euolutis mensibus, rex Ætheredus et frater eius Ælfredus cum Paganis,
qui se in duas diuiserant turmas, apud Meretun pugnantes, diu uictores
existunt, aduersariis omnibus in fugam uersis; sed illis in proelium
redeuntibus, multi ex his et ex illis corruunt, et] Pagani uictoriam
accipientes loco funeris dominantur.’ The passage within the brackets
has been lost in our text of Asser, owing to the recurrence of the words
‘Pagani uictoria.’ Of course Florence may have modified the passage a
little, as his manner is.
[85] Above, § 12.
[86] e.g. 877, 884.
[87] Elimauit, Flor. i. 96, eleuauit, Asser; aptius, Flor. i. 83,
apertius, Asser. But these are possibly only editorial blunders.
[88] See below, § 25.
[89] 489 C-490 C [52-54].
[90] Oxford Historical Society, 1885.
[91] The writer of the article on Camden in the Dict. Nat. Biog. thinks
that no special blame attaches to Camden in this matter. But I find it
difficult to take his view of the question.
[92] Chronicle, ii. 93.
[93] 480 C-481 B [30-32].
[94] See below, § 46.
[95] Chronicle, ii. 92.
[96] 479 B-480 A [29].
[97] 484 C-485 C [40-42].
[98] König Ælfred, p. 93.
[99] These events really belong to 885; Asser has omitted the year 884,
and so wrongly numbered the succeeding annal. See below, p. 50.
[100] 474 C [17]; 492 C [58].
[101] Especially if the disease indicated be, as some have thought,
epilepsy, with all its deteriorating effects upon the brain; so Green, C.
E., p. 101.
[102] Possible instances are: infatigabiliter studiose, 477 E [25];
Florence omits ‘studiose’; talento telonio, 484 B [39]; Flor. omits
talento; citius plus, 496 D [68]. Not in Flor.
[103] 475 A [19] the printed text has ‘expetiuit,’ but Flor. and two of
the Asser MSS. and ASN have the rare word ‘subarrauit,’ which occurs in
the same sense, 497 B [70].
[104] 484 D [40].
[105] The same sort of thing occurs occasionally even in these days
of the printing press. In the early copies of a recent Blue Book on
China, in the middle of a dispatch of Sir Claude Macdonald, occurred the
following sentence: ‘not very grammatical, but I suppose we must let Sir
Claude Macdonald write as he pleases.’ This is obviously the comment of
some official, written on the margin of his proof, which escaped deletion
when the proof was returned to the printer, and so was incorporated in
the text.
[106] See Gorham, History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St. Neot’s,
pp. 45 ff. It was in the reign of Edgar, therefore not later than 975.
The body was stolen.
[107] Vol. II. xv. ff.
[108] I use S. D.¹ and S. D.² to indicate the two recensions. That S.
D.² used the original text of Asser is shown by his having the false
reading ‘qui fuit Fingodwulf’ in Alfred’s pedigree, which S. D.¹ omits
and Florence corrects, S. D. ii. 99; that he used S. D.¹ is proved by
the fact that under 853 they both have the false reading ‘Wada’ for
the ‘Huda’ of Asser, Florence, and the Chron., S. D. ii. 71, 102; that
he used Florence is proved by the fact that he gives the amount of
Æthelwulf’s Roman benefaction as ‘ccc mancusas denariorum,’ ii. 103;
where the word ‘denariorum’ is from Florence, and is not in Asser or
S. D.¹ Unfortunately Mr. Arnold is very capricious in his use of large
and small type. He prints in large type, as if original to S. D., many
passages which come from Florence or Asser.
[109] Thus we should read ‘ferri’ for ‘fieri,’ 471 E [11];
‘Stratcluttenses’ for ‘Stratduttenses’ 478 C [27].
[110] 492 D [58].
[111] Gams, Series Episcoporum, p. 452. Elias’ predecessor was
Theodosius, c. 864-879. In the whole list of patriarchs there is no Abel
or Bel.
[112] S. D. ii. 89.
[113] ‘Þis eal hét þus secgean Ælfrede cyninge domne Helias Patriarcha
Gerusalem,’ ii. 290.
[114] ibid., xxiv. f.
[115] pp. 147, 148; cf. Mas Latrie, Trésor de Chronologie, pp. 791, 835.
[116] Shrine, u. s. p. 113. Aug. 5.
[117] In 909 according to MS. C of the Chronicle (Mercian Register); in
906 according to MS. D. The notice of St. Winnoc as ‘lord of the minster
of Wormhoult to the south of the sea,’ p. 145, Nov. 6, is also emphasised
by Mr. Cockayne as proving that the work is earlier than 900, in which
year St. Winnoc’s body was translated to Bergues. But this point, if
insisted on, would prove the work to be earlier than 846. For in that
year St. Winnoc was translated from Wormhoult to St. Omer (_or_ Sithiu).
The translation to Bergues in 900 was from St. Omer, not from Wormhoult.
But an English writer might easily be ignorant of either or both these
translations. It is better therefore not to lay stress on this point. See
the Life of St. Winnoc in Mabillon, AA. SS. iii. 311, 312 (ed. 1672).
An English writer could hardly however have been ignorant of Oswald’s
translation, if it had taken place.
[118] 493 C [60].
[119] See Ducange, s. v.
[120] Malmesbury says of Athelney: ‘ut nullo modo nisi nauigio adiri
queat,’ G. P. p. 199. But ‘nauticis’ cannot mean ‘boats,’ but only
‘sailors.’
[121] 480 B [30].
[122] 487 C [47].
[123] 476 A [21].
[124] 487 C [47].
[125] 488 B [49].
[126] aquilonaris, 469 C [5], 474 C [17]; meridianus, 469 C [6], 476
A [21], 477 D [25], 479 A [28], 482 C [35]. East and west are always
‘orientalis,’ ‘occidentalis,’ occiduus.’ There is nothing like the Irish
‘airther,’ ‘iarthar,’ ‘fore,’ and ‘hinder,’ for east and west.
[127] 467 [1], 473 C [15], 479 A [28], 483 B [37]; cf. Britannica insula,
483 A [36].
[128] König Ælfred, p. 258.
[129] Dextralis [dextera] pars [plaga] Britannie, pp. 161, 169, 212, 223,
237.
[130] Reges et principes [totius regni] D. B. pp. 70, 118; omnes
Ecclesiae totius D. B. p. 115; clerus et populus D. B. p. 165; Dubricius
archiepiscopus D. B. pp. 163, 192; incolae D. B. p. 230; D. B. insulae,
p. 162; cf. p. 269: ‘[Grifud] rex Britannie, et ut sic dicam totius
Gualie’; from which it would seem that ‘Britannia’ is a narrower term
than ‘Gualia’; but their exact relation I do not know.
[131] 470 A [7].
[132] 471 D [10].
[133] 487 B, D, 488 A [47-49]; cf. also 496 A, B [49], where Alfred sends
alms to the monasteries not only of ‘Saxonia’ and Mercia, but also to
those of ‘Britannia,’ Cornwall, Gaul, Armorica, Northumbria, and Ireland.
[134] 477 D, 478 A [25], 483 C [37].
[135] 473 C [15]. Ethelwerd is at the opposite pole to Asser in this
respect, for he uses Australes _Angli_ for Sussex, 510 C, D, and
Occidentales _Angli_ for Wessex, 509 E, 510 D, 514 D, 515 C, 517 C. We
have, however, Saxones Occidentales, 519 A.
[136] 474 C [17], 475 D [20] _bis_, 482 D [35], 483 C, D [37, 38], 484 B
[39].
[137] 470 A [7], 485 D [43], 486 E [46], 492 A [56].
[138] 470 A [7].
[139] 473 C [15], 478 D [27], 479 A [28], 483 B [37], 484 A [38], 487 C
[47].
[140] 475 B [19], 478 D [27], 479 A [28], 480 B [30], 481 D [33], 482 C
[35].
[141] Saxonica poemata, 473 E [16]; S. carmina, 485 E [43], 486 A [43].
Cf. what is said of Charles the Great, Einhard, c. 29: ‘barbara et
antiquissima carmina, quibus ueterum regum actus et bella canebantur,
scripsit memoriaeque mandauit. Inchoauit et grammaticam patrii sermonis.’
Of his son Louis the Pious on the other hand it is said: ‘poetica carmina
gentilia, quae in iuuentute didicerat, respuit, nec legere, nec audire,
nec docere uoluit,’ Theganus, Vita Hludouici, c. xx (Pertz, ii).
[142] 474 A [16], 485 E [43], 486 A [43], 497 E [71].
[143] 471 A [146] _ter_, 471 C [147], 487 C [47], 488 A [49].
[144] ‘In Saxonia et in Cornubia,’ 489 A [51].
[145] ‘In omni Saxonia et Mercia, et … in … Cornubia,’ 496 A, B [67].
[146] For cases in which it does include Northumbria see Bede, ii. 368.
[147] See Bede, ii. 43, 86.
[148] 478 B [26], 484 B [39].
[149] 489 C [52]. In the Book of Llandaff we have in one place: ‘in
confinibus Britannie et _Anglie_,’ p. 192. Asser never has Anglia.
[150] 467 _bis_ [1, 3], 471 C [10], 473 D [15], 483 A [36], 483 C [37],
484 B, C [39], 489 B [51], 491 B [55].
[151] Beorhtric, 471 D [11]; Æthelwulf, 469 D [153], 470 B [7], 483 E
[38]; Æthelbald, 472 D [13]; Æthelberht, 473 C [15]; Æthelred, 475 B [19].
[152] See below, § 49.
[153] 467 [1].
[154] Chron. 886; cf. ibid., 901.
[155] 475 A [19], 476 D [22], 477 C [24].
[156] ‘In sempiterno graphio,’ 470 C [8]; the very same phrase,
Cambro-British Saints, p. 100.
[157] 484 A [38]; the true year is 885, v. inf. p. 50.
[158] Dümmler, Gesch. d. Ostfränkischen Reiches, ed. 1. ii. 224.
[159] Bede certainly speaks of Saxons, Angles, Jutes, as being all
peoples of Germania, H. E. I. xv. In Alfred’s Orosius Germany includes
all between the Rhine, the Danube, the Don, and the White Sea.
[160] 483 A [36], 486 B [44].
[161] 477 E [11].
[162] 470 C [8], 472 D [13], 483 E [38].
[163] 491 A [54].
[164] 483 D [38].
[165] ibid.
[166] 483 D [38].
[167] 484 A [38], 489 B [51].
[168] 483 A [36] _bis_; ibid., C [37] _bis_.
[169] 483 A, B [36, 37]; at the beginning of the annal 886 we should
probably read: ‘[orientalem] regionem fugiens’; Florence has ‘orientali
Francia relicta,’ i. 101. In the division which followed the deposition
of Charles the Fat, Arnulf has ‘orientales regiones Hreni’; Rudolf,
‘internam partem regni’ (= þæt middel rice, Chron.); Odo, ‘occidentale
regnum,’ 491 A [54]; cf. Chron. 887 and notes.
[170] 479 A [28], 487 B [46], 498 B [67].
[171] 484 A [39], 486 B [44].
[172] 493 E [61], 494 B [62] _bis_.
[173] 484 A [38].
[174] 473 C [15].
[175] See § 30.
[176] Histoire de France, i. 36: ‘leur indomptable personnalité, toujours
prête à réagir contre le despotisme du fait,’ a passage alluded to by M.
Arnold, Celtic Literature, p. 102.
[177] 488 A-C [48-50].
[178] Bede, ii. 75, 76.
[179] Chron. ii. 118, 119.
[180] Collected Papers, p. 467; I have to thank my friend Mr. F.
Jenkinson, Librarian of the sister University, for reminding me of this
passage.
[181] e.g. the Book of Llandaff, which is of the twelfth century, though
based on older materials; Brochmail, Elised, Mouric, Ris, Rotri, Teudur,
will all be found in the Index.
[182] Digal Rotri, ‘the avenging of Rotri,’ Ann. Cambr. and Brut, sub
anno, 880; cf. ibid., 877.
[183] See Chron. 835, and note.
[184] 892 Ann. Cambr.; 891 Brut. He may be the Himeyt who occurs in No.
2 of the ancient Welsh pedigrees, printed from Harleian MS. 3859, in Y
Cymmrodor, ix. 171.
[185] Ann. Cambr., Brut., sub anno.
[186] pp. 212, 213; he is mentioned, ibid. 226-231.
[187] ibid., Index; in Cambro-British Saints, p. 22, the name is derived
from an eponymous king Gluigius.
[188] pp. 200, 206, 216, 226, 231-236; cf. Pedigree, No. 29, u. s.
[189] Ann. Cambr., sub anno.
[190] Book of Llandaff, pp. 238, 239.
[191] 481 B [32].
[192] 895 Ann. Cambr.; 894 Brut.
[193] Above, § 12.
[194] The special use of the term ‘Saxonia’ occurs only in the biography;
but then there was no great occasion to use it in the annals. Conversely,
the seven instances in which Welsh equivalents for Saxon place-names are
given occur wholly in the annals. But this also is quite natural. In
the annals, as we shall see, the writer was translating; and he added
explanations to make his text more intelligible to his Welsh readers.
For the same reason, and also because of their greater length, the
biographical sections give greater scope for the author’s idiosyncrasies
both of diction and of style; and therefore they naturally contain a
number of peculiarities which cannot be paralleled in the annals.
[195] The biographical sections (B) occupy nearly twice as much space as
the annalistic (A). For purposes of statistics it is hard to draw the
line exactly between them, because, even in the annals, there are small
biographical insertions, and it is difficult to know under which head
to class these. The longer anecdotes about Æthelwulf, Æthelbald, and
Æthelred I have counted as B. I give a few statistics of the vocabulary.
It will be seen that some words of frequent occurrence occur only under
one heading, and these taken alone might support the theory of a double
authorship; but I do not think they do. See last note. Adunatus, A³,
B¹; aedificium (in special sense noted in text), A¹, B³; aliquantulus,
A¹, B⁴; animose, A⁶; belligerare, A⁵, B²; curtum, B⁶; incessabiliter,
B³; infatigabiliter, A² (the writer is fond of words ending in -bilis,
-biliter); licentia (in sense of _leisure_), B³; more aprino, B¹; more
lupino, A¹; more uulpino, A¹; ordinabiliter, B⁶; testudo, A¹, B²;
uniuersitatis uia (i.e. death), A⁶, B¹; ultramarinus, A¹, B¹; uita
praesens, B¹².
[196] 482 C [35].
[197] i. 321; E. T. ii. 55.
[198] König Ælfred, p. 141.
[199] 486 A [43].
[200] 492 D [58].
[201] ibid.
[202] 495 D [66].
[203] Gesta Pontificum, pp. 389 f.: ‘Fastigium cristallinum rex
Ethelwulfus apposuit scrinio, in quo nomen eius litteris aureis est
legere.’ In front were ‘ex solido argento iactae imagines,’ i.e.
statuettes cast in solid silver; at the back ‘leuato metallo miracula
figurauit,’ i.e. scenes representing Aldhelm’s miracles. Does ‘metallo
leuato’ mean that they were engraved? or does it indicate ‘champlevé’
enamel? The latter would be another link with Alfred’s Jewel, though the
enamel of that is ‘cloisonné.’ Malmesbury speaks in the present tense, so
that the shrine had survived to his time; and he must have seen it almost
daily. In the Chron. Monast. Casinensis, under the year 1020 we find
mentioned: ‘loculus mirificus … argento et auro ac gemmis Anglico opere
subtiliter ac pulcherrime decoratus,’ Pertz, vii. 649; cf. ibid., 712:
‘Anglus quidam aurifex.’
[204] e.g. 486 D [45] neque enim … administraret; 488 A [49] qui saepe …
sub ipsis; 492 D [59] ueluti gubernator … contendit, &c.
[205] Instances of recurrence at longer intervals: 469 A [4] nobilis
ingenio, nobilis et genere; 473 D [16] cum nobilitate generis, nobilis
mentis ingenium; 474 A [17] crebris querelis, et intimis suspiriis; 486
C [45] querelabatur et assiduo gemebat suspirio; 496 B [67] in quantum
infirmitas et possibilitas atque suppetentia permitteret; 497 A [69] in
qu. poss. aut supp. immo etiam inf. perm. Instances of recurrence at
short intervals: 485 D, E [43] artes quae nobilibus conueniunt, studia
qu. nob. conu.; 485 E [43] et maxime Saxonica carmina studiose didicere;
486 A [43] et max. carm. Sax. memoriter discere, et … studiosissime; 491
C [55] erga studium … sapientiae uoluntatem, erga st. sap. deuotionem;
492 A, B [57] quamuis dissimili modo (repeated); 493 A, B [59, 60] inani
poenitentia … inanem poenitentiam … detestabilis poen … sera poen.; 494
B, D [62, 63] iudaico more [= like Judas] (repeated); 495 D, E [66]
unicuique secundum propriam dignitatem (repeated). In the long passage
about Alfred’s illness this feature reaches the degree of caricature.
If my view is right that that passage is a conflation of two traditions
relating to the same events, this characteristic also would be accounted
for.
[206] Parentheses: 481 B [32] non enim … uidimus; 489 B [51] quia illa
ciuitas … parua; 491 A [54] nullus enim … solus. Repetition: 478 D [27]
tutissimo terrarum situ; 481 C [32] locus situ terrarum tutissimus.
[207] Ecgberht … and his Coins, Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd Series, xx.
66-87. For a copy of this (too) ingenious essay I am indebted to the
kindness of Sir Henry himself. His unfavourable view of the Saxon
Chronicle is strongly expressed here and elsewhere.
[208] Foundations of England, i. 257.
[209] See Chron. sub anno, and notes.
[210] ‘Aut cum Paganis sub captiuitate erant,’ 489 C [52].
[211] 469 C [5].
[212] 469 B, C [5] (four times).
[213] 487 C [47]; probably in 473 A [14] Suth-Seaxum should be read
for-am.
[214] 484 A [38]. These forms are very common in Ethelwerd, whose work is
also based mainly on the Chronicle: ‘quod Huiccum nuncupatur,’ 509 f.;
Dorsetum Dux, 511 B; Defenum Dux, 511 C.
[215] 489 B [51], 490 C [54]; in the latter passage he has also Sigona,
which is a sort of compromise.
[216] 469 B [219].
[217] 469 D [220] and _passim_.
[218] 483 A [36], Chron. 881. Florence has ‘exercitus saepedictus,’ which
shows that he misunderstood or misread ‘superius’ as ‘supradictus.’ This
illustrates the relation of Florence to Asser, as well as that of Asser
to the Chron.
[219] See Chron. ii. 95.
[220] 482 C [35].
[221] 469 B [5] Sheppey; 469 C [6] Oakley; 476 C [22] Ashdown; 479 A [28]
Exeter; 481 D [33] Selwood.
[222] See above, p. 38, note 3.
[223] 469 B, C [225] Sheppey and London; ib. C, D [6] Surrey, and
‘Mediterranei Britones’; 474 C [17] York; 476 A [21] Reading; 477 D [25]
Wilton; 478 D [27] Wareham; 479 A [28] Exeter; 480 B [30] Chippenham; 482
C [35] Cirencester; 483 B [37] Rochester.
[224] Above, p. 44. Other good additions will be found under 853, 871.
(I do not include under this head the story of Æthelred and his mass.)
But the fact that Asser was occasionally able to make authentic additions
no more disproves the greater originality of the Chron. than similar
additions in Ethelwerd, who, while following in the main the Chron.,
evidently had other good sources now lost. On the type of Chron. used by
Asser, see Chron. II. lxxxiv.
[225] 492 C [58]: ‘ad quadragesimum quintum [annum] quem nunc agit.’
[226] 496 A [67], from Cura Past. iii. c. 20. [Anglo-Saxon Version, cap.
xliv.]
[227] Alfred says that he translated sometimes ‘word be worde,’ word by
word, sometimes ‘andgit _of_ andgite,’ ‘sensum _ex_ sensu.’ The exact
correspondence is curious.
[228] See above, §§ 24, 25.
[229] u. s. p. 356.
[230] Rev. C. S. Taylor, The Danes in Gloucestershire, pp. 7-9.
[231] 480 C-481 B [30-32].
[232] Ed. Coxe, i. 331, 332.
[233] pp. 339 ff.
[234] ‘Saxones Anglicos Zephyri sub uento morantes,’ p. 350.
[235] AA. SS. July vii. 314 ff.
[236] ‘Priusquam Anglia … Nortmannorum subiugaretur ditioni,’ p. 320ᵇ.
[237] p. 320ᵃ.
[238] Imitatio, i. 3; Eng. Transl. ed. 1863.
[239] p. 320ᵇ.
[240] pp. 317 ff.
[241] Whitaker, u. s. p. 367.
[242] pp. 256 ff.
[243] In the Shrine, pp. 12 ff.
[244] Anglia, iii. 104 ff.
[245] Catalogue of British History, i. 539.
[246] Two Saxon Chronicles, pp. 351 ff.
[247] See below, p. 56, note 4.
[248] Grundriss … der angelsächsischen Litteratur, p. 494.
[249] Gorham, pp. 256, 257.
[250] ibid. 258.
[251] AA. SS. u. s. p. 321ᵃ; Whitaker, pp. 318, 367.
[252] AA. SS. ibid.; Whitaker, p. 367. The Metrical Life seems to make
him king of Kent only, ibid. 318.
[253] Whitaker, p. 318.
[254] AA. SS. p. 321ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 320, 367.
[255] AA. SS. ibid.; Whitaker, p. 321.
[256] Whitaker, p. 343; Gorham, p. 257: ‘on Sc͠es Ælfeges dagen þæs
halgen biscopes.’ The absurdity is hardly less if we suppose the earlier
Ælfheah to be meant, 934-951. But the title of ‘Saint’ seems to show
that the later one is intended. If so, the life cannot at any rate be
earlier than 1012. And this alone would be fatal to Ælfric’s authorship,
as he was himself a personal friend of this later Ælfheah, and could not
possibly have made such a confusion; cf. Wülker, Grundriss, p. 455.
[257] AA. SS. pp. 322ᵇ, 323ᵃ; Whitaker, pp. 328, 346, 368; Gorham, p. 257.
[258] AA. SS. p. 323ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 329, 346, 368.
