[1] What is stated above is, I believe, quite correct. I am however informed that the first suggestion of my name came from another member of the electoral board, to whom also I am indebted for many kindnesses.

[2] Benedict of Peterborough, II. vii.

[3] Hoveden, II. lxxviii.

[4] Const. Hist. ii. 621.

[5] Alfred the Great, by Warwick H. Draper, with a Preface by the Lord Bishop of Hereford, p. 12.

[6] Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society.

[7] Mr. Macfadyen’s Work seems to me a little tinged with this view; Alfred the West Saxon, by Dugald Macfadyen, cf. especially pp. 161 ff.

[8] This seems to be the Bishop of Bristol’s view: Alfred the Great, containing chapters on his Life and Times, … edited by Alfred Bowker, pp. 107-112. I refer to this work in future as ‘Essays.’

[9] Alfred in the Chroniclers, by Edward Conybeare, pp. 17, 27, 36. Pauli had already protested against this view, König Ælfred, p. 209.

[10] See Saxon Chronicle, ii. 75, 76. Two charters, Birch, Nos. 445, 446; K. C. D. Nos. 256, 1047, cited by Pauli, u. s. p. 53, support the view that Athelstan was the son of Æthelwulf; but, though they are not asterisked by Kemble, I doubt their genuineness.

[11] The tradition about Erigena has been investigated by Huber, Johann Scotus Erigena, … München, 1861, pp. 108 ff., who rightly regards it as baseless. Yet it still hovers about; e.g. Draper, pp. 48, 49; Macfadyen, pp. 47-49. The Bishop of Bristol seems to me a little inconsistent, Essays, pp. 107 ff. Huber himself u. s. makes the extraordinary statement that the Preface to Alfred’s version of the Pastoral Care is not extant. As it had been printed at least ten times before Huber’s book appeared, he might have known of its existence. On Erigena there is an interesting letter by William of Malmesbury, printed in Stubbs’ edition, I. xliii ff.

[12] Essays, pp. 96, 165.

[13] Ed. Arnold, p. 145; Mr. Macfadyen cites the statement from Hoveden, without definitely accepting or rejecting it, p. 4. This is a nice instance of the growth of legend. In William of Malmesbury, G. P. pp. 160, 161, Æthelwulf before his accession is a subdeacon; in H. H. he becomes a bishop; finally Harding’s rhyming chronicle makes him a cardinal, cited by Pauli, König Ælfred, p. 54. Pity that no one had the courage to make him Pope!

[14] Essays, pp. 83, 89.

[15] ibid., p. 11.

[16] Conybeare, p. 58.

[17] For the St. Gallen MS. of Orosius, cf. Zangemeister’s edition (Teubner), pp. 302 ff. For the Donaueschingen MS. cf. Schilling, Ælfred’s angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Weltgeschichte des Orosius (1886).

[18] See Schepss, Archiv für’s Studium der neueren Sprachen, xciv. 156.

[19] On p. 129 Mr. Conybeare suggests an emendation of the Chronicle which shows that he has not mastered the Saxon declension of adjectives. In the same passage of the Chronicle, Mr. Draper confuses Legaceaster (Chester) with Legraceaster (Leicester), p. 16.

[20] Mr. Conybeare’s knowledge of the sources of English history seems to stop with the Monumenta Historica Britannica, 1848. He never even mentions the Rolls Series. He says, e.g., that the Liber de Hyda ‘has never been printed in full,’ p. 216. It was edited for the R. S. by Mr. Edward Edwards in 1866; cf. also pp. 120, 144, 161, 173, 177.

[21] Cited by Ebert, Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, ii. 96.

[22] In regard to the Orosius, Schilling’s dissertation, cited above, brings this out very well. See below, §§ 99-103.

[23] Essays, p. 187.

[24] Lectures v, vi.

[25] § 93, below.

[26] Saxon Chronicle, II. civ.

[27] Hoveden, I. xc.

[28] Essays, p. 202.

[29] Bede, ii. 28; Saxon Chron. II. cxii.

[30] 892, 899, 900.

[31] 869, 872, 873, 879, 880, 881, 883, 884.

[32] 889, 898.

[33] At 901.

[34] Cf. Ethelred’s Laws, viii. 43: ‘uton niman us to bysnan … Æðelstan ⁊ Eadmund ⁊ Eadgar,’ Schmid, p. 248.

[35] See § 118 below.

[36] Const. Hist. i. 28 (ed. 1854).

[37] Birch, No. 537; K. C. D. No. 304.

[38] Birch, No. 574; K. C. D. No. 1074; cf. Green, C. E., p. 133.

[39] See below, §§ 63, 64, 82.

[40] e.g. Ebert, u. s. iii. 250; Pauli, u. s. p. 4.

