FOOTNOTES

Previous
Charles Plummer

[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 bonhedic,’ 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. 320?.

[237] p. 320?.

[238] Imitatio, i. 3; Eng. Transl. ed. 1863.

[239] p. 320?.

[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. 321?; 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. 321?; Whitaker, pp. 320, 367.

[255] AA. SS. ibid.; Whitaker, p. 321.

[256] Whitaker, p. 343; Gorham, p. 257: ‘on Sc?es 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. 322?, 323?; Whitaker, pp. 328, 346, 368; Gorham, p. 257.

[258] AA. SS. p. 323?; Whitaker, pp. 329, 346, 368.

[259] AA. SS. p. 325?; Whitaker, pp. 333 ff., 347 ff., 370 ff.; Gorham, p. 258.

[260] AA. SS. p. 325?; Whitaker, pp. 335, 349, 372; Gorham, pp. 258, 259.

[261] AA. SS. p. 327?: ‘panes … quos nonnulli liridas appellant’; Whitaker, pp. 351 ff.; Gorham, p. 259.

[262] AA. SS. pp. 327?-328?; 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. 323?, 325?; 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. 325?; 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. 327?.

[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 ‘domuiret’ 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] Rhys 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 ? 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 s?.’

[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. C?CC for I?CCC. 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 no?t so bi is daye, vor Þei he in worre were, Lawes he made ri?tuolore 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 DCCCLXXX?. regni suo VIII?,’ 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 La?amon, 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.’
La?amon, 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.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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