[259] AA. SS. p. 325ᵃ; Whitaker, pp. 333 ff., 347 ff., 370 ff.; Gorham,
p. 258.
[260] AA. SS. p. 325ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 335, 349, 372; Gorham, pp. 258, 259.
[261] AA. SS. p. 327ᵃ: ‘panes … quos nonnulli liridas appellant’;
Whitaker, pp. 351 ff.; Gorham, p. 259.
[262] AA. SS. pp. 327ᵇ-328ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 355 ff., 371 ff.; Gorham, p.
260.
[263] 481 A [32].
[264] Bede, ii. 48, 168, 175, 243, 371.
[265] Ebert, u. s. ii. 229.
[266] AA. SS. pp. 323ᵃ, 325ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 328, 348, 368, 370; Gorham,
p. 258.
[267] Gregorovius, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, iii. 206, 207. The Saxon
Chronicle dates his pontificate 883-885, another indication that it is a
year in advance of the true chronology.
[268] AA. SS. p. 325ᵇ; Whitaker, pp. 335, 349, 372; Gorham, p. 259.
[269] Chron. 885.
[270] ibid. 883; omitted in MS. ‘A’ _only_. According to Malmesbury,
Alfred gave this relic to Glastonbury, Antiq. Eccl. Glast. p. 316 (ed.
Gale).
[271] Even Mr. W. H. Simcox, English Historical Review, i. 232; on the
ground that the evidence is ‘earlier than much which we accept.’ Even
were this so, it does not touch the fact of its being _inconsistent_ with
authentic records.
[272] ‘Com þa Guðrum se hæðene king mid his wælreowen here ærest on east
dæle _Sexlandes_.… Ða Ælfred king … þæt ofaxode þæt se here … wæs … swa
neh _Englelande_, he sone for fyrht fleames cepte, and his cæmpen ealle
forlet, and his heretogen, and eall his þeode; … ferde þa lutigende
geond heges and weges, geond wudes and feldes, swa þæt he … becom to
Æðelingege,’ Gorham, p. 239; cf. AA. SS. p. 327ᵃ.
[273] Pauli thinks that the result was partly due to internal
treachery, König Ælfred, p. 123; cf. also Asser, 480 B [30] ‘et etiam a
Christianis,’ &c.
[274] Professor Earle’s suggestion, who notes that Alfred’s will shows
that he had a ‘ham’ at Chippenham; cf. Asser, 480 B [30].
[275] König Ælfred, p. 117.
[276] ‘Butan þam cyninge Ælfrede,’ ‘diese vier Worte klingen in ihrer
trockenen Einfachheit unendlich grossartig,’ ibid., 125 note. The same
words are used of Hereward, 1071 E, 1072 D; and Pauli has remarked that
Alfred’s position in Athelney was not unlike Hereward’s in Ely, p. 129.
[277] Chron. 878, and notes.
[278] Weltgeschichte, VI. ii. 44. Ethelwerd in his Preface says:
‘dilucidius explicare oportet,’ 499 C. If this is his idea of lucidity,
what would his obscurity be?
[279] cf. Pauli, u. s. p. 145 note.
[280] On Ethelwerd cf. Chronicle, II. xliv, ci. f., cxxv, 8, 9, 18, 28,
47, 59, 89 f., 174, 178.
[281] sub anno 901.
[282] Pauli thinks he detects traces of a ballad in a passage of
Ethelwerd, König Ælfred, p. 119 note; but it is difficult to argue from a
writer like Ethelwerd.
[283] Ed. Arnold, p. 147; On Henry of Huntingdon, cf. Chron. II. lvii f.,
10, 43, 70, 215, 244 f.
[284] ii. 84.
[285] ‘Incelebres,’ not ‘in celebres.’
[286] S. D. i. 62, 63, 204 ff., 230 ff.; ii. 83, 111.
[287] Gesta Regum, i. 125.
[288] Old English History, p. 130.
[289] Not the cathedral, as I have wrongly said, Chron. II. 94.
[290] S. D. i. 204, 230.
[291] G. R. i. 124-126, 130.
[292] See below, §§ 90, 115.
[293] G. R. i. 132, 133.
[294] See Chronicle, II. cxxvii.
[295] ‘Incurabili morbo languentem … curandum transmisit,’ Higden, vi.
318, 356; Lib. de Hyda, p. 26.
[296] W. M. i. 129; Ingulf, p. 28; Bromton, col. 818; W. Thorn, col. 1777
(hundred et _lestes_); Ann. Winton. p. 10; Robert of Gloucester, i. 293;
Lib. de Hyda, p. 42.
[297] Geoffrey of Monmouth, iii. 5, 13; Layamon’s Brut, i. 269 f.; John
of Wallingford, p. 538; Higden, ii. 92 (from Alfred of Beverley). The
whole myth is due to a misunderstanding (wilful, probably, in the first
instance) of the partial incorporation in Alfred’s Laws of the _Mercian_
code of Offa.
[298] ‘Primus monarcha Anglorum,’ Lib. de Hyda, p. 48, which gives a
long comment on this text; cf. Ric. de Cirencest. Speculum Hist. i.
45: ‘primus … monarcha, et ad quem monarchia regni Anglicani totaliter
extitit deuoluta.’ Ethelwerd, though so much nearer the time, is not
guiltless in this matter, saying that Alfred ‘obtinuit regnum … super
prouincias Brittanniae cunctas,’ p. 514 C.
[299] Wendover, i. 363.
[300] ‘Illam maximam regis credidit dignitatem, nullam in ecclesiis
Christi habere potestatem,’ Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. Migne, col. 719.
[301] Bromton, col. 814; Rudborne, Ang. Sac. i. 207; Lib. de Hyda, p. 41.
[302] ‘Uir literatissimus, et philosophus in uniuersitate Oxenfordensi,’
Rudborne, u. s.
[303] Bromton, col. 818: ‘tertiam [partem] scholaribus Oxoniae, nouiter
congregatis’; so Lib. de Hyda, p. 45.
[304] Rapin (Eng. trans. 1732), i. 95, 160; Carte (ed. 1747), i. 311,
316. The fiction-monger of the Mirror of Justices treats it as already
ancient in the time of Alfred. I owe these references to Sir Frederick
Pollock.
[305] Miroir des Justices, pp. 296-298; where the names of the defaulting
justices are given, and very marvellous they are. I owe this reference to
Draper, p. 35.
[306] See above, §§ 44, 45; cf. also Wallingford, p. 535.
[307] See ii. 87.
[308] cf. S. D.² ii. 117: ‘dum reuerterentur _domum_’; the difference
between ‘domūiret’ and ‘dormiret’ would be extremely small.
[309] Ed. Bannatyne Club, p. 22.
[310] See ii. 114.
[311] ‘her Aldfrið … forðferde … on Driffelda,’ Chron. 705 (Northern
recension).
[312] He transfers to Æthelred Asser’s description of Alfred’s division
of his time and revenues, Langtoft, Rolls Ed. i. 312-324.
[313] Church History, Book ii. 83; cited by Raine, Priory of Hexham, i.
22.
[314] See i. 354.
[315] Chron. 883, MSS. B and C.
[316] See pp. 19, 28.
[317] For Mr. Riley’s notable exposure of Ingulf, see Archaeological
Journal, xix. 32 ff., 114 ff.
[318] Ingulf, pp. 20 ff.
[319] ibid. 20.
[320] Bede, H. E. iii. 18; so John the Old Saxon, abbot of Athelney, was
‘bellicosae artis non expers, si in meliori disciplina non studeret,’
Asser, 494 D [63].
[321] See p. 25.
[322] See p. 27.
[323] ibid.
[324] cf. Wulfstan’s Homilies, ed. Napier, p. 310; Ælfric, Lives of
Saints, pp. 440, 468; and the references to the Laws given, Chron. ii.
164, 165. Edgar indeed was formally enrolled as a confessor, and found a
place in the Calendar, see AA. SS. July 8, p. 659.
[325] Chron. 1018, MS. D.
[326] Gorham, p. 260.
[327] Rolls Ed. p. 163.
[328] Rolls Ed. p. 10.
[329] Rolls Ed. p. 113.
[330] Chron. II. cxxvii.
[331] Thus 869 and 870 are _both_ given as Alfred’s twenty-first year;
this throws the Series one wrong up to 876 inclusive. The annal 877, as I
have shown, is blank in the genuine text of Asser. Then in 878 not only
is this not allowed for, but the number twenty-seventh is repeated from
876. This further increases the error by two, i.e. the total error now
amounts to three years; and this error is maintained to the end.
[332] Chronicle, II. xlix, cii-civ, cxvii, 44, 73, 77.
[333] Foundations of England, i. 247.
[334] Bede, I. lvi.
[335] A yet earlier copy of this document is printed in Sweet’s Oldest
English Texts, p. 179; another copy occurs in the Cambridge University
MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Bede; and a third in a fragment which probably
originally belonged to MS. B of the Chronicle; all these MSS. read
‘xxiii.’ with A; a later copy printed by Professor Napier reads ‘xxii.,’
this is probably a mere slip, or it may be due to the influence of Asser.
See Chronicle, II. xxviii. f., lxxxix. f., 1, 79. In the Hyde Register,
pp. 94 ff., is a later copy beginning with Ine and going down to Canute;
this omits the passage about Alfred’s age.
[336] Cited by Stubbs, W. M. II. xlii. f.
[337] On the intellectual poverty of Rome about this time see a very
interesting passage in Gregorovius, u. s. iii. 141-149.
[338] 473 D [16].
[339] ‘religiosa nimium femina’ is Asser’s description of his mother, 469
A [4]. Æthelwulf’s famous donation, whatever its exact nature, is at any
rate proof of his piety and charity; which are not necessarily, as some
persons seem to think, marks of a weak intellect. The letters of Lupus of
Ferrières, cited above, § 14, are evidence that his liberality was well
known on the Continent.
[340] Asser, 473 D [15].
[341] On pilgrimages and the disastrous results which often followed from
them, see Gregorovius, ii. 178 ff., iii. 76 ff.; Bede, ii. 281, 282; on
the passion for relics, ibid. 158; Gregorovius, iii. 72 ff.; Ebert, ii.
99, 334 ff., iii. 208 ff.
[342] On sponsors at confirmation see Bede, ii. 383.
[343] Ed. Hearne, pp. 19 ff.
[344] In a review of vol. ii of my Saxon Chron., in Brandl und Tobler,
Archiv für ’s Studium der neueren Sprachen, civ. pp. 188 ff.
[345] ‘Cingulo, honore, uestimentisque.’ _Cingulum_ sometimes means
‘dignity,’ ‘office,’ v. Ducange, s. v.; and that may be the meaning here.
[346] Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgesch. ii. 133, cited by Stubbs,
Const. Hist. i. 145; the authority is Gregory of Tours: ‘in Basilica
beati Martini tunica blatea indutus est, et chlamyde, imponens uertici
diadema,’ ii. 38.
[347] Ed. Migne, col. 718: ‘Leo tempus et aetatem regnandi regiae
unctionis sacramento praeueniens, sicut quondam Samuel puerum Dauid,
ita eum in regem … consecrauit.’ Later writers made much of this papal
unction, saying not merely that Alfred was the first English king
anointed by the pope, which is true, but that he was the first English
king who was ever anointed and crowned, e.g. Thorn, in Twysden, col.
1777; Rudborne, Ang. Sac. i. 201, 207: ‘ab ipso descendit inunctio regum
Angliae’; Chron. Robert of Gloucester, p. 388: ‘so þat, biuore him, pur
king nas þer non’; John de Oxenedes (who puts the papal coronation after
Alfred’s accession to the throne!), p. 3; Birch, ii. 256: ‘Alfredus
rex totius Anglie, primus coronatus’; see the figure of Alfred in MS.
Cott. Claud. D. vi, given in Draper, p. 130, where the crown and ampulla
evidently allude to the Roman unction and coronation. Nicolas Smith,
titular bishop of Chalcedon († 1655), says: ‘hic solus ex omnibus
Angliae regibus Diadema et inaugurationem sumpsit a Romano Pontifice, ut
agnoscunt Protestantes,’ in Wise’s Asser, p. 109. I do not know whether
modern Roman controversialists derive any satisfaction from the same
reflexion. If so, it would be a pity to deprive them of it.
[348] Birch, No. 493; K. C. D. No. 1057.
[349] Chron. ii. 82. So the Charter, Birch, No. 467; K. C. D. No. 269;
though the Indiction is wrong, and Stubbs gives the date as 853, Const.
Hist. i. 142.
[350] Ebert, ii. 111; Weber, Weltgesch. v. 331, 432.
[351] John xi. 49-52.
[352] Chron.; Asser, sub anno.
[353] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 433.
[354] Birch, No. 486; K. C. D. No. 276.
[355] ‘Romam, composito regno, abiit,’ i. 109.
[356] The Chron. says, ‘ærest,’ ‘for the first time,’ but an earlier
wintering has been mentioned in 851.
[357] Birch, No. 487; K. C. D. No. 277.
[358] Chronicle, ii. 82.
[359] See below, pp. 86, 89.
[360] 470 C [8].
[361] W. M. II. xliii.
[362] See above, p. 74; the other charters cited by Stubbs, loc. cit. are
all spurious.
[363] ‘Ad patriam atque ad patrem … direxit,’ S. D.¹ ii. 71; ‘ad patrem
… remisit,’ S. D.² ii. 101 (of the pope). Both these versions also,
especially the second, clearly distinguish this journey of Alfred’s from
the one in 853, ii. 103.
[364] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 449.
[365] Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, ii. 148; Anastasius in Muratori,
SS. III. i. 251; on which see Gregorovius, iii. 149 ff.
[366] u. s. iii. 110.
[367] So Wendover, i. 290, 291 (who makes this unction of Alfred as king
at his father’s request, to the exclusion of his elder brothers, one of
the main causes of Æthelbald’s revolt); so too a spurious charter, Birch,
No. 493; K. C. D. No. 1057.
[368] The eleventh or twelfth cent. Epitome of the Chron. known as
MS. F. I may once more protest against the habit of citing this late
authority as ‘_the_ Saxon Chronicle,’ without qualification. Mr.
Conybeare (u. s. p. 16) goes further, and misrepresents even this poor
authority: ‘according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it was on the news of
[Æthelbald’s] incestuous union reaching Rome that Leo “hallowed Alfred
to king.”’ Æthelbald’s marriage is not mentioned in any MS. of the
Chronicle, not even in F.
[369] Gregorovius, iii. 112.
[370] Gesta Regum, i. 109, ii. xxxix.
[371] Lib. Pontif. ii. 111; or Muratori, SS. III. i. 233. For an earlier
fire in the same quarter see Chron. 816 and notes. On these foreign
‘schools’ or hostelries at Rome cf. Chron. ii. 69; De’ Rossi, Un Tesoro
di monete Anglo Sassoni (1884), pp. 6, 7.
[372] Gregorovius, iii. 87 ff. (a fine description); Ranke, Weltgesch.
VI. ii. 1. Compare Alcuin’s fine lines on the state of Rome at the end of
the eighth century:
Roma caput mundi, mundi decus, aurea Roma,
Nunc remanet tantum saeua ruina tibi,
De Clade Lindisfarnensis Monasterii, vv. 37, 38.
[373] Gregorovius, iii. 65, 66; Weber, Weltgesch. v. 186 f.
[374] Conybeare, u. s. p. 15.
[375] Weber, u. s. pp. 465 f., 505 ff. The Monk of St. Gallen actually
_identifies_ the Saracens and Northmen, see Ebert, u. s. iii. 220.
[376] Weber, u. s. pp. 192, 193.
[377] See above, § 34.
[378] Ranke, u. s.
[379] Gregorovius, u. s. pp. 97 ff.
[380] Chron. 855 and notes.
[381] cf. Ranke, u. s. VI. ii. 40 ff.
[382] ibid. VI. i. 207, 208; Weber, u. s. p. 553.
[383] 470 D-471 C [8-10].
[384] Chron. 860 A.
[385] ibid.
[386] e.g. Pauli, u. s. p. 51; S. C. H. i. 204.
[387] Ranke, u. s. VI. i. 57 ff.; Weber, u. s. pp. 460, 461.
[388] At the beginning of the story the conspirators plot ‘ne unquam
Æthelwulf rex _a Roma reuertens_ iterum in regnum reciperetur,’ i.e. the
conspiracy is hatched while Æthelwulf is still at Rome; at the end the
story of Eadburh seems to imply that it was the marriage with Judith
which provoked the conspiracy.
[389] 472 D [13].
[390] Ranke, u. s. c. 2. Weber, u. s. pp. 450 ff.
[391] ‘renuntia … incesto … matrimonio; quia ista Iudith … proximo tibi
affinis est sanguine,’ W. M. Gesta Pont. p. 13.
[392] See Chron. ii. 80, 81.
[393] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 450. If his words are to be taken
strictly it would seem that Æthelwulf placed the crown on the head of
his child bride. (The marriage benediction of Judith is in Bouquet, vii.
621, 622, and is rather a satire on her subsequent history.) So Charles
the Great crowned Louis the Pious when he associated him with himself
in the imperial power, Sept. 813. Had this precedent been followed,
the relations of Papacy and Empire might have been very different,
Gregorovius, u. s. pp. 18, 19; Weber, u. s. p. 424.
[394] Birch, No. 495; K. C. D. No. 1058.
[395] H. E. ii. 5.
[396] Iohannes Longus, Pertz, xxv. 768.
[397] The genuine charters signed by Alfred prior to his own accession
are, Birch, Nos. 467, 486, 502, 506, 515, 520, 522; K. C. D. Nos. 269,
276, 285, 287, 293, 1061, 298.
[398] Rolls Ed. i. 393.
[399] 743 D-744 B [15, 16].
[400] e.g. 487 B [46], 491 B [55], 492 A [56]. In one place, 485 D [43],
it is used of reading both Latin and Saxon; only in one passage is it
used of Saxon alone, 474 B [16]. Green, C. E. p. 158, rightly understands
it in this sense.
[401] Preface to Cura Pastoralis; cf. Asser: ‘illo tempore lectores
boni in toto regno Occidentalium Saxonum non erant,’ 474 B [17]. Here
‘lectores’ means teachers of _Latin_. Florence substitutes ‘grammatici.’
Ælfric, writing towards the end of the next century of his own youth,
says: ‘a mass-priest who was my master could to some extent (_be dæle_,
partly) understand Latin,’ Pref. to Heptateuch; and speaking of his own
day he adds: ‘unlearned priests, if they understand just a little of
Latin books, forthwith think themselves splendid teachers,’ ibid. p. 2.
[402] 474 B, C [17], 486 C [45].
[403] Alfred’s love of hunting comes out in one or two passages in his
writings, e.g. Bede, i. 1 ad fin., where Ireland is said to be ‘mære on
huntunge heorta ⁊ rana,’ ed. Miller, p. 30; cf. Boethius, xxxii. § 3, ed.
Sedgefield, p. 73.
[404] König Ælfred, p. 68; so Green, C. E. p. 100.
[405] 474 B [16], 486 A [43], 487 A [46], 488 D [50] _ter_, 491 C
[55]. To learn by heart is ‘memoriter retinere,’ ‘memoriter discere,’
473 E [16], 486 A [43]. But apart from any question of the meaning of
‘recitare,’ Asser says distinctly in this case: ‘magistrum adiit et
_legit_, quo _lecto_ matri retulit et recitauit.’
[406] W. M. II. xlii.
[407] Biographia Liter. Britan., i. 385.
[408] i. 296, 311; modified in Thorpe’s translation, ii. 44. Pauli
rightly protests against the theory, p. 67.
[409] Dict. Nat. Biog., i. 154.
[410] ‘nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere,’ 469 A [4].
[411] cf. Pauli, u. s. p. 67.
[412] See Chron. ii. 81, where I have shown that the Chronicle’s (and
Asser’s) two years is too long. The Roman historian on the other hand
cuts him off too rapidly: ‘reuersus ad proprium regnum … _post paucos
dies_ uitam finiuit,’ Liber Pontificalis, ii. 148.
[413] Birch, No. 436; K. C. D. No. 254. In Sim. Dun. i. 204, ‘Australes
Saxones’ has the same meaning.
[414] See above, § 30.
[415] Birch, No. 454; K. C. D. No. 261.
[416] Conquest of England, pp. 73, 74.
[417] Birch, No. 395; K. C. D. No. 223; Stubbs, C. H. i. 172.
[418] Malmesbury has an interesting passage on the effects of Egbert’s
foreign sojourn, G. R. i. 105.
[419] 472 B [12].
[420] Pauli, u. s. p. 79; following Lappenberg, i. 296; E. T. ii. 27. I
think they have been misled by the Latin version of Alfred’s will, which,
as I shall show (§ 64), is of no authority.
[421] ‘Ut iustum erat,’ adds Asser, 473 A [14].
[422] 477 C [24]; cf. Lib. de Hyda, p. 27: ‘Ethelredus, quem princeps
gloriosus Alfredus coegit ante se regnare.’
[423] 472 D [13].
[424] See p. 152.
[425] I use the words Danes and Danish, as the Chronicle does, for the
Scandinavian invaders generally, without professing to distinguish the
origin of each separate band. This is the general English use, on the
Continent the generic name is Nortmanni, Northmen; Green, Conq. Eng.
p. 68; cf. Einhard, Vita Car. c. 12: ‘Dani ac Sueones quos Nortmannos
uocamus’; ibid. c. 14: ‘Nortmanni qui Dani uocantur.’ Ranke says: ‘it is
impossible to distinguish Danes and Northmen,’ Weltgesch., VI. i. 42. For
a vivid description of their ravages in France see Folcuini Gesta Abb.
Lobiensium, cc. 16, 17, Pertz, iv. 61, 62; and the verses of Ermoldus
Nigellus, Dümmler, Poetae aeui Carolini, ii. 59. Cf. also the well-known
description of the earlier and very similar ravages of the Saxons,
Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. viii. 6.
[426] See above, § 57.
[427] The Chronicle mentions this under 860, but only with the vague date
‘on his dæge,’ ‘in his [Æthelberht’s] time.’ This seems to show that this
part of the Chronicle cannot have been written up till some little time
after the event. It is a foreign Chronicler, Prudentius Trecensis, who
enables us to fix it to the year of Æthelberht’s accession, 860, Pertz,
i. 454. For what follows the Chronicle is the authority, except where
otherwise stated.