[41] 473 C [15], 484 B [39], 485 A [41]; cf. 491 E [56]. For Asser I give references to M. H. B., adding the pages of Wise’s edition in brackets.

[42] Echoes from the Oxford Magazine, p. 29.

[43] 474 A [16].

[44] 474 B [17].

[45] 475 B [19].

[46] 477 A [23].

[47] 481 C [32].

[48] 484 C [40].

[49] 492 D [58].

[50] 494 A [61].

[51] 470 D [8].

[52] 472 B [12].

[53] 471 C [10].

[54] 476 C [22].

[55] 494 D [63].

[56] Vasallus, 480 B, 481 D [30, 33]; senior, 471 A, B [9, 10], cf. 494 E [64]; indiculus, 487 E bis [48]; comes (= ealdorman), 469 B, D, 470 A, D, 476 A, B, 473 B bis, 491 B [5, 6-8, 14, 21 bis, 55]. Comes is also used of the Danish jarls, 476 A-477 B [21-23]. For Frankish use of vasallus see S. C. H. i. 205; for senior, ib. 193.

[57] 471 E [11]; the circumstances of the anecdote are possible. Charles the Great’s last wife Liutgarde died in 800. His sons Charles and Pippin seem never to have married. Beorhtric died in 802.

[58] 472 D [13].

[59] See Chronicle, ii. 80, 81. Prudentius and Hincmar are strictly contemporary.

[60] 491 A [54].

[61] 483 D [38].

[62] 470 C [8]; Chron. 855.

[63] Writing to Æthelwulf Lupus says: ‘uestrum in Dei cultu feruorem ex Felice didici, qui epistolarum uestrarum officio fungebatur,’ Migne, Pat. Lat. cxix. col. 459. Writing to Felix himself, he says that he had known him formerly in the monastery of Fara [Faremoûtier-en-Brie, see Bede, ii. 148], which seems to show that Felix was a Frank, ib. col. 462. The object of these letters was to get the pious Æthelwulf to subscribe to roofing the monastery of Ferrières with lead.

[64] e.g. for vasallus cf. Pauli, König Ælfred, pp. 12, 13; S. C. H. i. 156, and the charters there cited of the ninth and tenth centuries; for comes = ealdorman, ib. 158, 159.

[65] Cited in Dict. Nat. Biog. s. v. Grimbald.

[66] ‘Legatos ultra mare … direxit,’ 487 B [46]. Cf. the letter of Fulk of Rheims to Alfred, Wise, p. 128 (if this is genuine, see § 88 below).

[67] 489 B [51], an addition to the Chron.

[68] ‘Dedit mihi Exanceastre, cum omni parochia quae ad se pertinebat in Saxonia et Cornubia,’ 489 A [51]. On the meaning of Saxonia see § 30 below.

[69] T. Wright, Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period (1842), pp. 405 ff.

[70] Annales Cambriae, and Brut y Tywysogion, sub anno. (I shall cite the latter work as Brut.)

[71] MS. D of the Chron. mentions a king of the West Welsh (i.e. Cornwall) as late as 926. See Chron. II. viii.

[72] 488 A-C [49 f.].

[73] Ann. Cambr. and Brut., sub anno.

[74] Ed. J. Gwenogfryn Evans, pp. 212, 213.

[75] Cf. Lingard, Anglo-Saxon Church, ii. 384 (ed. 1858).

[76] Ann. Cambr. and Brut, s. aa. 840, 873; cf. Ang. Sac. ii. 648. The Brut calls him ‘Meuruc escob bonheđic,’ i.e. ‘M. a noble bishop.’ The origin of this curious mistake is as follows. The Ann. Cambr. at 873 say ‘Nobis episcopus et Meuruc moritur.’ The compiler of the Brut misread this as ‘Nobilis episcopus Meuruc moritur.’

[77] Ann. Cambr. and Brut, 874.

[78] A Lumberth, bishop of Menevia, dies in 944, Ann. Cambr., or 942, Brut; but if this is the same person it would give him a tenure of seventy years.

[79] My friend Bodley’s Librarian has kindly called my attention to an interesting inscription found in St. Lawrence’s Church at St. Helier’s, Jersey, about ten years ago, which he thinks confirms the idea of the existence of a see at Exeter in early times. The interpretation of the inscription seems to me, however, too uncertain to justify me in making use of it. Lingard, u. s. suggests that by the grant of Exeter, &c., Asser received the western portion of the diocese of Sherborne, and that on the death of Wulfsige he succeeded to the whole.