[428] Vikinger, p. 55.
[429] Sim. Dun. i. 55 f., 225; ii. 106, 110, 377, 391.
[430] Liber de Hyda, p. 27.
[431] According to MS. F of the Chronicle, the appointment of Æthelred to
the archbishopric of Canterbury was made by Æthelred and Alfred jointly,
Chron. i. 283.
[432] 475 A [19]; it occurs again 476 D [22] (battle of Ashdown); 477
C [24], in relation to Alfred’s accession. In the last passage Alfred
is said to have borne the title ‘uiuentibus fratribus.’ The plural is
probably mere rhetoric; otherwise it might point to the arrangement
as to the succession having been made under Æthelberht, which is not
impossible; cf. Ailred of Rievaulx’ phrase: ‘cum fratribus aliquo tempore
regnauit,’ ed. Migne, col. 719.
[433] See above, p. 40.
[434] cf. O’Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, I. cxxxii f.
[435] Rhŷs and Brynmor Jones, The Welsh People, p. 203.
[436] It is curious that though Alfred speaks of Æthelbald, Æthelred and
himself as three brethren, he only calls Æthelberht ‘our kinsman,’ ‘uncer
mæg.’ The same use occurs in Bede, p. 188, where Oswy is called Oswald’s
‘mæg.’
[437] Near the beginning Alfred speaks of ‘min yrfe þæt me God and mine
yldran forgeafon,’ i.e. ‘the inheritance which God and my forefathers
granted me.’ The Latin translator gives ‘principes’ for ‘yldran,’ a
meaning which it can have. He therefore naturally took the sentence to
refer to Alfred’s election as king by the Witan; and the rest may have
followed from this.
[438] 472 B [12].
[439] Const. Hist. i. 142 note.
[440] April, 1886.
[441] Foundations of England, i. 244.
[442] ‘Martyrio coronatus est.’ R. W. i. 318.
[443] Not March 31, as Mr. Simcox says.
[444] Chronicle, II. cxxxix. ff.
[445] Asser, 476 A [21]. This is one of Asser’s good additions to the
Chronicle.
[446] Chronicle, ii. 87.
[447] 476 C [22].
[448] ‘Aprino more,’ 476 D [23].
[449] See above, p. 16.
[450] Domesday, ff. 57 b, 60 a.
[451] See a letter to the Times of August 30, 1864, by Mr. Henry Moody of
Winchester. I was wrong in identifying (Chron. ii. 87) the Compton near
which Ashdown is to be sought with the Compton near East Ilsley; it is
Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. This correction I also owe to
Mr. Taylor.
[452] I cannot find Roughthorn Farm either on the six-inch or
twenty-five-inch Ordnance map. There is a spot called Thickthorn about a
mile east of Ashdown Park; a hill called Alfred’s Castle just west of the
Park, an Alfred’s Hill between Longcot and Uffington; Danesfield Copse
south of Lambourne.
[453] Simcox, u. s.
[454] ‘Folc-gefeoht.’
[455] Florence gives the date as April 23, i. 85.
[456] Langtoft makes him killed in battle: ‘fu navrez par un coup
d’espeye’; this is certainly wrong. For Langtoft’s confusions on the
subject of Æthelred, see above, p. 65.
[457] The Ring and the Book, Pompilia, ad finem.
[458] This title is not older than the sixteenth century, Pauli, u.
s. p. 2. In the Hyde Register, p. 13, Edward, Alfred’s son, is called
‘Eadweardus Magnus.’
[459] Weltgeschichte, VI. ii. 46.
[460] ‘quasi inuitus’ 477 C [24]; cf. Boethius, c. 17: ‘þu watst ꝥ me
næfre seo gitsung ⁊ seo gemægð þisses eorðlican anwealdes forwel ne
licode, ne ic ealles forswiðe ne girnde þisses eorðlican rices,’ ed.
Sedgefield, p. 40.
[461] ‘mox Elfredus a ducibus et a praesulibus totius gentis eligitur,’
S. D. ii. 81.
[462] Asser’s statement, u. s., that Alfred succeeded ‘cum summa omnium …
regni accolarum uoluntate,’ probably does not refer to formal election.
[463] Cf. Chronicle, ii. 145, 146.
[464] ‘sumor-lida.’
[465] 477 C [24]. The same phrase is used of Burgred of Mercia, who died
at Rome, 478 B [26]. Mr. Simcox sees in the phrase (based on Rev. xx. 6)
a possible trace of British Pelagianism. Anyhow the special use of the
phrase in these two cases is no doubt due to the fact that Asser regarded
Æthelred as a martyr, and Burgred as a pilgrim.
[466] p. 514 C.
[467] Chronicle, ii. 88.
[468] Ethelwerd distinctly recognises that there were three engagements
in addition to the six which he names: ‘tria certamina exceptis supra
memoratis bellis’; only Ethelwerd’s list of six would differ from that
in the Chronicle by the omission of Wilton and the substitution of the
second battle of Reading. Mr. Simcox does not notice this passage of
Ethelwerd; perhaps he too regarded it as a distorted version of the
battle of Wilton.
[469] ‘sterilis uictoriae status.’
[470] ‘peraudacitatem persequentium decipientes,’ 477 D [25].
[471] ‘quot millia Paganae expeditionis … perierunt, nisi soli Deo,
incognitum,’ 477 E [25]. The reflexion, if we allow for Asser’s usual
rhetoric, is not unfounded.
[472] ‘Beorredus Rex Merciorum … cum Britonibus occupatus, qui crebris
irruptionibus Occidentalem partem Regni sui Merciae inquietabant,’ p. 25.
[473] This notice is in all MSS. of the Chronicle except A. See notes ad
loc.
[474] Birch, Nos. 533, 531; K. C. D. No. 303.
[475] ‘monasterium celeberrimum, omnium regum Merciorum sacratissimum
Mausoleum funditus destruxerunt,’ Ingulf, p. 26 (cf. Fl. Wig. i. 72). On
a point like this Ingulf may probably be trusted.
[476] ‘Anglicus genere, sed barbarus impietate,’ Ingulf, p. 27.
[477] ‘fór Ælfred cyning út on sǽ.’
[478] Cf. Murray’s Guide Book for Wilts., Dorset, and Somerset. Wareham
is the only English place to which Asser gives the title of ‘castellum,’
478 D [27]. He uses the term once of a Danish fort, 483 B [37].
[479] The evasion of the Danes from Wareham to Exeter is mentioned in the
Chron. both under 876 and 877. The earlier mention is probably merely
proleptic, giving by anticipation what was the issue of the affair.
[480] ‘þær him mon to ne meahte.’
[481] This is the interpolated passage in Asser, which cannot, as I have
shown above (§ 20), be traced further back than Roger of Wendover. It
sounds however perfectly genuine.
[482] v. 3105.
[483] I owe this suggestion to Professor Earle.
[484] Ranke, Engl. Gesch., B. III. c. 6.
[485] Exodus xv. 10.
[486] For the whole of this and the following sections I may refer to the
Chronicle, with my notes.
[487] § 46, above.
[488] I give what seems to me the most probable line of march. But every
one of these three places, (1) Ecgbryhtesstan, (2) Iglea, (3) Ethandun,
has been variously identified. The following series have been proposed—A.
(1) Brixton, (2) Clay Hill near Warminster, (3) Edington; B. (as in the
text); C. (1) Bratton near Westbury, (2) Highley Common near Melksham,
(3) Heddington on the Roman road from Bath to Marlborough. Bratton seems
to me impossible on philological grounds. Yatton has also been proposed
for Ethandun. Philologically it is possible; (cf. Yarnton near Oxford =
Eardingtun) but its position north-west of Chippenham is against it.
[489] viz. that it is Bratton Camp, between Edington and Westbury.
[490] Essays, p. 138.
[491] Asser, 481 B [32], v. s. pp. 44, 51.
[492] ‘arcem imparatam atque immunitam, nisi quod moenia _nostro more
erecta_ … haberet … locus tutissimus … sicut nos ipsi uidimus,’ ib.
Is any type of earthworks known which is specifically Welsh? Asser’s
episcopal charge of Exeter, if a fact, would account for his knowledge of
the district. The name of Odda comes from Ethelwerd, p. 515 D.
[493] Mediaeval and modern writers, overlooking the word ‘brother,’
write as if it were Ingwar and Halfdene themselves who fell; so S. D.
ii. 111, 114. Professor Oman writes Ingwar and Hubba, on I know not what
authority, Essays, p. 137. The name Ubba comes only from Gaimar.
[494] The details are mostly from Asser, u. s. He gives the number of
slain as 1200; i.e. CↃCC for IↃCCC. Ethelwerd, p. 515 E, says that the
Danes were finally victorious; but it is hard to reconcile this with the
Chronicle, and still more with Asser.
[495] The Chronicle puts this under 879; but, seeing that the battle of
Ethandun was fought in May, it almost certainly belongs to the same year
878. It is this mistake which throws the chronology of the Chronicle a
year wrong from this point up to 897 (= 896).
[496] No document exists embodying the terms of the agreement of 878.
‘Alfred and Guthrum’s peace,’ often confused with the treaty of Wedmore,
belongs to 886.
[497] Chron. ii. 114.
[498] Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur.
[499] Chron. u. s. chiefly from Green, Conq. Engl. pp. 111 ff.
[500] p. 515 D.
[501] Cf. what is said in the Soliloquies, p. 182: ‘gyf þonne æfre
gebyreð þ þu … hæfst ealle þine freond myd þe … on þam ilcan weorce,
⁊ on þam ilcan willan ðe ðe best lyst don’; cf. Boeth. xxix. § 1 (p.
66): ‘cyningas ne magon nænne weorðscipe forðbrengan buton hiora þegna
fultume.’
[502] ‘urne ealra freond,’ Birch, No. 582; K. C. D. No. 327. I do not
mean to assert that Werferth was at Athelney or Edington, though he may
have been. But he and Æthelnoth were working for a common end, and his
district benefited largely by Alfred’s victory.
[503] ‘They were the first European warriors who realised the value of
quick movement in war,’ Green, C. E. p. 89.
[504] ‘þæer gehorsude wurdon,’ 866; ‘se gehorsoda here,’ 876, 877; ‘þa
wearþ se here gehorsod æfter þæm gefeohte,’ 881. Conversely after a
defeat: ‘his wurdon þær behorsude,’ 885. Asser, describing this last
incident, says: ‘equis, quos de Francia secum adduxerant, derelictis,’
483 C [37]; ‘hie asettan him … ofer [sc. to England] mid horsum,’ 893;
cf. Flor. Wig. i. 111.
[505] Note the use of ‘bestelan’ for the movements of the invaders, 865,
876 (_bis_), 878.
[506] Earlier in the annal Alfred ‘rides’ to Brixton.
[507] ‘Ælfred æfter þam gehorsudan here mid fierde rad.’
[508] Sir Walter Besant, Essays, p. 17.
[509] For purely English events we have not, as a rule, the help of the
foreign Chronicles, and cannot therefore be sure whether they also are
dated a year in advance; but probably in most cases they are.
[510] That this and not 885 is the true date is proved by the Annales
Vedastini, and the Chronicon Reginonis, Pertz, i. 521, 594.
[511] Asser, 483 B, C [37].
[512] This comes at the end of the annal in the Chronicle, but almost
certainly refers to an earlier period of the year.
[513] ‘de Cantio,’ Asser, u. s.
[514] See above, § 50.
[515] Chron. ii. 99 f.
[516] Whatever the date, the Chronicle places the occupation of London
in close connexion with the breach of the peace by the Danes in the
preceding year. It may even be that a desire to bring out that connexion
has led to the mention of the breach being postponed to the end of the
annal.
[517] Schmid, Gesetze, pp. 106 ff. Cf. ib. xxxviii f.; and see the very
interesting remarks of Green, C. E. pp. 151-3.
[518] Certainly as early as 880; see the charter Birch, No. 547; K. C. D.
No. 311.
[519] Essays, pp. 19, 57, 245 ff.; Ranke, u. s. VI. ii. 43: ‘Die
merkantile Hauptstadt der Welt verdankt dem König Alfred gleichsam ihre
zweite Gründung.’
[520] ‘Orco tradit spiramen,’ p. 517 C.
[521] Malmesbury has some interesting remarks on this, G. R. i. 128, 129;
cf. S. C. H. i. 191.
[522] See above, § 10.
[523] Earle, Chronicles, p. xvi.
[524] Chron. II. cvii, 109.
[525] Chron. 894 ad init.
[526] Birch, No. 579; K. C. D. No. 1075.
[527] ‘de instauratione urbis Londoniae,’ Birch, No. 577.
[528] Birch, No. 1335; see Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, pp. 187, 188,
502 ff.
[529] 493 A, B [59, 60].
[530] There is a good passage on this point in Ingulf, p. 27: ‘Alfredus …
ciuitates suas et castella sua renouauit, turres et munitiones in locis
magis necessariis construxit, ac totam terrae faciem in formam multo
meliorem immutatam, per oppida murata, et alia loca munitissima contra
barbaros insuperabilem fore fecit’; cf. Essays, pp. 141 ff.
[531] Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 191; Essays, pp. 143 ff.; Green, C. E. pp.
135 ff.
[532] Chron. 894, i. 86-7.
[533] For this event the date in the Chronicle is apparently correct.
[534] See Dümmler, u. s. ii. 349 ff. The foreign Chronicles show clearly
that the date is 892, not 893 as in the Saxon Chron.
[535] ‘samworht,’ ‘half-wrought.’ Mr. Macfadyen ingeniously connects
this with the passage cited above from Asser, as to the difficulty
which Alfred had in getting the fortifications constructed which he had
ordered. For the justification of the sketch which follows I must refer
to my notes to the Chronicle. The only point on which I have modified my
view, is as to the position of Buttington.
[536] It is only in Ethelwerd that Edward’s share in the campaign is
mentioned. He would now be a little over twenty, if, as Asser says,
Alfred was married in 868, and Edward was his second child, 475 A [19],
485 C [42].
[537] This name also comes from Ethelwerd. Ramsay, Foundations of
England, i. 261, sees in this the ancient name of Westminster; and a
writer in the Athenaeum for June 15, 1901, takes the same view still
more positively, saying that we shall search the Colne in vain for an
island called Thorney. I imagine we should search the neighbourhood of
Westminster with equally little success; and if the name has become
extinct in one locality, why not in the other? possibly because the
thorns have become extinct which gave the name. Ethelwerd _may_ be
mistaken as to the name, but it is absolutely certain that the island on
which the Danes were blockaded was in the Colne: ‘hie flugon ofer Temese,
… þa up be Colne on anne iggað. Þa besæt sio fierd hie.’
[538] To this year perhaps better than to any other would apply the very
rhetorical description of Hen. Hunt., how messengers poured in upon the
king, saying that the Danes were in this, that, and the other quarter,
pp. 138, 139.
[539] The Chronicle seems to synchronise the relief of Exeter
approximately with the capture of the fort at Benfleet; but Alfred was
busied in the west some time longer, while the English forces were
blockading Buttington, Chron. i. 87.
[540] The Alfred Jewel, p. 104.
[541] ‘ánstreces,’ literally ‘at a stretch.’
[542] Can it be that the fyrd after all did reach them? Ethelwerd seems
to say that Æthelnoth attacked the Danes at York, p. 518 E. Or is this a
punitive expedition against the Northumbrian Danes?
[543] Hen. Hunt. says ‘fecit aquam Luye findi in tria brachia,’ p.
150; i.e. he conceives the two obstacles as erected _in_ the river, so
dividing it into three channels, which is perfectly possible. Perhaps
the worthy archdeacon may even have seen the remains of Alfred’s works.
But I cannot now take Steenstrup’s view that this device may have been
suggested to Alfred by Orosius’ account of the capture of Babylon by
Cyrus, Lib. ii. c. 6. That was effected by diverting the course of the
river, which there is no reason to suppose that Alfred attempted.
[544] Bell. Gall. v. 1.
[545] The connexion of the Frisian language with that of the Angles and
Saxons was very close, and they have certain marked characteristics
in common, pointing to close neighbourhood of their original abodes.
Of English dialects the Frisian is nearest to Kentish, except in the
northern Frisian islands, where it seems more akin to West-Saxon. I take
this from Siebs, Zur Gesch. der engl.-fries. Sprache, in Paul’s Grundriss
der germanischen Philologie, 2nd ed. i. 1153 ff., for a reference to
which I am indebted to Professor Napier, who tells me that in his
judgement Englishmen and Frisians would be quite intelligible to one
another in the ninth century. There is a sentence of Frisian in Pertz,
xxii. 576, which might just as well be Anglo-Saxon.
[546] In 882 Charles the Fat had granted West Friesland to a wiking Chief
Guðfrið, Dümmler, u. s. ii. 204, 205; cf. ibid. 224 ff., 241; Weber, u.
s. v. 684, 685. For earlier ravages in Frisia, cf. ibid. 495; Pertz, i.
445.
[547] 486 B [44]. Charles the Great also employed Frisians in his fleet
for his wars against the Danes, Weber, u. s. p. 421; cf. Einhard, Vita
Caroli, c. 17.
[548] Mr. Conybeare says: ‘one MS. of the A.-S. Chronicle makes St. Neot
[!!] (Athelstan of Kent) fight “on shipboard” in 851, but the entry, if
correct, stands absolutely alone.’ The fact is that the entry is found
in five MSS. out of six. A is the only one which omits the words ‘on
scipum.’
[549] See notes to Chron., ad loc. It has, however, been pointed out
to me by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, that the
phrase ‘ahton wælstowe gewald’ looks as if these battles were fought on
land; and I admit that I cannot produce any certain instance of this
phrase being applied to a naval victory. The provision that a merchant
who fared thrice over sea on his own account should rank as a thane is
unfortunately of uncertain date, Schmid, pp. lxiv, 390.
[550] Preface to Pastoral Care. Cf. the description of the Lombard
ravages in the translation of the Dialogues, p. 258: ‘nu syndon þa
burga forhergode … ⁊ þa ceastra toworpene, cyrcan forbærnde ⁊ mynstra
toworpene, ⁊ eac gehwylce tunas ge wera ge wifa fram hæðenum mannum
geweste, ⁊ eac fram ælce bigonge þis land ligeð tolysed ⁊ idlað in
westenne. ne eardað nænig agend frea, ac wild-deor abysgiað þa stowe, þa
ær hæfde ⁊ eardode manna mænigo.’
[551] So Freeman, in Dict. Nat. Biog. i. 156; cf. S. C. H. i. 99, 100;
‘occasione barbarorum etiam indigenae in rapinas anhelauerant,’ W. M. i.
129.
[552] Rev. C. S. Taylor, Origin of the Mercian Shires, p. 3.
[553] Below, § 90. Cf. M. H. Turk, The Legal Code of Alfred the Great,
pp. 50, 51 (a very useful monograph); Schmid, Gesetze, pp. xxxvii ff.
[554] ‘licet enim, ut quidam ait, leges inter arma sileant, ille
inter fremitus armorum leges tulit,’ Gesta Regum, i. 129; cf. Robert
of Gloucester, i. 392: ‘Vor þey me segge þat lawes beþ in worre tyme
uorlore, Nas it noȝt so bi is daye, vor þei he in worre were, Lawes he
made riȝtuolore and strengore þen er were.’ Cf. Chron. Rames., p. 13:
‘Alfredus rex Anglicarum legum conditor.’
[555] Turk, u. s. p. 35.
[556] ‘þæt it here name,’ Turk, p. 74; Schmid, p. 62; ‘here’ is the
regular name for the Danish, as ‘fyrd’ is for the native host.
[557] Turk, p. 100; Schmid, p. 94.
[558] Turk, p. 82; Schmid, p. 66; Alfred’s idea that it was Christianity
which first allowed money-compensation for offences is interesting,
though unhistorical. The same idea occurs Oros. 48, 32.
[559] Turk, p. 84; Schmid, p. 72.
[560] Turk, p. 96; Schmid, p. 88.
[561] Turk, p. 80; Schmid, p. 66.
[562] e.g. by Schmid, p. xxxix.
[563] Matt. vii. 12, which gives the rule in its positive, and not in its
negative form.
[564] Turk, pp. 37, 38.
[565] 497 A-D [69-71].
[566] 497 A [69].
[567] Turk, p. 78; Schmid, p. 64.
[568] ‘omnia … iudicia, quae in sua absentia fiebant … inuestigabat; …
iudices aut per se ipsum, aut per … suos fideles … interrogabat,’ 497
C [70]; cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 183, 205, 208, 391; Pauli, König
Ælfred, p. 179.
[569] Birch, No. 591; K. C. D. No. 328.
[570] Josephus, Ant. xviii. 4, 6; cf. Schürer, Gesch. des jüdischen
Volkes, i. 356.
[571] Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 24.
[572] Cf. the very striking parallel of Charles the Great: ‘cum
aduerteret multa legibus populi sui deesse, nam Franci duas habent
leges [i.e. the Salic and Ripuarian] in plurimis locis ualde diuersas,
cogitauit quae deerant addere, et discrepantia unire, praua quoque …
corrigere; sed de his nihil aliud ab eo factum est, nisi quod pauca
capitula … legibus addidit,’ ibid. c. 29.
[573] Above, § 11.
[574] Probably Long Dean, three miles from Swanborough Tump, which is
between Pewsey and Woodborough, Wilts. [I give this statement as I find
it, but I have searched the six-inch Ordnance map in vain.]
[575] Birch, No. 553; K. C. D. No. 314; and elsewhere.
[576] This is specially noticeable in the matter of grants of land,
Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 193.
[577] Stubbs, u. s. i. 129, 130, 240.
[578] Preface to Pastoral Care.
[579] Col. 1777.
[580] ‘the veil of ninth-century darkness,’ Stubbs, u. s. i. 236.
[581] Ed. Migne, col. 719.
[582] Cf. Pauli, p. 153.
[583] Mansi, Concilia, xvii. 54; Jaffé, Reg. Pont. p. 270; Chron. ii. 87.
[584] Spelman’s Life of Alfred, ed. Hearne, pp. 219 ff. I owe the
reference to Mr. Macfadyen.
[585] Pertz, xiii. 566-8; W. M. II. xlvii.
[586] Birch, No. 582; K. C. D. No. 327.
[587] First printed by Cockayne in The Shrine; reprinted in Englische
Studien, xviii, where the pagination of Cockayne’s edition is retained. I
cite the pages of Cockayne’s edition.
[588] See below, § 115.
[589] ‘ic cwæðe þeah þæt hyt si preostum betere, næbbe ðonne hæbbe,’ [sc.
wif], p. 183; so in the Orosius, 290, 1. 2, Alfred strongly condemns the
compelling of monks to military service.
[590] Asser, 493 C [60].
[591] Ibid. 495 A [64]. W. M. says that in the Nuns’ Chapterhouse at
Shaftesbury was a stone, transferred thither from the walls of the town,
with this inscription: ‘Anno Dom. Inc. Elfredus rex fecit hanc urbem
DCCCLXXXᵒ. regni suo VIIIᵒ,’ G. P. p. 187 (cf. Lib. de Hyda, p. 49, which
reads reparauit’ for ‘fecit’). This shows that Shaftesbury was one of
Alfred’s ‘burgs,’ and it occurs in the Burghal Hidage with a territory of
700 hides, Maitland, Domesday, p. 503. It certainly has a most commanding
position.
[592] See the document by which Edward acquires land for carrying out his
father’s intentions, Birch, No. 605; K. C. D. No. 1087. The so-called
‘golden charter’ of foundation ‘pro anima patris mei Alfredi regis
_totius Anglie_ [!] _primi coronati_,’ is a flagrant forgery, Birch, No.
602, K. C. D. No. 336; cf. Liber de Hyda, pp. xxiii ff.
[593] 493 D [61].
[594] 494 [62-64].
[595] Asser, 496 A, B [67]; cf. Einhard, c. 27, for similar liberality on
the part of Charles the Great towards foreign Christians.
[596] 495 C-496 B [65-67].
[597] The ‘Modus tenendi Parliamenti’ (Stubbs’ Charters, pp. 502 ff.) is
a curious instance of a purely imaginary constitution giving itself out
as historical. It _may_ be as old as Edward I’s reign; if so, as Gneist
says, ‘es würde nur dann beweisen dass es schon damals Ideologen des
Feudalismus gab,’ Verwaltungsrecht, p. 393.
[598] Const. Hist. i. 105, 143.
[599] Above, §§ 35, 78.
[600] Asser, 496 C-E [68, 69].
[601] ‘tentoriorum tenuitates.’
[602] Weber, Weltgesch., v. 298; Oelsner, Jahrbücher des fränkischen
Reiches unter K. Pippin, p. 347: ‘direximus [uobis] … libros … insimul
artem gramaticam … geometricam … omnes Greco eloquio scriptas, necnon
et horologium nocturnum.’ Cf. also the very curious account given by
Einhard, Annals, ad ann. 807, of a striking clock given to Charles by the
king of Persia, cited in Hazlitt’s edition of Warton’s History of English
Poetry, i. 197.
[603] 492 C [58]; cf. Einhard, Vita Car., c. 16.
[604] Of Charles it is said: ‘Scotorum reges habuit ad suam uoluntatem,’
ibid.
[605] The Life of St. Gall, written in this very century, says: ‘nationi
Scotorum consuetudo peregrinandi iam paene in naturam conuersa est,’
Pertz, ii. 30; cf. Bede, ii. 170.
[606] See Chron. ii. 103-105, where these and other instances are
collected.
[607] 517 E.
[608] Above, § 27.
[609] Printed in Tobler, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae, and elsewhere.
[610] The nominal amount was however really doubled, because the Saracens
insisted on the money being paid by weight, and not by tale.
[611] At the mouth of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which is now
silted up, St. Martin, Dict. Géogr.
[612] St. Willibald in the preceding century (circa 720), took a very
different route. I give the principal stages only: The Seine, Rouen,
Gorthonicum(?), Lucca, Rome, Naples, Syracuse, Monemvasia, Cos, Samos,
Ephesus, Miletus, Cape Chelidonium, Cyprus, Emesa, Damascus, Jerusalem.
This also is printed in Tobler, u. s.
[613] 883, 887, 888, 889, 890.
[614] 889.
[615] Lib. ii. Prosa vii.
[616] Anglo-Saxon Version, ch. xvii; ed. Sedgefield, p. 40; the
translation which follows is taken mainly from Mr. Sedgefield’s handy
rendering of Alfred’s version into modern English, in which the passages
added by Alfred to his original are very conveniently indicated by
italics, p. 41.
[617] For Charles’ Court school cf. Weber, v. 392 ff.
[618] 485 D-486 C [42-44], 496 A [67].
[619] Writing to Offa Alcuin says: ‘ualde mihi placet quod tantam habetis
intentionem lectionis, ut lumen sapientiae luceat in regno uestro, quod
multis modo extinguitur in locis. Vos estis decus Britanniae, tuba
praedicationis, gladius contra hostes, scutum contra inimicos,’ Monumenta
Alcuiniana, p. 265.
[620] ‘Pleimundus … magister Elfredi regis,’ G. P. p. 20.
[621] Bede, ii. 55, 56. To avoid this ambiguity Lupus of Ferrières uses
the expression ‘sacerdos secundi ordinis,’ Vita S. Wigberti, c. 5.
[622] R. W. i. 324; he alters Werwulf’s name into Werebert, probably
because there was a bishop of Leicester of that name early in the ninth
century. There was an Athelstan bishop of Hereford early in the eleventh
century. This may give us an idea of Wendover’s critical skill.
[623] See Stubbs, W. M. II. xlviii.
[624] Above, p. 129.
[625] W. M. II. xliv ff.
[626] Johannes Longus, a later chronicler of St. Bertin’s, says that
Grimbald came to England in consequence of the murder of Fulk, archbishop
of Rheims, Pertz, xxv. 769; as the date of this was 900, the date of
Grimbald’s arrival would be thrown to the very end of Alfred’s reign.
The Liber de Hyda, p. 30, says that Grimbald was sent for by advice of
Archbishop Æthelred. This would make the invitation at least as early as
889. And the same authority, p. 35, places his arrival in 885. But I do
not attach much weight to any of these statements.
[627] Printed in Wise’s edition of Asser, pp. 123 ff., Birch, ii. 190
ff., and elsewhere.
[628] ‘nostrum est uobis illum canonice concedere,’ Wise, p. 128.
[629] e.g. by Pauli, u. s. p. 195; AA. SS. July, ii. 652.
[630] Wise, pp. 127, 128.
[631] Wise, p. 124.
[632] Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, i. 322.
[633] St. Grimbald’s mass day (July 8) is mentioned in the Chron. 1075 D
ad init. See Chron. ii. 122, 123.
[634] Above, p. 18.
[635] ‘inde perplures instituere studuit,’ Asser, 592 A [56].
[636] South of the Thames Alfred did not know a single priest at the time
of his accession, who knew Latin; south of the Humber there were very
few; north of the Humber he does not think there were many. This confirms
the view taken above, that Mercia was at this time intellectually the
least backward part of England. The reference to Northumbria implies
rather Alfred’s lack of accurate information, than any strong belief that
things were very much better there.
[637] ‘forðy me ðyncð betre, gif iow swa ðyncð,’ p. 7; cf. Solil. p. 169:
‘gyf þe nu þincð swa swa me þincð.’
[638] It is the combination of reading _with translation_ that is new.
The passage must not be interpreted as if Alfred now for the first time
began to read Latin.
[639] Asser, 491 C-492 B [55-57].
[640] ‘enchiridion … id est manualis liber,’ Asser; the equivalent Saxon
‘handbóc’ is found in some MSS. of W. M., i. 132 note.
[641] Gesta Pont., pp. 333, 336.
[642] i. 272.
[643] Article on the ‘Blostman’ in Paul and Braune’s Beiträge, iv.
119 ff. (1877). For Wülker’s later views, see Grundriss, pp. 390-392,
415-420. Later writers continue, however, to repeat Wülker’s earlier
views, e.g. Macfadyen, p. 330. Wülker sets aside the Florence of
Worcester reference, a little arbitrarily, as it seems to me, Beitr. u.
s. p. 128.
[644] Now at length (1900), after many vicissitudes and delays, edited by
Hans Hecht in vol. 5 of Grein-Wülker’s Bibliothek der angelsächsischen
Prosa.
[645] ‘Werfrithus … imperio regis libros dialogorum Gregorii papae … de
Latinitate primus in Saxonicam linguam, aliquando sensum ex sensu ponens
[hwilum andgit of andgite, Pref. Past. Care] elucubratim et elegantissime
interpretatus est,’ 486 E-487 A [46]; cf. W. M. i. 131. When Professor
Earle says (Essays, p. 197) that the authority for Werferth’s authorship
of this translation ‘is late and of doubtful value,’ he goes much further
in rejecting Asser than I can go.
[646] So in both MSS. according to Hecht, and it certainly is so in
Hatton. But I suspect that in the original MS. there was simply a capital
G., standing for ‘Gregories,’ which the scribes wrongly expanded. However
highly Alfred might think of Gregory’s works, he would hardly speak of
them as _God’s_ books.
[647] Plegmund, Asser, Grimbald, and John.
[648] Bede, ii. 70; Ebert, u. s. i. 546 ff. The fourth book of the
Dialogues had further a very great influence on the development of the
mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory.
[649] e.g. i. 2, 3, 7, 9, &c.
[650] Bampton Lectures, p. 74.
[651] ‘reliquiis quibus ille rex maxime post Dominum confidebat,’ 478 D
[28]; the candles which Alfred invented, ‘die noctuque … coram sanctis
multorum electorum Dei reliquiis, quae semper eum ubique comitabantur, …
lucescebant,’ 496 D [68]; cf. the (probably spurious) passage 485 B [41].
[652] ‘Die Verehrung der Reliquien und der Glaube an ihre Wunderkräfte
war kaum zu irgend einer Zeit grösser,’ Ebert, u. s. ii. 99. 334 ff.,
iii. 208 ff.; Gregorovius, iii. 72 ff.; Bede, ii. 157 f.
[653] The MS. of the revised version, Hatton 76, is mutilated near the
end of ii. 35, and has also several lacunae earlier in the work, Hecht,
p. ix.
[654] See H. Johnson, Gab es zwei … altenglische Uebersetzungen der
Dialoge Gregors? Berlin, 1884.
[655] e.g. 4, 14; 5, 1; 9, 19; 15, 9; 30, 21. Occasionally, though
rarely, the later version is the longer, e.g. 36, 20; 37, 27; 42, 28. The
references are to the pages and lines of Hecht’s edition, where the two
texts are very conveniently printed in parallel columns.
[656] e.g. 17, 1 ff.; 31, 28 ff.; 41, 24 ff.; 43, 7 f.; 46, 14 ff.; 62,
9 ff.; 67, 1; 81, 30 ff.; 108, 2; 126, 19; 127, 20 ff.; 128, 2; 133, 12;
136, 7; 139, 16; 140, 3; 141, 21; 163, 10.
[657] 35, 17 æmtignesse C = otio, ingange H = ostio; 89, 30 mid oþrum C =
cum aliis, mid fiðerum H = cum alis; at 145, 17 C is more correct than H,
unless this too rests on a difference of reading, molesta _for_ modesta;
the latter is certainly right. (C = unrevised, H = revised text.)
[658] I give a few examples of changes frequently made, with the number
of instances which I have noticed: _ongitan_ altered to _oncnawan_ (14
times; in three cases _ongitan_ is retained); _gangan_ to _stæppan_
(7); _tid_ to _tima_ (8; in four cases _tid_ is retained); _cniht_ to
_cnapa_ (19; in three cases _cniht_ is retained); _wise_ to _þing_ (17);
_semninga_ to _færinga_ (8); _hwæt_, as exclamation, inserted (9). There
are probably other instances of these changes which I have overlooked.
But these are sufficient to show that they were systematically made. And
the list could be easily enlarged.
[659] See above, pp. 34, 35.
[660] For this account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle I may refer generally
to the Introduction to vol. ii of my edition, especially §§ 62, 68, 83,
89, 93, 100-8.
[661] For the body of scribes maintained by Alfred see the little verse
Proem to the Pastoral Care; (the book itself is represented as speaking)
‘Ælfred kyning … me his writerum sende suð ⁊ norð; heht him swelcra ma
brengan bi ðære bisene,’ pp. 8-9.
[662] Below, § 99.
[663] ‘Psalterium transferre aggressus, uix prima parte explicata,
uiuendi finem fecit,’ G. R. i. 132. On Alfred’s fondness for the psalms
see above, pp. 16, 140; below, p. 153. It is worth notice that in Boeth.
xxxix. § 10 (p. 133), Alfred substitutes a quotation from the psalms, for
the Greek quotation of the original.
[664] See Bede, ii. 137; so in Anglo-Saxon we have ‘let him sing one
fifty,’ ‘two fifties,’ &c., ibid. 138; and add to the references there
given, Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 286.
[665] The MS. was edited by Mr. Thorpe for the Clarendon Press in 1835.
[666] See Wichmann in Anglia, xi. 41.
[667] Grundriss, p. 436.
[668] Anglia, xi. 39 ff.
[669] Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, ix.
43 ff.; also printed separately. To these two essays and Mr. Thorpe’s
Preface I owe several of the facts made use of in this section.
[670] ‘he witgode be him sylfum, hu his ealdormen sceoldon fægnian his
cymes of his wræcsiðe,’ Thorpe, p. 50; cf. Solil. p. 204, where it is
said how a man returned from exile remembers his past troubles, in
pleasurable contrast with his present good fortune.
[671] These colophons were sometimes mechanically copied by scribes, and
Thorpe suggested that such might be the case in the present instance.
If this were so, then it would not be necessary to prove identity of
handwriting in order to prove that the person referred to was the same.
[672] Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, I. xvi.
[673] It is not impossible that the whole tradition of Alfred having
translated the Psalter may have arisen out of the passage in Asser where
it is said that Alfred’s Encheiridion or Commonplace Book grew, ‘quousque
propemodum ad magnitudinem unius psalterii peruenerit,’ 492 B [57]. We
seem to have a trace of this confusion in the Eulogium Historiarum, iii.
9: ‘semper habebat librum in sinu quod ipse uocabat manuale, … quidam
dicunt hoc fuisse Psalterium.’
[674] ‘totum Nouum et Vetus Testamentum in eulogiam Anglicae gentis
transmutauit,’ p. 81 (Anglia Christiana Society edition). Ailred of
Rievaulx (also twelfth century) says ‘sacros apices in linguam Anglicam
uertere laborabat,’ col. 722.
[675] ‘plurimam partem Romanae bibliothecae Anglorum auribus dedit,’ G.
R. i. 132.
[676] Cf. the lines of Alcuin:—
‘Nomine Pandecten proprio uocitare memento
Hoc corpus sacrum, Lector, in ore tuo;
Quod nunc a multis constat Bibliotheca dicta
Nomine non proprio, ut lingua Pelasga docet.’
Dümmler, Poetae Latini Aeui Carolini, i. 283.
[677] Fulman, Scriptores, i. 79, 80.
[678] So Schmid, Gesetze, p. xli.
[679] Ingulf, u. s.; Chron. Evesham, p. 97.
[680] See Pauli, König Ælfred, pp. 241 ff. The Saxon life of St. Neot
speaks in very large terms of Alfred’s literary works, but gives no names
of any of them; for the Proverbs, cf. Ailred of Rievaulx, u. s.; Ann.
Winton. p. 10.
[681] See the references collected, Bede, ii. 70; Ebert, u. s. i.
551, 552. In Ælfric’s Canons it is mentioned among the books ‘which a
mass-priest needs must have,’ Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 350.
[682] Cura Past. i. 1; ‘cræft eabra cræfta,’ p. 45; Alfred uses exactly
the same expression, Solil. p. 180.
[683] Grundriss, pp. 394 ff.
[684] 133, 18 (ii. 7) an etymology of Gregory’s omitted; 135, 20 (ii.
7) an alternative interpretation omitted; 401, 28 (iii. 27) ‘masculorum
concubitores’ omitted; 461, 13 (iii. 40). The references are to the pages
and lines of Mr. Sweet’s edition; references to the books and chapters of
the original are given in brackets.
[685] 243, 11. 13; 253, 11; 275, 15; 277, 19; 299, 15. 17. 19. 21. 23;
301, 1. 3; 311, 25; 315, 24; 323, 4. 11. 25; 325, 5; 327, 1; 329, 22;
331, 6. 13; 343, 1; 367, 2; 369, 5; 371, 14; 373, 23; 377, 7. 25; 379,
3; 381, 12; 387, 25; 389, 9. 23; 395, 12; 405, 10; 409, 32; 413, 17. 21;
421, 10; 425, 30; 427, 28. 32; 433, 8. 18; 435, 9; 437, 19; 445, 19. 31.
35; 463, 20. 23; in two cases the references are wrong; at 91, 16 Mal.
ii. 7 is assigned to Zechariah, though Malachi is given in the original;
at 117, 7 1 Cor. iv. 21 is assigned to Galatians.
[686] 413, 10; 415, 5; 419, 6; 425, 20. 25; 429, 23; 435, 18; 465, 4. 14.
23.
[687] 474 B [16], 485 E [43], 491 C [55].
[688] 31, 21; 103, 5; 145, 20; 181, 12; 189, 7; 222, 22; 253, 12; 293, 2.
4; 301, 7; 401, 28; 421, 19.
[689] Cf. the marvellous etymology of ‘sacerdos,’ 139, 15.
[690] 37, 5 ff.; 43, 20; 101, 16 ff.; 117, 18.
[691] 43, 15.
[692] 125, 19.
[693] 169, 23.
[694] 439, 29; for other doubtful interpretations cf. 391, 23; 411, 10.
At 391, 23 is an insertion which is unintelligible to me. Possibly it
rests on some difference of reading in the Latin.
[695] 167, 2.
[696] Turk, u. s. pp. 37, 70; Schmid, p. 60; cf. also Boeth. xxxiv. § 8
(p. 89); Pss. ix. 9; xvii. 1; xxx. 3.
[697] 385, 22.
[698] 35, 23; cf. 63, 3; 373, 18 (_king’s_ highways). For thane cf. Bede,
pp. 122, 126, 134, 194.
[699] p. 197.
[700] So in the continental Heliand, cf. Ebert, u. s. iii. 102, 103; in
Andreas, ibid. 64; in Cynewulf’s Christ, the Angels are the thanes, ibid.
51.
[701] Orosius, pp. 218, 296; Solil. p. 196.
[702] See above, p. 123.
[703] 109, 13; 143, 1 ff.; 197, 9.
[704] 251, 18; cf. a similar but less striking instance, 421, 35.
[705] 263, 21.
[706] 129, 14 ff.; 157, 15 ff.; 215, 21 ff.; 271, 4. 5; 279, 15. 16; 283,
13 ff.; 291, 14 ff.; 306, 5 ff.; 343, 8 ff.; 375, 14 ff.; 387, 2 ff. 25
ff.; 397, 22 ff.; 433, 1 ff.; 437, 12 ff.; 445, 10 ff. (this expansion
of the metaphor of a boat making its way against the stream is of great
interest); 449, 2 f.; 451, 28 ff.; 465, 16 ff.
[707] 145, 20 ff.; 149, 24 ff.; 165, 13 ff.; 179, 10 ff.; 185, 24 ff.;
207, 18 ff.; 313, 1 ff.; 325, 8 ff.; 449, 5 ff.; 457, 3 ff.
[708] 75, 14 f.; 103, 25; 149, 4 ff.; 365, 3 ff.; 407, 23 ff.; 427, 17;
443, 10. This last instance is of some little interest; Alfred translates
‘quem Deus suscitauit solutis _doloribus_ inferni’ by ‘whom God raised up
to loose the _prisoners_ of hell.’
[709] Preface to Pastoral Care.
[710] 37, 11. 12; cf. 7, 17. 18; 103, 1.
[711] 59, 3 ff.
[712] 229, 3 ff. The very word ‘stælherigas’ occurs in the Chronicle, 897.
[713] 433, 27 ff.; cf. also Oros. 46, 34.
[714] Since writing the above account, I have read two careful German
dissertations on the relation of Alfred’s translation of the Cura
Pastoralis to the original, one by Gustav Wack, Greifswald, 1889; the
other by Albert de Witz, Bunzlau, 1889. They go into greater detail than
I have done, but come to much the same result.
[715] See the table in Wülker, Grundriss, p. 393. Wack, u. s. p. 58,
would put the Orosius even before the Cura Pastoralis.
[716] Wülker, u. s. p. 396.
[717] In his useful dissertation: Untersuchungen über K. Ælfred’s
Bedaübersetzung, 1889.
[718] Gegenwärtiger Stand der Forschung über K. Ælfred’s Bedaübersetzung,
1898 (Sitzungsber. of the Vienna Academy of Sciences).
[719] Cf. Ælfric’s saying: ‘every one who translates from Latin into
English should strive that the English may have its own idiom, otherwise
it is very misleading to any one who does not know the Latin idiom,’
Preface to Heptateuch.
[720] See below, and cf. Schilling: ‘there are many mistakes in
translation due to carelessness and want of grammatical knowledge,’ p. 9;
‘his knowledge of Latin was still small when he translated the Orosius,’
p. 61.
[721] pp. cvi-cviii.
[722] I did not then know that Mr. Sweet had already noticed this
affinity, though he gave no examples, and drew no inference from it,
Preface to Pastoral Care, p. xl.
[723] It is true that in the Orosius Alfred omits the conquest of Britain
by Claudius (vii. 6), but this may be, as Schilling suggests (p. 21),
from quasipatriotic motives, because of the ease with which the island
was conquered. He does however give it in the Bede (H. E. i. 3), and this
fact might be used as an argument in favour of the priority of the Bede
translation.
[724] Ed. Schipper, p. 13; the corresponding capitulum is however
translated in both recensions.
[725] Orosius, ed. Sweet, p. 238.
[726] ’mid dice ⁊ mid eorðwealle,’ ‘with ditch and earth-wall,’ ed.
Miller, p. 32.
[727] ‘het dician ⁊ eorðwall gewyrcan’ = _uallum fecerat_, ibid. p. 46;
cf. (of a different matter) ibid. p. 366: ’mid dice ⁊ mid eorðwealle utan
ymbsealde’ = circumuallante aggere.
[728] p. 270.
[729] Below, § 109.
[730] pp. 60, 22 ff.; 62, 9 ff.; cf. also Oros. 42, 14 with Boet. 1, 9.