[80] ‘Ad patriam remeauimus. Sed cum ab eo discesseramus in Wintonia ciuitate febris infesta me arripuit; in qua sedulo per duodecim menses et unam hebdomada die noctuque … laboraui,’ 487 D [48]. A medical friend, to whom I showed this passage, thinks that this prolonged febrile condition was probably due to gastritis.

[81] Chronicle, II. ciii. f.

[82] Theopold, Kritische Untersuchungen, p. 32.

[83] e.g. ‘insiliariis’ for ‘insidiariis,’ 470 D [9].

[84] 477 B [24], Flor. i. 85: [‘Pagani uictoria potiuntur. Rursus, duobus euolutis mensibus, rex Ætheredus et frater eius Ælfredus cum Paganis, qui se in duas diuiserant turmas, apud Meretun pugnantes, diu uictores existunt, aduersariis omnibus in fugam uersis; sed illis in proelium redeuntibus, multi ex his et ex illis corruunt, et] Pagani uictoriam accipientes loco funeris dominantur.’ The passage within the brackets has been lost in our text of Asser, owing to the recurrence of the words ‘Pagani uictoria.’ Of course Florence may have modified the passage a little, as his manner is.

[85] Above, § 12.

[86] e.g. 877, 884.

[87] Elimauit, Flor. i. 96, eleuauit, Asser; aptius, Flor. i. 83, apertius, Asser. But these are possibly only editorial blunders.

[88] See below, § 25.

[89] 489 C-490 C [52-54].

[90] Oxford Historical Society, 1885.

[91] The writer of the article on Camden in the Dict. Nat. Biog. thinks that no special blame attaches to Camden in this matter. But I find it difficult to take his view of the question.

[92] Chronicle, ii. 93.

[93] 480 C-481 B [30-32].

[94] See below, § 46.

[95] Chronicle, ii. 92.

[96] 479 B-480 A [29].

[97] 484 C-485 C [40-42].

[98] König Ælfred, p. 93.

[99] These events really belong to 885; Asser has omitted the year 884, and so wrongly numbered the succeeding annal. See below, p. 50.

[100] 474 C [17]; 492 C [58].

[101] Especially if the disease indicated be, as some have thought, epilepsy, with all its deteriorating effects upon the brain; so Green, C. E., p. 101.

[102] Possible instances are: infatigabiliter studiose, 477 E [25]; Florence omits ‘studiose’; talento telonio, 484 B [39]; Flor. omits talento; citius plus, 496 D [68]. Not in Flor.

[103] 475 A [19] the printed text has ‘expetiuit,’ but Flor. and two of the Asser MSS. and ASN have the rare word ‘subarrauit,’ which occurs in the same sense, 497 B [70].

[104] 484 D [40].

[105] The same sort of thing occurs occasionally even in these days of the printing press. In the early copies of a recent Blue Book on China, in the middle of a dispatch of Sir Claude Macdonald, occurred the following sentence: ‘not very grammatical, but I suppose we must let Sir Claude Macdonald write as he pleases.’ This is obviously the comment of some official, written on the margin of his proof, which escaped deletion when the proof was returned to the printer, and so was incorporated in the text.

[106] See Gorham, History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St. Neot’s, pp. 45 ff. It was in the reign of Edgar, therefore not later than 975. The body was stolen.

[107] Vol. II. xv. ff.

[108] I use S. D.¹ and S. D.² to indicate the two recensions. That S. D.² used the original text of Asser is shown by his having the false reading ‘qui fuit Fingodwulf’ in Alfred’s pedigree, which S. D.¹ omits and Florence corrects, S. D. ii. 99; that he used S. D.¹ is proved by the fact that under 853 they both have the false reading ‘Wada’ for the ‘Huda’ of Asser, Florence, and the Chron., S. D. ii. 71, 102; that he used Florence is proved by the fact that he gives the amount of Æthelwulf’s Roman benefaction as ‘ccc mancusas denariorum,’ ii. 103; where the word ‘denariorum’ is from Florence, and is not in Asser or S. D.¹ Unfortunately Mr. Arnold is very capricious in his use of large and small type. He prints in large type, as if original to S. D., many passages which come from Florence or Asser.

[109] Thus we should read ‘ferri’ for ‘fieri,’ 471 E [11]; ‘Stratcluttenses’ for ‘Stratduttenses’ 478 C [27].

[110] 492 D [58].

[111] Gams, Series Episcoporum, p. 452. Elias’ predecessor was Theodosius, c. 864-879. In the whole list of patriarchs there is no Abel or Bel.

[112] S. D. ii. 89.

[113] ‘Þis eal hét þus secgean Ælfrede cyninge domne Helias Patriarcha Gerusalem,’ ii. 290.

[114] ibid., xxiv. f.

[115] pp. 147, 148; cf. Mas Latrie, Trésor de Chronologie, pp. 791, 835.