10; Or. 56, 32 with Bo. 9, 29; 21, 1 &c.; Or. 220, 16 with Bo. 34, 29;
Or. 296, 8 with Bo. 7, 2. 3. In Oros. 72, 8 ff., Alfred seems to connect
the word Fabianus with faber (craftsman), as in Boethius he seems to
connect the name Fabricius with the same root, pp. 46, 165; one or two
other points of connexion between the Orosius and the Boethius are given
below (pp. 177 _n_, 184 _n_); cf. also B. xv, xvi § 1 (p. 34) with O. pp.
88, 220, 226 (Aetna); B. xvi § 1, 4, xxix § 2 (pp. 34, 39, 66) with O.
pp. 260, 262 (Nero).
[731] K. Ælfred’s angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Weltgeschichte des
Orosius (1886).
[732] Dr. Schilling gives the numbers rather differently, p. 6; I have
taken for the original the capitula as given by Zangemeister from the St.
Gallen MS.; for the translation, the capitula in Mr. Sweet’s edition.
[733] pp. 14 ff.
[734] pp. 17-19.
[735] pp. 19-21.
[736] 486 B [44].
[737] Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 21.
[738] 70, 22 ff.
[739] 106, 11 ff.
[740] 264, 2. 3.
[741] See Chron. II. cvi, 8. Joinville compares St. Louis to Titus,
‘dont les anciennes escriptures racontent, que trop se dolut, et fut
desconforté d’un jour que il n’avoit donné nul benefice,’ c. 142.
[742] ‘Alfred … Englene darling,’ from the so-called Proverbs of Alfred
printed in Kemble’s Salomon and Saturn, pp. 226 ff.; so Laȝamon, i. 269:
‘Alfred þe king, Englelondes deorling.’ It is noteworthy that W. M.
applies the term ‘deliciae Anglorum’ to Edgar, G. R. i. 164.
[743] One of the most interesting of these is the explanation of the
‘indomitae gentes’ against whom Severus built his wall, as ‘Picts and
Scots,’ 270, 12. For other interesting glosses, cf. 108, 16; 110, 34;
196, 24; 206, 35.
[744] I have counted thirty-six instances.
[745] 62, 9 ff.; cf. 92, 27 ff.
[746] 188, 3 ff.
[747] Above, p. 59.
[748] 174, 30 ff.; cf. 76, 4 ff. of Tomyris and Cyrus. Here the stratagem
in question is mentioned by Orosius, but Alfred expands the hint very
luxuriantly.
[749] Above, p. 99.
[750] 188, 8.
[751] Above, pp. 59, 102, 105-6.
[752] 172, 1 ff.; cf. also the account of Anthony’s ships, 246, 7 ff.
[753] Above, p. 113.
[754] 96, 12 ff.; cf. also 98, 12; 146, 17; 88, 3 ff.; 176, 14.
[755] 46, 15 ff.; see above, p. 110.
[756] Cited by Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, ii. 414 (ed. 1862)
from private sources.
[757] 74, 22 ff.; 210, 5 ff.; 248, 12 ff.; 290, 11 ff.
[758] 134, 10 ff.
[759] 68, 19 ff.
[760] 178, 9 ff. For Regulus, cf. also Boethius, xvi. § 2 (p. 37).
[761] 190, 17 ff.; 224, 24 ff.
[762] 242, 19. 20. 30 ff.
[763] 34, 34 ff.
[764] 224, 24 ff.
[765] 54, 16 ff. (Phalaris); cf. Boeth. xvi. § 2 (p. 37, Busiris).
[766] 296, 1 ff.; the ironical remark on the loyalty (hlafordhyldo) shown
by Rufinus and Stilicho to their master’s children.
[767] 136, 27 ff.
[768] Another change from similar motives is 52, 35 ff.
[769] Below, § 110.
[770] 32, 13 ff.; 58, 7 ff.; see Schilling, p. 56.
[771] The two Scipios, 224, 24 ff.; Sextus Julius Caesar and the Praetor
Cneius Pompeius, are confused with the two great rivals of later days,
and the whole account of the treatment of the former pair by the Senate
is extraordinarily funny, 234, 21 ff.
[772] The most remarkable instance of this is in the account of
Alexander’s successors and the territories which fell to their lot, 142,
26 ff. (Oros. iii. 23, 7 ff.).
[773] e.g. 190, 29; 218, 10; 264, 4 (this last may be due to a wrong
reading in the Latin text); 271, 17.
[774] 246, 16 ff.
[775] ibid. 32 ff.
[776] 250, 10 ff.
[777] Dr. Schilling has remarked (p. 59) that Alfred in the Orosius never
mastered the fact that a Roman might have not merely two but three names.
So when there are two consuls with three names each, he either makes
three persons out of them with two names each, e.g. 176, 32; 182, 5 &c.,
or he omits the two last names altogether, e.g. 202, 18; 204, 23 &c. By
the time he reached the Boethius he had overcome this difficulty. In two
places he says that Marcus was called by another name Tullius, and by a
third name Cicero, xviii. § 2, xli. § 3 (pp. 43, 143).
[778] p. 61.
[779] Above, p. 160.
[780] Paul und Braune’s Beiträge, iv. 127.
[781] Ed. 2, p. 196.
[782] Introduction (1890); Dr. Miller further enforced his view in a
monograph on the Place Names in the English Bede, Quellen und Forschungen
(1896). For a copy of this I was indebted to the writer.
[783] Above, § 98.
[784] Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 116-118.
[785] ibid. 358.
[786] ibid. i. 2.
[787] Prof. Schipper, Gegenwärtiger Stand, &c., p. 6.
[788]
‘He nom þa Englisce boc,
þa makede Seint Beda.’
Laȝamon, i. 2.
[789] ‘liber quem composuit in lingua Saxonica de Gestis Anglorum … cuius
copiam habui in Prioratu Canonicorum de Suthwyk,’ Anglia Sacra, i. 183.
This is interesting as showing that Saxon studies were not quite extinct
even in the fifteenth century. It is also interesting, because we can
almost certainly point to the very ‘copia’ used by Rudborne. It is the
Cotton MS. Otho B. XI. This is now terribly injured, owing to the great
Cottonian fire of 1731. But Wanley (p. 219), who saw it when complete,
describes it as ‘exemplum antiquum primitus Eccles. Beatae Mariae de
Suwika’ (Southwick, Hants); cited, ed. Miller, I. xvi. Rudborne also
cites Alfred’s will, p. 206, though this does not agree with our copies.
[790] In vol. iv of Grein-Wülker’s Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa,
1897-1899.
[791] Gegenwärtiger Stand, &c., u. s. pp. 4, 5.
[792] Ed. Miller, p. xxiii; ed. Schipper, p. xxix.
[793] Above, § 88.
[794] I have shown above, p. 145, that there are certain words
characteristic of the earlier recension of the Dialogues which the
reviser systematically alters into others, _semninga_ into _færinga_,
_tid_ into _tima_, _ongitan_ to _oncnawan_, &c. In the Bede I have
noticed 32 instances of _semninga_, not one of _færinga_; 90 of _tid_,
none of _tima_; 10 of _ongitan_, 2 of _oncnawan_. I do not pretend that
my observations are exhaustive. The following words occur, so far as I
know, only in the Bede and in the Dialogues (the references are to the
pages and lines of Hecht’s and Miller’s editions respectively):—ágendlíce
= proprie, D 264, 26; B 30, 10 (in the sense of ‘arbitrarily’ it occurs
C. P. p. 144); allíc = catholicus, D 237, 20; B 312, 31; ancerlíf, D 210,
26; B 364, 30; brícsian, D 343, 37; B 244, 22; camphád, D 298, 8; B 480,
11; drihtenlíc, D 309, 26; B 158, 10; eardunghús, D 185, 16; B 366, 16;
efenceasterwaran, D 205, 1; B 62, 20; fordémedness, D 235, 14; B 34, 5;
forsettan (in sense of ‘obstruct’) D 258, 28; B 212, 16; fremsumlíce, D
242, 10; B 184, 23; gefeolan, D 336, 23; B 450, 28; gefremedness, D 318,
15; B 32, 7; gewinfullíc, D 222, 9; B 56, 9; gýmeléasness, D 208, 4; B
242, 28; ungebrosnendlíc, D 233, 15; B 378, 4; ungeæhtendlic, D 282, 21;
B 84, 12. This list too might be easily extended; and the whole subject
of the relation of the two works is well worthy of further examination.
No doubt the resemblance is partly due to the similarity of their
subject matter. The likeness of the two originals is also very strong
in parts; so much so indeed that I think that Bede must, consciously
or unconsciously, have modelled his style in the Hist. Eccl. on the
Dialogues of Gregory. Still the likeness between the two translations
is, I think, greater than one would expect in the case of two perfectly
independent translators, and points to their having been produced under
similar influences.
[795] e.g. 114, 29; 180, 15; 216, 9; the references are to the E. E. T.
S. edition by Dr. Miller.
[796] e.g. 38, 24; 50, 1; 226, 30; 274, 10.
[797] e.g. 36, 17; 122, 33; 190, 22. 30; 266, 32; 294, 23; 406, 21.
[798] e.g. 32, 7; 172, 28; 270, 33.
[799] Instead of the passive the impersonal active form is ordinarily
used in Anglo-Saxon; not ‘the land is called Kent,’ but, ‘one calls the
land Kent.’ In the Celtic languages the so-called passive really is, in
origin, an impersonal active form, which explains the (at first sight)
strange phenomenon that the ‘passive’ always takes an accusative after
it, see Zimmer, Keltische Studien, No. 8.
[800] e.g. 14, 27: ‘fram deaðes liðe,’ ‘a mortis articulo’ (lið =
joint); 32, 8; 128, 14; 214, 17; 269, 9; 274, 11; 278, 2; 294, 7; 308,
22; 336, 24; 370, 4; 462, 7; 478, 33. An interesting instance of taking
a metaphorical expression literally occurs 372, 14 (H. E. iv. 29). The
original is ‘incubuit precibus antistes’; this is translated ‘ða aðenede
se biscop hine in cruce ⁊ hine gebæd,’ ‘the bishop stretched himself in a
cross and prayed’; i.e. the translator understands by ‘incubuit’ what the
Irish call ‘cros-figil,’ or praying with the body stretched out prostrate
on the ground in the form of a cross.
[801] e.g. 282, 23; 294, 23; 450, 13; 482, 9.
[802] Gegenwärtiger Stand, &c., pp. 8-10.
[803] See the parallel texts in Schipper’s edition, pp. 266-270, 273-275.
[804] ibid. 271-272 (= Miller, p. 206). This passage relates to the
Easter Controversy.
[805] ibid. 276-285 (= Miller, pp. 210 ff.). Another passage, Schipper,
pp. 133-140 (= Miller, pp. 110 ff.), is omitted in two of the younger
group of MSS.; but as it is contained in the third, its omission in the
two others was probably due to some mutilation of their common original.
[806] Above, § 98.
[807] H. E. i. 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32; ii. 4, 8, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19; v.
21.
[808] H. E. i. 23; iii. 29; the Canons of the Council of Hertford are
retained, iv. 5.
[809] ibid. i. 27.
[810] ibid. iv. 20; v. 7, 8, 19; ii. 1, is an exception; here Gregory’s
epitaph is translated into prose.
[811] ibid. ii. 2 (a few lines); iii. 3 (part), 4, 17 (part omitted in
older recension); 25, 26, 28 (a few lines); v. 21.
[812] Bede, I. xxxix ff.
[813] See Miller, pp. lvii ff.; and cf. the characterisation Aidan as
‘the _good_ bishop,’ 246, 26. One notes too with pleasure the omission
of the epithet ‘prudens’ which Bede strangely applies to Coifi’s purely
material arguments in favour of Christianity, 134, 23 (H. E. ii. 13).
[814] H. E. i. 2, 6 (this passage about Carausius is omitted also in the
Orosius; here the omission causes a serious perversion of meaning, what
is said of Carausius in the original being transferred to Maximianus in
the translation); 8 (the passage about Arianism in Britain omitted), 9,
10, 11 (much shortened), 17-22; ii. 1 (shortened). In many cases however,
in spite of the omission of a chapter, the capitulum belonging to it is
retained and translated.
[815] ibid. v. 15-17.
[816] Grundriss, p. 406. This is contested by August Schmidt, u. s. pp.
28 ff.
[817] Chronicle, II. xxi, lxi, lxviii, cxiii.
[818] e.g. 40, 8; 46, 11; 114, 11; 120, 7; 156, 1; 158, 28; 164, 14; 166,
32; 174, 25; 178, 17; 188, 23. 25 (name of Bamborough inserted, which
name is nowhere mentioned by Bede); 238, 31; 240, 27 (here the insertion
was necessitated by the preceding omission; so at 246, 33); 242, 19; 264,
11; 338, 8. 25; 374, 26; 390, 20; 394, 24. 29; 438, 1. 8; 464, 6.
[819] 166, 10 (the addition of ‘⁊ cyste,’ ‘and kissed it,’ to the account
of Aidan blessing Oswald’s bounteous hand); 162, 2; 370, 29; 380, 18;
412, 15; cf. 58, 26; 102, 31; 130, 32; 174, 30 ff.; 184, 34; 232, 19.
[820] 32, 10.
[821] 42, 16.
[822] 246, 26.
[823] e.g. 240, 20; 256, 8; 346, 7; 390, 6; 422, 8; 424, 20; 428, 24;
442, 27. 29; 456, 13.
[824] 382, 19; 422, 15 ff.; 448, 19; 466, 27.
[825] 52, 5. 11; 166, 23; 278, 30.
[826] 144, 9; 186, 33; 216, 23; 448, 10.
[827] 150, 13; 154, 19; 156, 5; 166, 16; 178, 14; 182, 11; 202, 12; 268,
13 (a reference to one of Bede’s teachers); 446, 19 (statement that
Daniel was still bishop of Winchester); 472, 23 (the statement that the
Britons still retained their incorrect Easter, though all the Celts had
submitted before the end of the eighth century; see Bede, I. xxxix). In
one case Alfred by inserting the words ‘oð þas tid,’ ‘up to the present
time,’ does seem to pledge himself to the truth of the statement in his
own day, 176, 20.
[828] 152, 23 (Municipium treated as a proper name); 292, 20; 334, 7;
340, 34; 370, 15.
[829] 118, 7 (_episcopum_ instead of _episcopium_; this misreading is
found in some Latin MSS.); 154, 3; and 306, 20 (_troicus_ instead of
_tragicus_ or _stragicus_); 242, 31 (_a Deo_ instead of _adeo_); 340,
8 (_de tecto_ instead of _detecto_); 388, 33 (_praeponere_ instead of
_proponere_); 436, 26 (_siuimet_ [i.e. _sibimet_] instead of _suimet_).
[830] 4, 2 ff.; 98, 6; 236, 7 ff.; for lesser divergences cf. 178, 22;
258, 15; 388, 6.
[831] e.g. Pope Gregory and the Anglian slave boys, 96, 31; the death of
Cædmon, 348, 10.
[832] Const. Hist. i. 70, 71, 111.
[833] I give a list of the more important terms:—heretoga = dux, 148;
ealdormen ⁊ heretogan = duces regii, 236; ealdorman, which in some
applications is equivalent to heretoga, is a vaguer and more general
term, and represents a considerable number of Latin expressions; thus
ealdormen = duces, 134, 158, 302; = maiores natu, 136, 158; = maiores,
348, 442, 450; = principes, 198, 240, 316, 334; = satrapae, 414; =
subreguli, 298 (_bis_); ealdorman = maior domus regiae, 256 (of Ebroin);
þegna aldormon = primus ministrorum, 264; gerefa = praefectus, 194,
256; tun gerefa = uillicus, 344, 414; geþeahteras = consiliarii, 136,
454; witan = consiliarii, 134; = seniores, 452; in gemote heora weotona
= in conuentu seniorum, 162; þegn = minister, 134, 146, 158, 196, 294,
462; cf. þinen = ministra, 318; þegnung = ministerium, 196; cwene þegn
= reginae minister, 330; cyninges þegn = minister regis, 328; = miles
regis, 150; = miles, 222, 302, 326 (_bis_), 418, cf. 436; þegn = miles,
194; gesið = comes, 194, 228, 274, 292, 326, 394; gesiðmann = comes, 22
(_bis_); æðelingas = nobiles, 138, 240, 242 (this is important as showing
that æðeling was not restricted, as in later usage, to members of the
royal house, though it is used of them, as the following examples show);
æðeling (of a king’s brother), 324; se geonga æðeling = regius iuuenis,
iuuenis de regio genere, 130, 306; æðelingas þæs cynecynnes = nobiles
ac regii uiri, 140; here = hostilis exercitus, 54; = exercitus, 356;
fyrd = exercitus, 102; = expeditio, 30; fyrd ⁊ here = bellum, 168, 208;
cynelic tun = uilla regia, 140; cyninges bold = uilla regia, 140; ham =
uicani, 180; tunscipe = uicani, 416; wiic = mansio, 332, 388; sundorwic
= mansio, 262; boclanda æht = praediorum possessiones, 236; heowscipe
= familia (hide), 332; hiwisc = familia (hide), 456 (_bis_); hired =
domus (household), 144; higna ealdor = pater familiae, 180; geferscipe
= domus (household), 264; = clerus, 248, 398; cf. mid his geferum = cum
clero suo, cum clericis suis, 364, 402; his preost ⁊ hond þeng = clericus
illius, 456; ealdordom = primatus, 368; aldorbiscop = metropolitanus
episcopus, 408; regolweard = praepositus, 362; so: prafost ⁊ regolweard,
360; prafost ⁊ ealdorman = propositi 232 (these three examples refer to
the prior or provost of a monastery). In the Orosius we have æðelingas
= regii iuuenes, 44; ealdorman = praefectus, 60, 84; but the most
interesting instance is: Asiam [he] hæfde Romanum to boclande geseald =
traditam per testamentum Romanis Asiam, 224; cf. the Soliloquies, p. 164:
‘ælcne man lyst siððan he ænig cotlyf on his hlafordes _læne_ myd his
fultume getimbred hæfð, þæt he hine mote hwilum þaron gerestan, … oð þone
fyrst þe he _bocland_ ⁊ ece yrfe þurh his hlafordes miltse geearnige.’
At p. 176 of the same work is a passage which perhaps illustrates the
date of the use of seals in England, for I do not think there is anything
corresponding to it in the original: ‘geþene nu gif ðines hlafordes
ærendgewrit ⁊ his insegel to ðe cymð.’ Another interesting passage
illustrating the meeting of the Witan, the gathering of the fyrd, the
king’s household, &c., is at p. 187: ‘geðenc nu hweðer awiht manna cynges
ham sece þer ðær he ðonne on tune byð, oððe his gemot, oððe his fyrd’
&c.; cf. also pp. 200, 204. It is worth noting that the word ‘carcern,’
‘prison,’ occurs first in Alfred’s Laws (see Schmid, Gesetze, Glossary,
s. v.), and is also of frequent occurrence in his works, Past. p. 329;
Oros. p. 214; Boeth. i. (pp. 7, 8), xviii. § 4 (p. 45), xxxvii. § 1
(p. 111); Solil. pp. 202, 203. In the Psalter, which is possibly by
Alfred, we have mention of the two _shires_ of Judah and Benjamin, ed.
Thorpe, p. 113; cf. ibid. 29 for an interesting reference to measurement
of land with ropes. In the Dialogues we have the following: geréfa =
praefectus, 340; = tribunus, 220; geréfman = primarius, 222; = curialis,
308; geréfscír = locus praefectorum; práfost = praepositus (in monastic
sense), 344; ealdorman = comes, 220, 301. An interesting word is
wlíte-weorð, literally ‘face-price’ = ransom, 179.
[834] See Stewart’s Boethius, p. 172; Moore, Dante Studies, i. 279-83;
it may be noted that Augustine, Orosius, Gregory, Bede, and Boethius,
all occur in Alcuin’s catalogue of the York Library, De Sanctis Ebor.
vv. 1535 ff. Still more interesting is the fact that Augustine, Orosius,
Boethius, Bede, are mentioned within a few lines of one another,
Paradiso, x. 118-32.
[835] On Boethius generally, see Boethius, an essay by H. F. Stewart,
1891, a book from which I have learnt much. See also the article on
Boethius in Dict. Christ. Biog.
[836] Stewart, p. 54.
[837] ibid., 78.
[838] Mr. Stewart, p. 106, puts it the other way; but I think the above
statement does fuller justice to Boethius.
[839] Henry of Huntingdon and Petrarch among others wrote treatises De
Contemptu Mundi. Boccaccio, as Mr. Archer reminds me, wrote a treatise De
Casibus illustrium uirorum, on which Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale with the same
title is founded.
[840] From a poem De Contemptu Mundi by Jacopone; Trench’s Sacred Latin
Poetry, 3rd ed., p. 270. The Rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix, from which
come ‘Jerusalem the Golden,’ ‘Brief life,’ &c., has the same title.
[841] Stewart, p. 203.
[842] ‘Misimi a leggere quello non conosciuto da molti libro di Boezio,
nel quale, cattivo e discacciato, consolato s’ avea,’ Conv. ii. 13. This
statement that the book was ‘not known by many’ is curious. On the use of
Boethius by Dante, see Dr. Moore, u. s. pp. 282-8, 355, 356.
[843] I have not read this book myself; but More’s great-grandson
Cresacre More describes it as ‘a most excellent book, full of spiritual
and forcible motives, expressing lively Sir Thomas’ singular resolution
to apply all those wholesome medicines to himself,’ Life of Sir T. More,
ch. x. ad init.
[844] c. viii, Sedgefield, p. 20; cf. c. vii. § 2, p. 15.
[845] In Memoriam, vi.
[846] Matthew Arnold, Geist’s Grave.
‘Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.’
[847] On the strength of this, Boethius obtained the honours of
saintship, Moore, u. s. p. 282. Dante places Boethius in heaven, but
among the theologians in the Sun, Paradiso, x. 124 ff., not among the
warriors and martyrs of the Cross in Mars; though he says of his soul—
‘Ed essa da _martiro_
E da esilio venne a questa pace.’
[848] Stewart, p. 33.
[849] Stewart, pp. 1 ff.
[850] ibid., pp. 108 ff.