[116] Shrine, u. s. p. 113. Aug. 5.

[117] In 909 according to MS. C of the Chronicle (Mercian Register); in 906 according to MS. D. The notice of St. Winnoc as ‘lord of the minster of Wormhoult to the south of the sea,’ p. 145, Nov. 6, is also emphasised by Mr. Cockayne as proving that the work is earlier than 900, in which year St. Winnoc’s body was translated to Bergues. But this point, if insisted on, would prove the work to be earlier than 846. For in that year St. Winnoc was translated from Wormhoult to St. Omer (or Sithiu). The translation to Bergues in 900 was from St. Omer, not from Wormhoult. But an English writer might easily be ignorant of either or both these translations. It is better therefore not to lay stress on this point. See the Life of St. Winnoc in Mabillon, AA. SS. iii. 311, 312 (ed. 1672). An English writer could hardly however have been ignorant of Oswald’s translation, if it had taken place.

[118] 493 C [60].

[119] See Ducange, s. v.

[120] Malmesbury says of Athelney: ‘ut nullo modo nisi nauigio adiri queat,’ G. P. p. 199. But ‘nauticis’ cannot mean ‘boats,’ but only ‘sailors.’

[121] 480 B [30].

[122] 487 C [47].

[123] 476 A [21].

[124] 487 C [47].

[125] 488 B [49].

[126] aquilonaris, 469 C [5], 474 C [17]; meridianus, 469 C [6], 476 A [21], 477 D [25], 479 A [28], 482 C [35]. East and west are always ‘orientalis,’ ‘occidentalis,’ occiduus.’ There is nothing like the Irish ‘airther,’ ‘iarthar,’ ‘fore,’ and ‘hinder,’ for east and west.

[127] 467 [1], 473 C [15], 479 A [28], 483 B [37]; cf. Britannica insula, 483 A [36].

[128] König Ælfred, p. 258.

[129] Dextralis [dextera] pars [plaga] Britannie, pp. 161, 169, 212, 223, 237.

[130] Reges et principes [totius regni] D. B. pp. 70, 118; omnes Ecclesiae totius D. B. p. 115; clerus et populus D. B. p. 165; Dubricius archiepiscopus D. B. pp. 163, 192; incolae D. B. p. 230; D. B. insulae, p. 162; cf. p. 269: ‘[Grifud] rex Britannie, et ut sic dicam totius Gualie’; from which it would seem that ‘Britannia’ is a narrower term than ‘Gualia’; but their exact relation I do not know.

[131] 470 A [7].

[132] 471 D [10].

[133] 487 B, D, 488 A [47-49]; cf. also 496 A, B [49], where Alfred sends alms to the monasteries not only of ‘Saxonia’ and Mercia, but also to those of ‘Britannia,’ Cornwall, Gaul, Armorica, Northumbria, and Ireland.

[134] 477 D, 478 A [25], 483 C [37].

[135] 473 C [15]. Ethelwerd is at the opposite pole to Asser in this respect, for he uses Australes Angli for Sussex, 510 C, D, and Occidentales Angli for Wessex, 509 E, 510 D, 514 D, 515 C, 517 C. We have, however, Saxones Occidentales, 519 A.

[136] 474 C [17], 475 D [20] bis, 482 D [35], 483 C, D [37, 38], 484 B [39].

[137] 470 A [7], 485 D [43], 486 E [46], 492 A [56].

[138] 470 A [7].

[139] 473 C [15], 478 D [27], 479 A [28], 483 B [37], 484 A [38], 487 C [47].

[140] 475 B [19], 478 D [27], 479 A [28], 480 B [30], 481 D [33], 482 C [35].

[141] Saxonica poemata, 473 E [16]; S. carmina, 485 E [43], 486 A [43]. Cf. what is said of Charles the Great, Einhard, c. 29: ‘barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus ueterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit memoriaeque mandauit. Inchoauit et grammaticam patrii sermonis.’ Of his son Louis the Pious on the other hand it is said: ‘poetica carmina gentilia, quae in iuuentute didicerat, respuit, nec legere, nec audire, nec docere uoluit,’ Theganus, Vita Hludouici, c. xx (Pertz, ii).

[142] 474 A [16], 485 E [43], 486 A [43], 497 E [71].

[143] 471 A [146] ter, 471 C [147], 487 C [47], 488 A [49].

[144] ‘In Saxonia et in Cornubia,’ 489 A [51].

[145] ‘In omni Saxonia et Mercia, et … in … Cornubia,’ 496 A, B [67].

[146] For cases in which it does include Northumbria see Bede, ii. 368.

[147] See Bede, ii. 43, 86.

[148] 478 B [26], 484 B [39].