[851] ‘Uti in Timaeo Platoni nostro placet, in minimis quoque rebus
diuinum praesidium debet inplorari,’ Lib. III, Prosa ix.
[852] Vol. xciv, 149 ff.; many of Dr. Schepss’ instances are reproduced
in Mr. Sedgefield’s Introduction, pp. xxxi ff. Among the most distinctly
Christian interpretations are: the references to the heavenly Jerusalem,
c. v. § 1 (p. 11), cf. c. xxxvi. § 2 (p. 105); and to the martyrs, c. xi.
ad fin. (p. 26); the beautiful saying that ‘Christ dwelleth in the valley
of humility,’ c. xii (p. 27); the Christian application given to the
fable of Eurydice, c. xxxv. ad fin. (p. 103); the identification of the
rebellion of the giants with Nimrod’s building of the Tower of Babel, c.
xxxv. § 4 (p. 99).
[853] Thus the addition in c. xxiv. § 3 (p. 54) on the worth of friends,
is a repetition of c. xx. ad fin. (p. 48); the sentence against living
a soft life, c. xxxix. § 10 ad fin. (p. 133), anticipates c. xl. § 3
(p. 138); the thought that the temporal prosperity of the good is a
foreshadowing of their eternal happiness, c. xxxix. § 11 (p. 134),
anticipates c. xl. § 2 (p. 137).
[854] Above, § 87.
[855] c. xvii. pp. 40, 41.
[856] c. vii. § 3 (p. 18).
[857] c. xviii. § 4 (p. 45).
[858] c. xiii. (p. 28).
[859] c. xxx. §§ 1, 2 (p. 69).
[860] c. xxxvi. § 8 (p. 110); c. xli. § 2 (p. 142).
[861] c. xli. § 2 (p. 142).
[862] ibid. § 3 (p. 144).
[863] See note 2, p. 181.
[864] c. vii. § 3 (p. 18).
[865] c. xii. ad fin. (p. 27).
[866] Clarendon Press, 1900.
[867] See pp. 26, 27, 34, 53 (simile of the rivers and the sea, repeated
pp. 82, 83, 86); 57 (the wheel, repeated p. 81, and p. 129, where there
is a hint of it in the text, which is most elaborately developed under
the influence of a commentary); 70, 72, 86 (similes of the stars and of
soul and body); 90 (the ingot); 93 (sifting meal); 108 (child riding a
hobby-horse); 97 (chink in the door); 117 (scattered like smoke); ibid.
(crash of a falling tree); 121 (weak eyes); 144 (steersman foreseeing the
tempest).
[868] Cf. Earle, Alfred Jewel, pp. 161 ff.
[869] See especially cc. xxxix-xli; cf. also c. v. § 3, c. xi. § 2, c.
xx. ad init.; cf. above, p. 159.
[870] Paradise Lost, ii. 557 ff.
[871] c. xxxix. § 8 (p. 131).
[872] Cf. Dante, Purg. xvi. 70-2.
[873] c. xli. § 2 (p. 142).
[874] ibid.
[875] ibid. § 3 (p. 143).
[876] ibid. (p. 144). Dante has a still more subtle comparison—
‘La contingenza …
Tutta è dipinta nel cospetto eterno.
Necessità però quindi non prende,
Se non come dal viso in che si specchia
Nave che per corrente giù discende.’
Parad. xvii. 37-42.
[877] Sciphere, c. xv (p. 34).
[878] c. xix (p. 46).
[879] c. xxix. § 3 (p. 67); cf. the Orosius translation, pp. 10, 24.
[880] c. xiii (p. 28).
[881] c. xiv. ad init. (p. 29).
[882] c. xxv (p. 57).
[883] See note 2, p. 181.
[884] c. xxix. § 1 (p. 65).
[885] c. xxix. § 1 (p. 65).
[886] c. xxxiv. § 8; cf. Spenser’s musical lines:
‘Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.’
Faerie Queene, I. ix. 40; cf. II. xii. 32.
[887] pp. xxv ff.
[888] The statement of the late Liber de Hyda, p. 44, that Werferth
translated the Boethius for Alfred, as well as the Dialogues, is totally
unsupported, and the style of the two works is as different as possible.
[889] 519 A; he calls it ‘liber Boetii lachrymosus’; he says, however,
that Alfred translated other works ‘numero ignoto.’
[890] Otho A. vi, of the tenth century, but much injured in the Cottonian
fire of 1731.
[891] Bodl. 180 (2079); early twelfth century. There are also some
transcripts and various readings taken by Junius from these two MSS.
[892] Lib. I. metr. 6; Lib. II. metr. 2; Lib. IV. metr. 7. The reason of
this omission is probably due to the fact, that in these three instances
Alfred’s prose translation omits the formula with which it generally
introduces the Metra: ‘Then Wisdom began to sing.’ This has been made
an argument against Alfred’s authorship of the Metra. But it is surely
quite possible that Alfred, coming back to his work after some time (see
below, pp. 189 f.), and making his alliterative version without fresh
reference to the Latin, should, in the absence of the usual formula, have
overlooked the poetical character of these sections. In one case, Lib. I.
metr. 7, the introductory formula is wanting, and yet the section exists
in the verse translation. But here the poetical character of the section
is much more obvious, and it is followed by a formula which often follows
the Metra, ‘then was Wisdom silent for a while,’ c. vii. ad init.; so cc.
xvii. ad init., xxiv. ad init., xxxix. §§ 2, 4, xli. § 2. A still more
frequent concluding formula is ‘ða ongan he eft spellian.’
[893] Sedgefield, pp. 1, 151.
[894] e.g. Leicht: ‘schon die veränderte Form, die Alliteration und
der mit ihr verbundene Stil _mussten_ darauf führen dass neue Gedanken
angeregt wurden, wenn der Dichter derselben fähig war,’ cited in Wülker,
Grundriss, p. 431. This ‘mussten’ is, to use a favourite formula of
German criticism, ‘rein willkürlich.’
[895] So Hartmann, in Wülker, p. 425.
[896] Of Betty Foy he says, ‘I never wrote anything with so much glee’;
of Laodamia, ‘It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal
length I have ever written,’ Morley’s edition, pp. 88, 530.
[897] p. 167: ‘Tres Eryci uitulos, et Tempestatibus agnam,’ Aen. v. 772.
[898] The passage occurs both in the Gesta Regum and in the Gesta
Pontificum. In the former it runs thus: ‘sensum librorum Boetii de
Consolatione planioribus uerbis enodauit, quos rex ipse in Anglicam
linguam uertit,’ i. 131; in the latter ‘elucidauit’ is substituted for
‘enodauit,’ and the supercilious words are added: ‘labore illis diebus
necessario, nostris ridiculo,’ p. 177. The G. Pont, is later than the G.
Regum, see G. R., I. xix.
[899] Grundriss, p. 427.
[900] u. s., p. 159.
[901] u. s., p. 193.
[902] The first edition would probably have no preface of its own,
because Alfred regarded it as only a preliminary draft.
[903] Stewart, u. s., p. 202.
[904] c. xxxix. § 4 ad fin. (p. 127). Leicht is absolutely arbitrary
when he says: ‘wir dürfen nicht annehmen dass er, als er an seine
Prosa-Uebersetzung ging, schon den Plan hatte, später der Form seiner
Vorlage insofern mehr Gerechtigkeit widerfahren zu lassen, als er die
Metra in das Gewand der angelsächsischen Dichtung kleiden wollte,’
Wülker, p. 430. This is precisely what we may very fairly suppose on the
evidence.
[905] In Wülker, Grundriss, p. 426; e.g. ix. 61 (p. 164), xxi. 3, 4 (p.
185), xxvi. 3 (p. 193), xxvii. 30 (p. 198).
[906] The two points in which the Metra are said to show less accuracy
than the prose version, viz. the making Ulysses king of Thracia instead
of Ithaca, and calling Homer the _friend_ as well as the teacher of
Virgil, are possibly merely due to the needs of alliteration, xxvi. 7;
xxx. 3 (pp. 193, 203). Almost the only thing in the Metra to which there
is nothing corresponding in the prose version is the well-known simile
of the egg, xx. 169 ff. (p. 182), and this, though possibly suggested
by a commentary, is thoroughly Alfredian. Editors have, I think, unduly
prejudiced the question by either omitting the Metra altogether (as
Cardale, who merely gives one as a specimen), or printing them as a sort
of appendix at the end. It would be fairer to print them in the text in
parallel columns with the prose version, an arrangement which would also
greatly facilitate the study of them. They have, be it remembered, the
authority of the MS. which is by nearly 200 years the more ancient of the
two.
[907] On the editions of this work, see above, p. 128, note 4. See also
Professor Wülker’s interesting Essay, Paul und Braune, Beiträge, iv. 101
ff., to which I am much indebted; also Grundriss, pp. 415 ff.
[908] Wülker, Beiträge, pp. 119, 120.
[909] ‘Delectabatur et libris S. Augustini, praecipueque his qui de
Ciuitate Dei praetitulati sunt,’ Einhard, c. 24.
[910] Above, p. 141.
[911] Grundriss, p. 419.
[912] Above, § 90.
[913] Beiträge, u. s. pp. 129, 130.
[914] Evil is really non-existent, Boethius, xxxv. § 5, xxxvii. § 4 (pp.
100, 114); Blooms, p. 165. God the highest good and happiness, Boet.
xxxiv. §§ 2, 5, 6 (pp. 84, 86, 87); Bl. p. 166. God regulates all things
with His bridle, Boet. xx. § 1 (p. 49); Bl. p. 168. God gave freedom
to men, Boet. xli. §§ 3, 4 (pp. 143, 145); Bl. p. 168. The open door,
Boet. xxxv. § 3 (p. 97); Bl. p. 169. Metaphor of the Egg, Boet. Metr.
xx. 169 ff. (p. 182); Bl. p. 174 (this has an important bearing on the
authorship of the verse translation of the Metra). Calm haven (weather)
after storms, Boet. xxxiv. § 8 (p. 89); Bl. p. 179. Metaphor of weak
eyes, Boet. xxxviii. § 5 (p. 121); Bl. p. 182. Against a soft life,
Boet. xl. § 3 (p. 138); Bl. p. 184. The leech gives different kinds of
medicine, Boet. xxxix. § 9 (p. 132); Bl. p. 189. Things lighted by the
sun, Boet. xxxiv. § 5 (p. 86); Bl. p. 180. Men and angels immortal,
Boet. xlii. (p. 148); Bl. p. 191. Various paths all leading to one end,
Boet. xxiv. § 1 (p. 52); Bl. p, 187. The soul released from prison at
death, Boet. xviii. § 4 (p. 45); Bl. p. 202. For an analysis of the
thought and diction of the ‘Blooms’ as compared with the Boethius, see
a good Essay by F. G. Hubbard, Modern Language Notes, ix. 322 ff. My
own list was made independently. Mr. Hubbard remarks that in several
cases a passage, which is an addition to the original in the ‘Blooms,’
corresponds with a translated passage in the Boethius. This seems to show
that the Anglo-Saxon Boethius was one of the sources of the ‘Blooms,’
which must therefore be later than the Boethius. There is a dissertation
by Hulme: Die Sprache der altengl. Bearbeitung der Soliloquien, Freiburg
im Breisgau, 1894; but it is purely philological. A new edition of the
‘Blooms’ may be expected shortly from Mr. H. L. Hargrove of Yale.
[915] See above, pp. 159, 183-4.
[916] xi. § 2 (p. 26).
[917] pp. 192-5. 198, 199.
[918] See Ebert, Literatur des Mittelalters, i. 240, 241.
[919] Some of these are cited above, p. 194, note 1.
[920] p. 175; cf. p. 179; of this too there is an anticipation in the
Boethius, x. ad fin. (p. 23); cf. also the metaphor of the ship in Asser,
492 D [59].
[921] p. 200.
[922] p. 179.
[923] p. 204.
[924] Above, § 88.
[925] I do not, however, regard with some critics the occurrence of
military operations in any year as necessarily excluding all literary
activity in that year. Considering Alfred’s energy, and the fact that
military operations were to a large extent suspended in the winter, the
assumption seems to me rather rash; Asser distinctly says that Alfred
carried on his studies ‘inter omnia alia mentis et corporis impedimenta,’
488 D [50]; and Alfred tells how he began the Cura Pastoralis ‘ongemang
oðrum mislicum ⁊ manifealdum bisgum ðisses kynerices’; cf. also Boethius,
Prose Preface.
[926] W. M. II. lx. ff.
[927] ibid. i. 145; so in 838: ‘Imperator [Louis the Pious] filium
suum Karolum armis uirilibus, i.e. ense cinxit, corona regali caput
insigniuit,’ Theganus, Vita Hludouici, Pertz, ii. 643.
[928] See Chronicle, ii. 112-4; and add to the references there given,
Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. 267; and an interesting little
monograph on Alfred’s Boyhood and Death, by W. B. Wildman, Sherborne,
1898.
[929] Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 13. 67.
[930] ‘Pupillorum’; in Ps. ix. 34 (x. 16) ‘pupillo tu eris adiutor’ is
paraphrased ‘þu eart fultumiend þara þe nabbað nawðer ne fæder ne modor.’
Cf. the elegy on the death of Charles the Great:—
‘Pater cunctorum orphanorum, omnium
Peregrinorum, uiduarum, uirginum.’
Printed at the end of Einhard’s Life (ed. Pertz, 1863), p. 41.
[931] i. 116.
[932] p. 519 A.
[933] Preface to Pastoral Care.
[934] Henry VI in 1441 did apply to Eugenius IV for Alfred’s
canonisation, Bekynton’s Correspondence, i. 118, Rolls Series. I owe this
reference to an interesting article in the London Quarterly for January
1902, which only came into my hands after the first three lectures were
in type. The author, Mr. W. E. Collins, goes further than I can go in
rejecting Asser, but his article is well worthy of attention.
[935] See Pauli, u. s. p. 126; cf. Essays, p. 13.
[936] Heb. xi. 33, 34.
[937] ‘Henry stands with Alfred, Canute, William the Conqueror, and
Edward I, one of the conscious creators of English greatness.… If he
had been a better man, his work would have been second to that of no
character in history; had he been a weaker one than he was, England might
have had to undergo for six hundred years the fate of France,’ Stubbs,
Benedict of Peterborough, II. xxxiii, xxxvi.
[938] Sermon preached before the University on the Sunday following the
death of Her late Majesty; now printed as an appendix to the present
volume.
[939] Faust, Part I, Scene iv.
[940] Above, pp. 38, 120, 125-6, 129, 131, 135, 160, 191.
[941] Cf. Lord Rosebery’s inspiring address at Winchester (Humphreys’,
Piccadilly).
[942] Iliad, v. 303, 304.
[943] Cited by Ebert, ii. 151.
[944] ‘Usque ad quattuor milia quingenti traditi, et … in loco qui Ferdi
[Verden] uocatur, iussu regis omnes una die decollati sunt,’ Einhardi
Annales, sub anno 782.
[945] See above, p. 124.
[946] Tennyson, Guinevere.
[947] Above, p. 181.
[948] Hoveden, IV. lxxxi.
[949] Col. iv. 5; cf. 1 Thess. iv. 12.
[950] 1 Pet. ii. 12.
[951] 1 Cor. vii. 10-17.
[952] Matt. xiii. 33; Luke xiii. 21.
[953] John vi. 15.
[954] Luke xii. 14.
[955] Latham, Pastor Pastorum, pp. 403 ff.
[956] Gen. i. 27; Matt. xix. 4; Mark x. 6.
[957] Mark xii. 13 ff. and parallels.
[958] John xix. 11.
[959] Dante, Monarchia, Lib. i; cf. Purg. xxxii. 102:
‘Di quella Roma onde Cristo è Romano,’
though this is not the temporal, but the eternal Rome.
[960] Dante, Purg. x. 82 ff.; Parad. xx. 43 ff.
[961] 2 Cor. i. 4.
[962] 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2.
[963] c. lxi.
[964] Ad Philad. c. 6.
INDEX
[The references are to the Pages.]
Abel, _see_ Elias.
‘aedificia,’ special meaning of, in Asser, 46, 47.
Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester (934-51), 56 _n._
Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester, and archbishop of Canterbury, St. Neot
said to have been a friend of (!), 56.
Ælfric, the homilist, not the author of the Anglo-Saxon life of St.
Neot, 55, 56 _n._;
his views on the state of English learning, 82 _n._;
cites the Anglo-Saxon Bede as Alfred’s, but not the Dialogues, 167.
Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, 14.
Æthelbald, king of the West Saxons, 39 _n._;
matter relating to, in Asser, 14;
alleged rebellion of, 16, 76 _n._, 78, 79, 91;
alleged incestuous marriage of, 17, 52, 76 _n._, 80, 87;
governs Wessex in his father’s absence, 75, 79;
obscurity of his reign, 86, 87;
his death, 86;
his share of his father’s property, 90, 91.
Æthelberht, king of Kent, father of Eadbald, 80.
Æthelberht, king of the West Saxons, 39 _n._;
made under-king of Kent, 73-5, 79, 86;
retains Kent on his succession to Wessex, 86;
his struggle against the Danes, 79, 87;
his death, 88;
Alfred’s succession possibly arranged under, 89 _n._;
his share in his father’s property, 90, 91.
Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred, and wife of
Æthelred of Mercia, 35;
translates St. Oswald’s body to Gloucester, 35;
fortifies Worcester, 111;
attends the conference of Chelsea, 111;
military policy of, 111.
Æthelhelm, ealdorman of Wilts., co-operates against the Danes, 116.
Æthelnoth, ealdorman of Somerset, services of, against the Danes, 106,
116;
attacks the Danes at York, 117 _n._
Æthelred, king of the West Saxons, 39 _n._;
matter relating to, in Asser, 14;
his conduct at Ashdown, 16, 93, 94;
Alfred secundarius under, 40, 88-91;
confused with Alfred, and with Aldfrid, 65;
abstains from claiming Kent, 75, 86;
succeeds Æthelberht, 88;
relations of Alfred with, 88;
Burgred asks help of, 88;
marches to Nottingham, 88;
appoints Æthelred to Canterbury, 88 _n._;
his share of his father’s property, 90, 91;
his children, 91;
campaign of, against the Danes, 92-5;
his death, 92, 95;
his character, 95, 96;
interred at Wimborne, 98;
regarded as a martyr, 98 _n._
Æthelred, archbishop of Canterbury, 127;
appointed by Æthelred and Alfred jointly, 88 _n._;
letter of John VIII to, 127;
said to have advised the summoning of Grimbald, 138.
Æthelred, ealdorman of the Mercians, Witenagemóts held by, 13, 14;
husband of Æthelflæd, 35;
translates St. Oswald’s body to Gloucester, 35;
his pressure on the Welsh, 42;
his semi-royal position, 42;
London entrusted to, 109;
fortifies Worcester, 111;
attends the conference of Chelsea, 111;
acts as sponsor to one of Hæsten’s sons, 113;
co-operates with Edward, Æthelnoth, and Æthelhelm against the Danes,
115-6.
Æthelred II, king of the English, Edgar’s reign regarded as a golden age
under, 67.
Æthelweard, son of Alfred, said to have studied at Oxford, 63.
Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, St. Neot said to have been a friend of
(!), 56.
Æthelwulf, king of the West Saxons, 39 _n._;
Athelstan, king of Kent, probably brother of, 6 _n._;
said to have been in holy orders before his accession, 7;
matter relating to, in Asser, 14;
Burgred of Mercia asks help of, 85, 88;
his second marriage with Judith, 17, 78, 80 _n._;
stays at the Court of Charles the Bald, 17, 76, 78;
has a Frankish secretary, 17, 18;
Lupus of Ferrières corresponds with, 18 _n._, 71 _n._;
his liberality, 18 _n._, 71 _n._;
reduces Wales under Burgred, 37, 85;
has a shrine made for relics of St. Aldhelm, 47;
his will, 86, 90, 91, 126;
St. Neot made son of, 6, 55, 57;
letter of Leo IV to, 70, 72;
his visit to Rome, 74-6, 84, 86;
letter of, to Louis the Pious, 74;
divides his dominions, 75, 86;
restores the Schola Saxonum, 76;
his return to England, 78;
alleged rebellion against, _see_ Æthelbald;
his death, 79, 84;
character of his reign, 85;
compared with Louis the Pious, 79, 80;
did not divorce Osburh, 84;
made under-king of Kent by Egbert, 85;
Ealhswith, daughter of, 88;
naval engagement under, 120.
Æthelwulf, ealdorman of Berkshire, defeats Danes at Englefield, 93;
slain, 93.
Alamanni, Charles the Fat, king of, 41.
Alcuin, letter of, to Offa, 136;
services of, to Frankish education, 137.
Aldfrid, king of the Northumbrians, confused with Æthelred, 65.
Aldhelm, St., bishop of Sherborne, Æthelwulf has a shrine made for the
relics of, 47;
Alfred’s admiration for the Saxon poems of, 141.
Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons, uncritical statements
relating to, 5-9;
not the inventor of shires, 6, cf. 121;
or of chapter-headings, 7;
not brother of St. Neot, 6, 56, 57;
probably nephew of Athelstan, king of Kent, 6;
historical authorities for reign of, 10-68;
laws of, 121-6;
preface to, 11;
relation of, to Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 11, 146-7, 173;
reticence of Chronicle as to, 11, 12;
panegyrics of Ethelwerd and Florence on, 12, 197-8;
not fully appreciated in his own day, 13;
his reign poor in charters, 13;
and in saints’ lives, 53;
will of, 14, 90-1, 126;
life of, by Asser, _see_ Asser;
skill of, in hunting, 16, 81, 83;
book of prayers, &c., always carried by, 16, 140;
Eadburh, maternal grandmother of, 16;
mysterious illness of, 16, 25-8, 215;
corresponds with Elias III, patriarch of Jerusalem, 16, 33, 34, 132;
educates a young Dane at Athelney, 16;
relates the story of Eadburh, 16;
imports Grimbald and John the Old Saxon from the Continent, 17, 137;
question of grant of Exeter to Asser by, 18-20, 215;
recovers Exeter from the Danes, 19, 101-2;
Asser enters service of, 19, 36-7, 42, 137;
his protection desired for St. Davids, 19, 42;
Welsh princes commend themselves to, 20, 36, 42, 43;
sends to Asser, 21;
born at Wantage, 22, 70;
legends relating to, 24, 56-9, 62-8, 73 _n._;
foreign relations of, 33, 131-5;
his fondness for Saxon poems, 38, 82, 83;
called ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’ in Asser, 39;
part of Mercia acquired by, 39;
power of, exaggerated by later writers, 39, 129 _n._;
occupation of London by, 39, 40;
his title of ‘secundarius,’ 40, 88-91;
Anaraut of N. Wales submits and becomes godson to, 42;
his interest in craftsmanship, 46, 47, 130-1;
ideal description of Court of, in Asser, 53, 130;
Danes try to seize, at Chippenham, 59, 102, 162;
withdrawal of, to Athelney, 57-9, 102;
confused with Æthelred, 65;
said to have sent alms to Jerusalem, 65;
false pedigree of, 65;
his alleged division of his time and revenues, 65 _n._, 130;
his fame obscured by Edgar, 67, 129;
date of birth of, 69, 70;
taken to Rome in 853, 70;
again in 855, 75, 76;
his confirmation and unction by Leo IV, 71-4, 76;
story of his learning to read, 81-4;
abstains from claiming Kent, 75, 86, 89;
relations of, with Æthelred, 88;
marches to Nottingham, 88;
joins in appointing Æthelred to Canterbury, 88 _n._;
marriage of, 91;
his year of battles, 92-5;
his accession and his task, 95-7;
question of his election, 91 _n._, 97-8;
his unwillingness to assume power, 97;
sends alms and missions to Rome, 12, 99, 134-5;
and India, 99, 134;
success of, against the Danes at London, 99, 100;
against a Danish fleet, 100;
fortifies Athelney, 102;
his successful campaign of Edington, 102-5, cf. 149, 162;
Guthrum submits and becomes godson to, 103;
importance of his victory, 105;
causes of success of, 105-7;
relieves Rochester, 107, 108;
sends a fleet against the East Anglian Danes, 64, 108;
gains possession of London, 108, 109;
the second founder of London, 109;
military reforms of, 110-2, 121;
holds a conference at Chelsea, 111;
exacts oaths from the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes, 113;
watches and negotiates with the Danes in Kent, 113, cf. 163;
acts as sponsor to one of Hæsten’s sons, 113;
relieves Exeter, 114-5;
restores Hæsten’s wife and sons, 115;
watches, and blockades the Danes on the Lea, 118;
his new ships, 118, 119;
his claim to be the founder of the English navy, 119, 120, cf. 163;
his administration of justice, 124-6;
relations of, to the Witenagemót, 126-7;
to the Church, 127-8;
attempts to revive monasticism, 128-9;
provides for foundation of the New Minster, Winchester, 129;
liberality of, to foreign monasteries, 129;
three ‘Scots’ come to, 131;
educational measures of, 135-40;
writes the Preface to the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues, 142-3;
character of his religious thought, 143-5;
body of scribes maintained by, 146 _n._;
said to have translated part of the Psalter, 147-9;
and the whole of the Bible, 150-1;
other works ascribed to, 151;
his intercourse with strangers, 160;
called ‘England’s darling,’ 161, 210;
his fondness for similes, 182-3;
chronology of his literary works, 137-8, 196;
invests his grandson Athelstan, 196;
death of, 11, 197-8;
buried at Winchester, 198;
lessons of life of, 198-200;
Henry VI applies for canonisation of, 199 _n._;
comparison of, with other sovereigns, 200-2, 210;
no deductions to be made from fame of, 202-3;
his translations valuable as authorities, 10, 11, 155, 164, 174, 181-5;
their educational purpose, 139, 140, 165;
their origin, 140;
the Handbook, 140-1.
_See_ Augustine, Bede, Boethius, Gregory, Orosius.
Alfred Jewel, the, 7, 47.
Aller, Somerset, Guthrum baptised at, 103.
Amazons, organisation of, 110, 163.
Anaraut, son of Rotri Mawr, king of N. Wales, submits to Alfred and
becomes his godson, 42, 71.
Anglia, use of term in Book of Llandaff, 39 _n._
Anglo-Saxons, Alfred called ‘king’ of, 39.
Annals of Asser, or St. Neot, _see_ Neot, St.
Appledore, Kent, Danes entrench themselves at, 112.
Aquitaine, kings of, _see_ Carloman, Louis the Pious.
Arnulf, Emperor, deposes Charles the Fat, 17, 41 _n._;
king of the Eastern Kingdom, 41 _n._;
defeats the Danes on the Dyle, 112.
Arthur, King, Alfred compared with, 104, 210.
Ashdown, Berks., solitary thorn marks the site of, 16, 94;
battle of, and Æthelred’s conduct at, 16, 93, 94.
Asser, bishop of Sherborne, 20, 127;
said to have brought Grimbald to England, 18, 139;
question of his appointment as bishop at Exeter, 18-20;
his reason for entering Alfred’s service, 19, 36;
date of his consecration as bishop uncertain, 19, 20;
called bishop of St. Davids, 20;
mentioned in the Preface to the Pastoral Care, 20, 52, 138, 143 _n._;
question of his illness, 21;
returns to St. Davids, 21;
Alfred sends to, 21;
his agreement with Alfred, 37, 137;
expelled from St. Davids by Hemeid, 42;
suggests the composition of the Handbook, 140;
said to have helped Alfred with the Boethius translation, 188-9.
Asser, life of Alfred attributed to, its composite character, 14, 15;
relation of Simeon of Durham to, 23, 31, 32, 34, 64;
relation of, to Chronicle, 14, 48-51, 93 _n._;
relation of Florence to, 15, 22, 23, 25, 28, 34, 49, 60, 64;
excessive self-assertion off, 15-17;
Frankish element in, 17, 18;
date of, 19, 29-33, 51, 52;
corruption of text of, 21-30;
MSS. of, 22, 32, 33;
Wise’s edition of, 22;
relation of Annals of Asser to, 22;
emendation of text of, 33-5;
Celtic characteristics of, 35-42;
knowledge of South Welsh affairs shown in, 35, 42-4;
does not exaggerate Alfred’s position, 39;
terminology of, in regard to the Carolingian Empire, 40, 41;
probably the work of a single hand, 44-8;
curious meaning of ‘aedificia’ in, 46, 47;
style of, 47, 48;
abrupt termination of, 51, 52;
probably genuine, but to be used with caution, 52, 214;
idealised description of Alfred’s Court in, 53, 130;
used by William of Malmesbury, 62.
Asser, Annals of, _see_ Neot, St.
Athelney, Somerset, unapproachable position of, 35;
Alfred’s withdrawal to, 57-9, 102, 105, 106;
Alfred fortifies, 102;
Alfred moves out of, 102, cf. 162;
monastery of, founded by Alfred, 68, 128;
disorders in, 129, 137;
young Dane educated by Alfred in, 16;
abbot of, _see_ John the Old Saxon.
Athelstan, under-king of Kent, 73;
not identical with St. Neot, 6;
probably Alfred’s uncle, 6;
fights a naval battle, 120 _n._
Athelstan, Mercian priest, chaplain to Alfred, 136.
Athelstan, bishop of Hereford, 137 _n._
Athelstan, king of the West Saxons, panegyrics on, in Chronicle and
Laws, 12;
William of Malmesbury’s special sources for reign of, 62;
investiture of, by Alfred, 196.
Augustine, St., bishop of Hippo, his Soliloquies, 194;
Alfred’s translation of, 10, 11, 128, 191-6;
relation of, to the Boethius translation, 194-5;
not identical with Alfred’s Handbook, 141, 192;
his De Ciuitate Dei, 157;
used by Alfred, 191;
a favourite book with Charles the Great, 191-2;
his De Videndo Deo, used by Alfred, 191.
Augustine, archbishop of Canterbury, complaints of, in regard to Welsh
baptisms, 42.
Bardney, Lincs, St. Oswald’s body removed from, 35.
Basing, Hants, battle of, 93, 95.
Bede, the Venerable, his Eccl. Hist., 8, 157;
style of, influenced by Gregory’s Dialogues, 170 _n._;
his bitterness on the Easter Controversy, 173;
Anglo-Saxon translation of, 8, 166-75;
relation of, to the Orosius translation, 156-9;
to the translation of the Dialogues, 169, 170.
Bel, _see_ Elias.
Benfleet, Essex, Danes fortify themselves at, 113-4;
captured by the English, 115.
Beorhtric, king of the West Saxons, 39 _n._;
Eadburh, wife of, 16, 17;
dies, 802, 17 _n._
Beornred, king of the Mercians, annexes monastic property, 66.
Bergues, dép. Nord, France, St. Winnoc’s body translated to, 35.
Berhtwulf, king of the Mercians, 109.
Berkshire, ealdorman of, _see_ Æthelwulf.
Bernard, Frankish monk, pilgrimage of, to Jerusalem, 132-4.
Bernard of Morlaix, his rhythm De Contemptu Mundi, 178 _n._
Berry, Jehan, duc de, former owner of the Latin-Saxon psalter, 148.
Birinus, bishop of the West Saxons, baptises Cuthred of Wessex, 72.
Boccaccio, his treatise De Casibus illustrium uirorum, 178 _n._
Boethius, his treatment by Theodoric, 178-9;
his Christianity superficial, 180;
his De Consolatione Philosophiae, 8, 177-80;
Alfred’s translation of, 8, 10, 135, 177, 180-5;
its relation to the Orosius translation, 159;
to the Soliloquies, 194-5;
wrongly assigned to Werferth, 185 _n._;
mentioned by Ethelwerd, 185;
question as to Alfred’s authorship of the verse translation of the
Metra in, 185-91, 194 _n._
Boniface, St., the apostle of Germany, 137.
Boulogne, dép. Pas-de-Calais, Danes embark at, 112.
Brecheiniog, South Welsh kingdom, nearly identical with Brecknockshire;
kings of, _see_ Helised, Teudyr.
Bridgenorth, Shropshire, Danes winter at, 118.
Bristol Channel, not a barrier between the Welsh and Cornishmen, 19;
ravaged by Danes, 103.
Britannia, ambiguous use of term by Asser, 36, 37.
Brixton Deverill, Wilts., Alfred musters his forces at, 102.
Brochmail, son of Mouric, joint king of Gwent, submits to Alfred, 42, 44.
Burgred, king of the Mercians, grants land to Cered, 13;
Æthelwulf reduces Wales under, 37, 85, 88;
brother-in-law of Alfred, 53, 88;
asks help of Æthelred and Alfred, 88;
expelled by Danes, 53, 100;
dies at Rome, 98 _n._, 100, cf. 199;
reason for his failure to help Wessex, 99;
imposes taxes to buy off the Danes, 100.
Burgs, construction of, by Alfred, 110, 111.
Burgundy, king of, _see_ Carloman;
count of Upper, _see_ Rudolf.
Buttington, Montgomery, Danes blockaded at, 116.
Cambridge, Danes winter at, 100.
Camden, William, his connexion with the Oxford interpolation in Asser,
24.
Canterbury, archbishops of, _see_ Ælfheah, Æthelred, Augustine, Dunstan,
Parker, Matthew, Plegmund.
Canute, king of England, called ‘king of Germania,’ 41;
reconciled with the English at Oxford, 67;
one of the creators of England’s greatness, 200 _n._
Carl, _see_ Carloman.
Carloman, king of Aquitaine and Burgundy, name correct in Asser, 17;
called ‘Carl’ in Chron., 17;
called ‘king of the Western Franks’ in Asser, 40, 41.
Ceolwulf, king of the Mercians, set up by the Danes, 66, 88, 100;
exactions of, 66;
stripped of part of Mercia, 102.
Cered, receives land from Burgred of Mercia, 13;
Werthryth, widow of, 13;
Cuthwulf, kinsman of, 13.
Charles the Great, Emperor, Eadburh offends, 17;
Liutgarde, wife of, 17 _n._;
Pippin and Charles, sons of, 17;
his fondness for ancient poetry, 38 _n._;
begins a Frankish grammar, 38 _n._;
called ‘king of the Franks’ by Asser, 40;
crowns Louis the Pious, 80 _n._;
divides his dominions, 85;
Frisians serve in navy of, 120 _n._;
his administration of justice, 125;
his legislation, 126 _n._;
his liberality to foreign Christians, 129 _n._;
king of Persia sends a clock to, 131 _n._;
relations of, with Irish princes, 131 _n._;
Pippin, father of, 131;
founds a hospice and library at Jerusalem, 133;
Court school of, 135;
his intercourse with strangers, 160;
his fondness for the De Ciuitate Dei, 191-2;
comparison of, with Alfred, 200-1;
Einhard’s life of, _see_ Einhard.
Charles, son of Charles the Great, unmarried, 17 _n._
Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, 40;
receives Æthelwulf, 17, 76, 78;
Judith, daughter of, 78;
character of, 78;
investiture of, by Louis the Pious, 196 _n._
Charles the Fat, king of the Franks, 40;
deposed by Arnulf, 17, 41 _n._;
called ‘king of the Alamanni,’ 41;
grants West Friesland to Guthfrith, 120 _n._
Charters, fewness of, belonging to Alfred’s reign, 13;
destruction of, by Danes, 13;
Frankish elements in, 18.
Chaucer, his Monk’s Tale founded on Boccaccio, 178 _n._
Chelsea, Middlesex, conference at, 111.
Chester, Danes fortify themselves at, but evacuate, 117.
Chichester, Sussex, abortive Danish attack on, 117.
Chippenham, Wilts., Danes try to seize Alfred at, 59, 61, 102, 162;
captured by Alfred, 103.
Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon, relation of Alfred to, 11, 145-6;
value of, for reign of Alfred, 11-13;
reticence of, as to Alfred, 12, 13;
relation of, to Asser, 14, 48-51, 93 _n._;
to Ethelwerd, 51 _n._, 60;
to Henry of Huntingdon, 60, 61;
to William of Malmesbury, 62;
to Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius, 146, 157-8;
chronological error in, 50, 104 _n._, 108, 110, 112.
Cirencester, Glouc., Danes retire to, 104.
Clovis, king of the Franks, receives consular insignia from
Constantinople, 72, 73.
Colne, R., Herts, Danes blockaded on, 114-5.
Constantinople, Clovis receives consular insignia from, 72.
Copenhagen, bombardment of, by Nelson, 163.
Cornwall, episcopal supervision of, 18-20;
kings of, 19 (_see_ Dumgarth);
St. Guerier and St. Neot buried in, 26;
not included in Saxonia, 38;
St. Neot settles in, 56.
Corvey, Westphalia, John the Old Saxon, a monk of, 137.
Croyland, Lincs, monastery of, 66, 67;
abbot of, _see_ Ingulf;
monk of, _see_ Tolius.
Cuthbert, St., part played by, in the legends of Alfred, 62.
Cuthred, joint king of the West Saxons, baptised by Birinus, 72.
Cuthwulf, kinsman of Cered, 13;
buys land of Cered’s widow, Werthryth, 13;
charter granted to, 13.
Cynwit, Devon, fort of, surveyed by Asser, 16;
besieged by the Danes, 44;
Danes defeated at, 104.
Danes, generic name for Scandinavian invaders, 87 _n._;
movements of, 12, 49, 75, 87, 88, 92-5, 98-104, 107, 108, 112-8;
destruction of documents by, 13;
division of Mercia by, 24;
Celts take part with, 43, 99;
in Northumbria, 42;
winter in Dyfed, and besiege Cynwit, 44, 51;
monasteries ravaged by, 53, 66, 127, 129;
Burgred expelled by, 53, 100;
try to surprise Alfred at Chippenham, 57-9, 61;
young Dane educated by Alfred at Athelney, 16;
ravages of, 66, 77, 87 _n._, 121, 127, 129, 136, 138;
winter in England, 74, 87;
mobility of, 106, 107.
Dante, his use of Boethius, 179;
his theory of the Empire, 208-9.
Danubium, _see_ Denmark.
David, comparison of Alfred with, 149.
Denmark, called ‘Danubium’ by Asser, 41;
Canute, king of, 41.
Devon, men of, resist the Danes, 103, 104;
ealdorman of, _see_ Odda.
Driffield, Yorks., Aldfrid of Northumbria dies at, 65.
Dubslane, one of three ‘Scots’ who came to Alfred, 131.
Duisburg, on the Rhine, Danes winter at, 40.
Dumgarth, king of Cornwall, drowned in 875, 19.
Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, St. Neot said to have been a monk
under (!), 56.
Durham, Simeon of, _see_ Simeon.
Dyfed, South Welsh kingdom, including Pembrokeshire and part of
Carmarthenshire, Danes winter in, 44, 51, 103;
king of, _see_ Hemeid.
Dyle, R., Belgium, Arnulf defeats the Danes on, 112.
Eadbald, king of Kent, his incestuous marriage, 80.
Eadburh, Alfred’s maternal grandmother, often seen by Asser, 16.
Eadburh, daughter of Offa, and wife of Beorhtric of Wessex, her crimes,
and subsequent misfortunes, 16, 17, 79 _n._;
offends Charles the Great, 17.
Eafa, of Wessex, confused with Offa of Mercia, 66.
Ealhswith, daughter of Æthelwulf, and wife of Burgred of Mercia, 88.
Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, alleged rebellion of, against Æthelwulf,
78, 79.
East Anglia, not included in Saxonia, 38;
Alfred sends fleet to, 64, 108;
relation of, to Wessex, 85;
occupied and conquered by the Danes, 87, 88, 92, 105;
Danes retire to, 104;
Danes of, rebel and are punished, 108, 109;
Alfred exacts oaths and hostages from, 113;
share of, in the campaigns of 893 ff., 113-5, 117-8;
kings of, _see_ Edmund, Guthrum, Sigbert.
Ecgbryhtesstan, identifications of, 102 _n._
Edgar, king of the West Saxons, panegyrics on, in Chronicle and Laws, 12;
eclipses the fame of Alfred, 67, 129;
English and Danes reconciled on basis of law of, 67;
made a Confessor, 67;
called ‘darling of the English,’ 161 _n._
Edington, Wilts., battle of, 57, 61, 102, 103, 162.
Edmund, St., king of the East Angles, martyred by the Danes, 88.
Edmund, king of the West Saxons, panegyrics on, in Chronicle and Laws,
12.
Edward, king of the West Saxons, son of Alfred, 96 _n._, 196;
called ‘the Great,’ 96 _n._;
military policy of, 111;
defeats the Danes at Farnham, 114;
blockades them on the Colne, 114-5;
captures Benfleet, 115;
document addressed to, 125-6;
carries out Alfred’s foundation of the New Minster, 129 _n._
Edward the Confessor, king of England, transference of See of Devon and
Cornwall to Exeter by, 18, 19.
Edward I, king of England, comparison of, with Alfred, 200-2;
bases the constitution on popular representation, 210;
one of the creators of England’s greatness, 200 _n._
Egbert, king of the West Saxons, Celts under, take part with the Danes,
43;
advance of Wessex under, 85;
reduces the Welsh, 85;
makes Æthelwulf king of Kent, 85;
his dominions divided at his death, 86;
his sojourn on the Continent, 86;
union of England under, 210.
Egbert, king of part of Northumbria, set up by the Danes, 88.
Einhard, his life of Charles the Great modelled on Suetonius’ life of
Augustus, 10.
Elfred, _see_ Æthelred.
Elias III, patriarch of Jerusalem, Alfred corresponds with, 16, 33, 34,
132;
miscalled Abel, and Bel, 33-4.
Elised, _see_ Helised.
Elizabeth, queen of England, ecclesiastical policy of, 211.
Ely, Cambridgeshire, Hereward’s defence of, 59.
England, English, kings of, _see_ Æthelred II, Canute, Edward the
Confessor, Edward I, George III, Henry II, Henry VI, Henry VIII,
John, Richard I, William I;
queens of, _see_ Elizabeth, Victoria.
Englefield, near Reading, Berks., Danes defeated at, 93.
Essex ceded to the Danes, 105.
Ethandun, identifications of, 102-3 _n._
Ethelwerd, the Chronicler, corruption of text of, 21, 60;
terminology of, 37 _n._;
relation of, to the Chron., 51 _n._, 60;
obscurity of, 60;
his panegyric on Alfred, 12, 198;
exaggerates Alfred’s position, 63 _n._;
mentions Alfred’s Boethius, 185.
Eugenius IV, Pope, Henry VI applies to, for Alfred’s canonisation,
199 _n._
Exe. R., Devon, Alfred blockades mouth of, 101.
Exeter, Devon, question of grant to Asser of See at, 18-20;
transference of bishopric to, under Edward the Conf., 18-20;
Danes steal away to, 49, 107;
Danes occupy, 101;
recovered from the Danes by Alfred, 19, 102;
besieged by the Danes, but relieved by Alfred, 115, cf. 117.
Faremoûtier-en-Brie (Fara), Lupus and Felix at monastery of, 18 _n._
Farnham, Surrey, Edward defeats the Danes at, 114.
Felix, Frankish secretary of Æthelwulf, Lupus of Ferrières corresponds
with, 17, 18 _n._;
previously at Faremoûtier, 17, 18 _n._
Fernmail, son of Mouric, joint king of Gwent, submits to Alfred, 42, 44.
Ferrières, dép. Loiret, abbot of, _see_ Lupus.
Florence of Worcester, relation of, to Asser, 15, 22, 23, 25, 28, 34,
49, 60, 64;
his panegyric on Alfred, 12, 60, 197.
France, king of, _see_ Louis, St.
Francia, term applied to the Carolingian Empire, 41.
Frankish element in Asser, 17, 18.
Franks, kings of, _see_ Carloman, Charles the Great, Charles the Bald,
Charles the Fat, Clovis, Louis the Stammerer, Louis of Northern
France;
Felix, a Frank, 18 _n._
Frisia, wiking settlements in, 119, 120.
Frisians, serve in Alfred’s navy, 119;
and in that of Charles the Great, 120 _n._;
language of, akin to English, 119 _n._;
settle in England, 120.
Fulham, Middlesex, Danes evacuate, 104.
Fulk, abp. of Rheims, letter of, to Abp. Plegmund, 128;
doubtful letter of, to Alfred, 138-9;
abbot of St. Bertin’s, 137-8;
murder of, 138 _n._
Fyrd, the native militia of the English, reorganised by Alfred, 110.
Galli, term applied to inhabitants of the Western Kingdom, 41.
Gallia, term applied to the Western Kingdom, 41.
George III, king of England, influence of character of, 211.
Germania, name given by Welsh writers to Norway, 40, 41;
Bede’s and Alfred’s uses of the term, 40 _n._, 160.
Glastonbury, Somerset, St. Neot said to have been a monk at, 56;
Alfred gives fragment of the True Cross to, 58 _n._
Glewissig, South Welsh kingdom, including the district between lower Usk
and Towy, 44;
king of, _see_ Howel.
Gloucester, Mercian Witenagemót held at, 13;
St. Oswald’s body translated to, 35.
Gregory the Great, Pope, soul of Trajan granted to prayers of, 209;
his Moralia used by Alfred, 191;
his Dialogues, 8, 143-4;
used by Alfred in the ‘Blostman,’ 143-4;
Bede’s style influenced by, 170 _n._;
Anglo-Saxon translation of, 8, 141, 171;
two recensions of, 145-6, 169;
mentioned in Asser, 52, 141;
cited by Ælfric, 167;
ascribed to Werferth, 142, 169;
Alfred writes the preface to, 142-3;
relation of, to Bede translation, 169, 170;
his Pastoral Care, 8, 151-2;
cited in Asser, 52;
Alfred’s translation of, 8, 10, 152-5;
Preface to, 11, 20, 52, 136, 139, 140, 143, 193, 196, 199.
Grimbald, a monk of St. Bertin’s, 137;
brought to England by Alfred, 17, 137;
said to have been escorted to England by Asser, 18, 139;
chronology of his life, 137-8;
letter of Fulk of Rheims respecting, 138-9;
made abbot of the New Minster, 139;
dies, 139;
helps Alfred with the Pastoral Care, 137, 143 _n._
Gualia, Wales, use of term, 37 _n._
Guerier, St., alleged visit of Alfred to shrine of, in Cornwall, 26, 29.
Guthfrith, wiking chief, receives a grant of West Friesland, 120 _n._
Guthrum, Danish king of East Anglia, invasion of, 57-9;
his submission and baptism, 42, 46, 68, 71, 103;
death of, 109, 110.
Gwent, South Welsh kingdom, including parts of Monmouthshire and
Herefordshire, kings of, _see_ Brochmail, Fernmail, Mouric.
Hadrian I, Pope, crowns Louis the Pious as king of Aquitaine, 74.
Hæsten, Danish chief, his military movements, and treacherous
negotiations, 113, 115.
Halfdene, Danish chief, 104.
Hampshire, men of, rally to Alfred, 102.
Harold Hardrada, king of Norway, called king of Germania, 41.
Heahmund, bishop of Sherborne, killed at Marton, 92.
Helised ap Teudyr, king of Brecheiniog, submits to Alfred, 42, 44.
Hemeid, king of Dyfed, commends himself to Alfred, 20, 42;
persecutes St. Davids, 42;
dies, 43.
Henry de Ferrers, owns Ashdown Manor in Domesday, 94.
Henry II, king of England, character of, by Stubbs, 2;
comparison of, with Alfred, 200;
English administrative system due to, 210.
Henry VI, king of England, applies to the Pope for Alfred’s
canonisation, 199 _n._
Henry of Huntingdon, his mistakes, 7;
relation of, to Chron., 60, 61;
his treatise De Contemptu Mundi, 178 _n._
Henry VIII, king of England, ecclesiastical policy of, 211.
Hereford, bishop of, _see_ Athelstan.
Hereward, his defence of the isle of Ely, 59 _n._
Hierosolyma, _see_ Jerusalem.
Howel, son of Rhys, king of Glewissig, dies at Rome in 885, 19, 44;
his crime, 19, 44;
submits to Alfred, 42.
Hubert, St., forged pedigree of, 57.
Huntingdonshire, translation of St. Neot’s relics to, 29.
Iglea, identifications of, 102 _n._
India, Alfred sends alms to, 65, 66, 99, 134;
first recorded instance of relations between England and, 134.
Ingulf, abbot of Croyland, Chronicle of, a forgery, but contains genuine
traditions, 66, 99.
Ingwar, Danish chief, 104.
Ireland, Alfred said to have been sent to, 62;
a good country for hunting, 83 _n._;
relations of Alfred with, 129, 131-2;
love of pilgrimage in Church of, 131-2;
relations of Charles the Great with, 131 _n._
Jacopone, his poem De Contemptu Mundi, 178.
Jehan de Meun, two French translations of Boethius’ Consolatio ascribed
to, 190.
Jerusalem, Alfred said to have sent alms to, 65;
three ‘Scots’ go to, 132;
account of pilgrimages to, 132-4;
Charles the Great founds a hospice and library at, 133;
patriarchs of, _see_ Elias, Theodosius.
Joan of Arc, Alfred compared with, 107.
John, king of England, character of, by Stubbs, 2.
John the Old Saxon, abbot of Athelney, 66 _n._, 137;
John Scotus Erigena confused with, 7;
military skill of, 16, 66 _n._;
brought to England by Alfred, 17, 137;
two of his monks try to murder, 129, 137;
helps Alfred with the Pastoral Care, 138, 143 _n._
John VIII, Pope, letter of, to Abp. Æthelred, 127-8.
John Scotus Erigena, commonly confused with John the Old Saxon, 7.
Joinville, his biography of St. Louis, 202.
Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious, 80.
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, marriage with Æthelwulf, 17, 78,
80 _n._;
alleged marriage with Æthelbald, 17, 52, 76 _n._, 80.
Kenny Castle, _see_ Cynwit.
Kent, kings of, _see_ Æthelberht, Eadbald;
under-kings of, _see_ Æthelberht, Æthelwulf, Athelstan;
was Alfred ever under-king of? 74;
makes a separate agreement with the Danes, 87.
Langtoft, confusions of, 65.
Latin, the sole vehicle of Western mediaeval culture, 81, 82, 136;
decline of, in England, 82, 139, 140;
influence of, on early vernacular prose, 171.
Law, character of Anglo-Saxon, 121-2.
Lea, R., Danes fortify themselves on, but are forced to retire from,
117-8.
Leicester, confused with Chester, 9 _n._;
bishop of, _see_ Werebert.
Leigh, near Westbury, Wilts., Alfred advances to, 102.
Leo IV, Pope, letter of, to Æthelwulf, 70, 72;
confirms and anoints Alfred, 71-4, 76;
fortifies the Leonine suburb, 77;
his death, 76.
Liutgarde, wife of Charles the Great, dies 800, 17 _n._
Llandaff, Book of, cited, 37, 39 _n._, 43, 44.
Llunwerth, bishop of St. Davids, succeeds Nobis, 20, 44.
Llwmbert, _see_ Llunwerth.
London, captured by the Danes in 851, 109;
Danes winter at, 99, 100, 109;
retain possession of, under treaty of Wedmore, 105, 109;
acquired by Alfred, 108, 109;
Alfred the second founder of, 109;
committed to the care of ealdorman Æthelred, 109;
conference on fortifications of, 111;
reinforcements raised from, 115;
captured Danish ships brought to, 115;
garrison of, fail to storm Danish lines, 117.
Long Dean, Wilts., Witenagemót held at, 126.
Lothair I, Emperor, assists Leo IV to fortify the papal suburb, 77.
Louis the Pious, Emperor, refuses to read the old heathen poems, 38 _n._;
crowned king of Aquitaine, at the age of three, 74;
letter of Æthelwulf to, 74;
his sons rebel against, 79;
compared with Æthelwulf, 79;
crowned by Charles the Great, 80 _n._;
investiture of Charles the Bald by, 196 _n._
Louis the Stammerer, king of the Franks, 40.
Louis, king of Northern France, called king of the Franks, 40.
Louis, St., king of France, comparison of, with Titus, 161 _n._;
with Alfred, 200, 202.
Lupus, abbot of Ferrières, corresponds with Æthelwulf and Felix, 17,
18 _n._, 71 _n._;
previously at Faremoûtier, 18 _n._
Lymne, R., Kent, Danes enter mouth of, 112.
Macbeth, one of three ‘Scots’ who come to Alfred, 131.
Maelduin, the Voyage of, 132.
Maelinmain, one of three ‘Scots’ who came to Alfred, 131.
Malmesbury, Wilts., William of, _see_ William.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, comparison of, with Alfred, 200.
Marinus, Pope, St. Neot said to have visited, 56-8;
grants privileges to English School at Rome, 58;
said to have sent a fragment of the True Cross to Alfred, 58.
Martia, legendary British Queen, 63.
Marton, Wilts., battle of, 92, 93, 95.
Mercia, Witenagemóts of, 13, 14;
division of, by the Danes, 24, 102;
not included in Saxonia, 38;
Alfred acquires part of, 39;
relation of, to Wessex, 85;
Danes invade, 88, 99, 100;
Welsh invade, 99;
western part of, cleared of the Danes, 104;
shire system introduced into, 121;
supplies Alfred with teachers, 136, cf. 139 _n._, 169;
kings of, _see_ Æthelbald, Beornred, Berhtwulf, Burgred, Ceolwulf,
Offa, Penda;
lady of, _see_ Æthelflæd;
ealdorman of, _see_ Æthelred.
Meretun, _see_ Marton.
Mersea, Essex, Danes retire to, 117.
Milton (King’s), Kent, Danes fortify themselves at, 113;
negotiations of Alfred with Danes at, 113, cf. 163.
Milus, Eastern Saint, 34.
Modus tenendi Parliamenti, unhistorical character of, 130 _n._
Modwenna, St., Alfred said to have been cured by, 63.
More, Sir Thomas, Hallam’s character of, 13;
imitates Boethius’ Consolatio, 179.
Mouric, king of Gwent, father of Brochmail and Fernmail, 42, 44.
Nachededorn, _see_ Naked-thorn.
Naked-thorn, name of a Berkshire Hundred and Manor in Domesday, 94.
Nelson, Lord, anecdote of, 163.
Neot, St., not identical with Athelstan, king of Kent, 6;
buried in Cornwall, 26, 29;
translated to Huntingdonshire, 29;
lives of, 24, 53-9, 67;
the source of baseless legends about Alfred, 24, 27, 28, 53, 54, 67;
made a son of Æthelwulf, 55, 57;
alleged devotion of Alfred to, 67, 68;
Annals of, their relation to Asser, 22.
Nero, Roman Emperor, Epistle to the Romans written under, 209.
Newminster, Winchester, Alfred plans the foundation of, 68, 129;
abbot of, _see_ Grimbald.
Nicholas I, Pope, dispatches pilgrims to the East, 132.
Nobis, bishop of St. Davids, expelled by Hemeid of Dyfed, 42;
dies in 873, 20;
succeeded by Llunwerth, 20, 44.
Northmen, use of the term, 87 _n._, _see_ Danes.
Northumbria, not included in Saxonia, 38;
Danes in, 42;
relation of, to Wessex, 85;
conquered by the Danes, 88;
their occupation of, recognised at Wedmore, 105;
relations of Alfred with, 113;
share of, in the campaigns of 893 ff., 113-5, 117-8;
state of learning in, 139, 140 _n._;
kings of, _see_ Aldfrid, Egbert, Oswald;
earl of, _see_ Siward.
Norway, called Germania by Welsh writers, 40, 41;
king of, _see_ Harold Hardrada.
Notker III, of St. Gallon, translates Boethius’ Consolatio into High
German, 189.
Nottingham, Danes winter at, 88;
Æthelred and Alfred march against, 88.
Novis, _see_ Nobis.
Odda, ealdorman of Devon, defeats the Danes, 103, 104, 106.
Odo, count of Paris, king of the Western Kingdom, 41 _n._
Offa, king of the Mercians, Eadburh, daughter of, 16;
his dyke, 37;
code of, 63 _n._;
Alfred made descendant of, 65;
his patronage of learning, 136.
Ohthere, a Northman, voyage of, 160.
Orosius, his universal history, 8, 157;
Alfred’s translation of, 8, 10, 110, 159-65;
relation of, to Chronicle, 146, 157-8;
to the Bede translation, 156-9;
to the Boethius translation, 159.
Osburh, first wife of Æthelwulf, and mother of Alfred, 81, 83, 84, 123;
not divorced by Æthelwulf, 84.
Oswald, St., king of the Northumbrians, his body translated from Bardney
to Gloucester, 34, 35.
Oxford, interpolation in Asser relating to, 23, 24;
legends relating to, 63, 68;
English and Danes reconciled at, 67;
University of, carries on Alfred’s work, 193;
bishop of, _see_ Stubbs, William.
Paris, description of, by Asser, 18;
count of, _see_ Odo.
Parker, Matthew, archbishop of Canterbury, interpolates the text of
Asser, 24.
Paul I, Pope, sends a horologe to Pippin the Short, 131.
Pavia, Eadburh of Wessex, a mendicant at, 16.
Penda, king of the Mercians, attacks the East Angles, 66.
Persia, SS. Milus and Senneus martyred in, 34;
king of, sends a clock to Charles the Great, 131 _n._
Petrarch, his treatise De Contemptu Mundi, 178 _n._
Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea, his accessibility to suitors, 125.
Pilgrimages, passion for, in ninth century, 71.
Pippin, father of Charles the Great, Paul I sends a horologe to, 131.
Pippin, son of Charles the Great, unmarried, 17 _n._
Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury, 127, 139;
attends the conference of Chelsea, 111;
letter of Fulk of Rheims to, 128;
a Mercian, 136;
helps Alfred with the Pastoral Care, 138, 143 _n._
Psalter, Alfred’s fondness for, 16, 140, 153;
said to have translated part of, 147-9.
Reading, Berks., battles of, 93, 98;
Danes abandon, 99.
Relics, passion for, in ninth century, 71, 144-5.
Repton, Derbyshire, Danes winter at, and destroy monastery of, 100.
Rheims, dép. Marne, archbishop of, _see_ Fulk.
Rhys, father of Howel, king of Glewissig, 19, 42, 44.
Richard I, king of England, character of, by Stubbs, 2.
Rochester, Kent, besieged by the Danes, and relieved by Alfred, 107, 108;
captured Danish ships brought to, 115.
Roger of Wendover, 25;
uses a life of St. Neot, 54;
his mistakes and confusions, 65, 76 _n._
Rome, Werthryth goes to, 13;
Howel ap Rhys dies at, 19, 44;
English School at, _see_ Saxones;
St. Neot visits, 56;
visits of Alfred to, 70-6;
Æthelwulf’s visit to, 74-6;
intellectual poverty of, 71;
pilgrimages to, 71;
attacks of the Saracens on, 77;
Leonine suburb of, 77;
Burgred dies at, 98 _n._, 100, cf. 199;
Alfred sends missions and alms to, 12, 99, 134-5;
three ‘Scots’ go to, 132;
dangers of a pilgrimage to, 134.
Rotri Mawr, king of North Wales, slain in 877, 19, 43;
sons of, 9, 42;
Anaraut, son of, 42;
avenged, 43.
Roughthorn Farm, possibly marked the site of battle of Ashdown, 94.
Rudolf, count of Upper Burgundy, king of the Middle Kingdom, 41 _n._
Rudolf, abbot of St. Bertin’s, 137.
St. Bertin’s, Flanders, Grimbald, a monk of, 137;
Fulk and Rudolf, abbots of, 137;
attacks of Count Baldwin on, 137.
St. Davids, Pembrokeshire, Alfred’s protection desired for, 19, 42;
Asser returns to, 21;
Hemeid persecutes, 42;
bishops of, _see_ Asser, Llunwerth, Nobis.
St. Omer, dép. Pas-de-Calais, France, St. Winnoc’s body translated to,
and from, 35 _n._
Saracens, ravages of, 77;
power of, in Italy and the East, 132-4;
good police of, 134.
Saxones, use of term by Asser, 37-9;
school of, at Rome, 39, 58;
burnt, 76;
restored by Æthelwulf, 76.
Saxonia, meaning of, in Asser, 37, cf. 18, 85.
Saxons, the Old _or_ Continental, invaded by the Danes, 40;
4,500 of, massacred by Charles the Great, 201.
Scots, _see_ Ireland.
Seals, use of, in England, 176 _n._
Secundarius, meaning of title, 40, 89-91.
Seine, R., Danes retire to, 118.
Senneus, Eastern saint, 34.
Sergius II, Pope, ravages of Saracens under, 77.
Severn, R., Danes march up, 116;
march to, 118.
Severus, wall of, 158-9, 161 _n._
Shaftesbury, Wilts., one of Alfred’s ‘burgs,’ 129 _n._;
monastery of, founded by Alfred, 68, 128.
Sherborne, possible division of diocese of, 20, 21 _n._;
bishops of, _see_ Aldhelm, Asser, Heahmund, Wulfsige.
Shire-system, not invented by Alfred, 6, cf. 121.
Shoebury, Essex, Danes fortify themselves at, 115, 117.
Sicily, conquered by Saracens, 77.
Sigbert, ex-king of the East Angles, leads his subjects against Penda,
66.
Simeon of Durham, relation of, to Asser, 23, 31, 32, 34, 64;
double recension of part of, 31, 32, 61, 62.
Simon de Montfort, experiment of representation tried by, 210.
Sithiu, _see_ St. Omer.
Siward, earl of Northumbria, anecdote of, 61.
Somerset, men of, rally to Alfred, 102;
ealdormen of, _see_ Æthelnoth, Eanwulf.
Southwick, Hants, priory of, formerly owned Cotton MS. Otho, B. xi,
168 _n._
Spain, ravages of Danes in, 77.
Stour, R., Essex, wikings defeated at mouth of, 64, 108.
Stubbs, William, Lord Bishop of Oxford, his character as an historian
and view of history, 1-3;
his hopefulness, 3;
loss to the Church by his death, 3-4.
Suetonius, his life of Augustus copied by Einhard, 10.
Swale, R., Kent, Danes enter, 113.
Swanage, Dorset, Danish fleet wrecked off, 101.
Tanistry, institution of, 89.
Teudyr ab Elised, king of Brecheiniog, father of Helised ap Teudyr,
42, 44.
Thames, R., Danes driven across, 114;
march up, 115, 116;
draw their ships up, 117.
Thanes, increase of, under Alfred, 111, 112.
Thanet, Kent, Danes winter in, 87.
Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, his treatment of Boethius, 178-9.
Theodosius, patriarch of Jerusalem, 34 _n._, 133.
Thomas, St., the Apostle, _see_ India.
Thorney, island on the Hertfordshire Colne, Danes blockaded in, 114-5.
Titus, Roman Emperor, anecdote of, 161;
St. Louis compared to, 161 _n._
Tolius, mythical monk of Croyland, 66.
Torksey, Lincs, Danes winter at, 100.
Trajan, Roman Emperor, mediaeval legend of, 209.
Tyne, R., Egbert, king of district north of, 88;
Danes winter on, 100.
Ubba, Danish chief, defeated at Kenny Castle, 104.
Verberie, France, dép. Oise, Æthelwulf marries Judith at, 78.
Verden, Hanover, Charles the Great executes 4,500 Saxons at, 201 _n._
Victoria, queen of England, comparison of, with Alfred, 200, 210;
funeral sermon on, 207-13.
Wales, Danes retire to, 117;
kings of North, _see_ Anaraut, Rotri.
Wallingford, Berks., Caesar fights a battle near, 158.
Wanating, _see_ Wantage.
Wantage, Berks., Alfred born at, 22, 70.
Wardour, Wilts., Alfred at, 125.
Wareham, Dorset, Danes occupy, and evacuate, 100, 101.
Wedmore, Somerset, Guthrum’s chrism-loosing at, 103.
Welsh, act in concert with the Danes, 99, cf. 43;
princes of, submit to Alfred, _see_ Alfred;
co-operate against the Danes, 116.
Wendover, Bucks, Roger of, _see_ Roger.
Werebert, bishop of Leicester, 137 _n._
Werferth, bishop of Worcester, 127;
robbed of woods at Woodchester, 14;
his heroism, 53;
called St. Werferth, 53, 67;
friendship of, with Æthelnoth, 106;
a Mercian, 136, 169;
translation of Gregory’s Dialogues ascribed to, 142, 169;
Boethius translation wrongly assigned to, 185 _n._
Werthryth, widow of Cered, 13;
disposes of her land to Cuthwulf, 13;
her title-deeds carried off by the Danes, 13.
Werwulf, Mercian priest, chaplain to Alfred, 136.
Wessex, relations of, to other kingdoms, 85;
cleared of the Danes, 104;
Danes ravage coasts of, 118;
kings of, _see_ Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred, Æthelwulf, Alfred,
Athelstan, Beorhtric, Cuthred, Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Egbert;
bishop of, _see_ Birinus.
Wight, Isle of, naval engagement off, 119.
William I, king of England, owns the site of the battle of Ashdown, 94;
one of the creators of England’s greatness, 210.
William of Malmesbury, his confusions and mistakes, 7;
his account of Alfred, 62, 151;
had special sources for Athelstan’s reign, 62;
relation of, to Asser and Chron., 62;
his assertion that Alfred translated part of the Psalter, 147-50;
librarian of Malmesbury, 150;
his account of Alfred’s Boethius translation, 188-9.
Willibald, St., pilgrimage of, to Jerusalem, 134 _n._
Wilton, Wilts., battle of, 98, 99.
Wilts., men of, rally to Alfred, 102;
ealdorman of, _see_ Æthelhelm.
Wimborne, Dorset, Æthelred interred at, 98.
Winchester, Æthelwulf said to have been bishop of, 7;
Asser taken ill at, 21;
captured by Danes, 79, 87;
New Minster at, _see_ Newminster;
connexion of Chronicle with, 147, 151;
and of Domesday with, 151;
Alfred buried at, 198;
bishops of, _see_ Ælfheah, I and II, Æthelwold.
Winnoc, St., his body translated from Wormhoult to St. Omer, and thence
to Bergues, 35 _n._
Woodchester, Gloucestershire, bishop Werferth robbed of woods at, 14.
Worcester, fortified by Æthelred and Æthelflæd, 111;
bishop of, _see_ Werferth;
Florence of, _see_ Florence.
Wormhoult, dép. Nord, France, St. Winnoc’s body translated from, 35 _n._
Wrekin, the, Shropshire, Danes in the district of, 75.
Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, a copy of the Pastoral Care addressed
to, 20;
succeeded by Asser, 20 _n._
Wulfstan, voyage of, 160.
York, Danes at, 92;
Æthelnoth attacks the Danes at, 117 _n._
THE END
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