[299] Wendover, i. 363.

[300] ‘Illam maximam regis credidit dignitatem, nullam in ecclesiis Christi habere potestatem,’ Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. Migne, col. 719.

[301] Bromton, col. 814; Rudborne, Ang. Sac. i. 207; Lib. de Hyda, p. 41.

[302] ‘Uir literatissimus, et philosophus in uniuersitate Oxenfordensi,’ Rudborne, u. s.

[303] Bromton, col. 818: ‘tertiam [partem] scholaribus Oxoniae, nouiter congregatis’; so Lib. de Hyda, p. 45.

[304] Rapin (Eng. trans. 1732), i. 95, 160; Carte (ed. 1747), i. 311, 316. The fiction-monger of the Mirror of Justices treats it as already ancient in the time of Alfred. I owe these references to Sir Frederick Pollock.

[305] Miroir des Justices, pp. 296-298; where the names of the defaulting justices are given, and very marvellous they are. I owe this reference to Draper, p. 35.

[306] See above, §§ 44, 45; cf. also Wallingford, p. 535.

[307] See ii. 87.

[308] cf. S. D.² ii. 117: ‘dum reuerterentur domum’; the difference between ‘domūiret’ and ‘dormiret’ would be extremely small.

[309] Ed. Bannatyne Club, p. 22.

[310] See ii. 114.

[311] ‘her Aldfrið … forðferde … on Driffelda,’ Chron. 705 (Northern recension).

[312] He transfers to Æthelred Asser’s description of Alfred’s division of his time and revenues, Langtoft, Rolls Ed. i. 312-324.

[313] Church History, Book ii. 83; cited by Raine, Priory of Hexham, i. 22.

[314] See i. 354.

[315] Chron. 883, MSS. B and C.

[316] See pp. 19, 28.

[317] For Mr. Riley’s notable exposure of Ingulf, see Archaeological Journal, xix. 32 ff., 114 ff.

[318] Ingulf, pp. 20 ff.

[319] ibid. 20.

[320] Bede, H. E. iii. 18; so John the Old Saxon, abbot of Athelney, was ‘bellicosae artis non expers, si in meliori disciplina non studeret,’ Asser, 494 D [63].

[321] See p. 25.

[322] See p. 27.

[323] ibid.

[324] cf. Wulfstan’s Homilies, ed. Napier, p. 310; Ælfric, Lives of Saints, pp. 440, 468; and the references to the Laws given, Chron. ii. 164, 165. Edgar indeed was formally enrolled as a confessor, and found a place in the Calendar, see AA. SS. July 8, p. 659.

[325] Chron. 1018, MS. D.

[326] Gorham, p. 260.

[327] Rolls Ed. p. 163.

[328] Rolls Ed. p. 10.

[329] Rolls Ed. p. 113.

[330] Chron. II. cxxvii.

[331] Thus 869 and 870 are both given as Alfred’s twenty-first year; this throws the Series one wrong up to 876 inclusive. The annal 877, as I have shown, is blank in the genuine text of Asser. Then in 878 not only is this not allowed for, but the number twenty-seventh is repeated from 876. This further increases the error by two, i.e. the total error now amounts to three years; and this error is maintained to the end.

[332] Chronicle, II. xlix, cii-civ, cxvii, 44, 73, 77.

[333] Foundations of England, i. 247.

[334] Bede, I. lvi.

[335] A yet earlier copy of this document is printed in Sweet’s Oldest English Texts, p. 179; another copy occurs in the Cambridge University MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Bede; and a third in a fragment which probably originally belonged to MS. B of the Chronicle; all these MSS. read ‘xxiii.’ with A; a later copy printed by Professor Napier reads ‘xxii.,’ this is probably a mere slip, or it may be due to the influence of Asser. See Chronicle, II. xxviii. f., lxxxix. f., 1, 79. In the Hyde Register, pp. 94 ff., is a later copy beginning with Ine and going down to Canute; this omits the passage about Alfred’s age.

[336] Cited by Stubbs, W. M. II. xlii. f.

[337] On the intellectual poverty of Rome about this time see a very interesting passage in Gregorovius, u. s. iii. 141-149.

[338] 473 D [16].

[339] ‘religiosa nimium femina’ is Asser’s description of his mother, 469 A [4]. Æthelwulf’s famous donation, whatever its exact nature, is at any rate proof of his piety and charity; which are not necessarily, as some persons seem to think, marks of a weak intellect. The letters of Lupus of Ferrières, cited above, § 14, are evidence that his liberality was well known on the Continent.

[340] Asser, 473 D [15].

[341] On pilgrimages and the disastrous results which often followed from them, see Gregorovius, ii. 178 ff., iii. 76 ff.; Bede, ii. 281, 282; on the passion for relics, ibid. 158; Gregorovius, iii. 72 ff.; Ebert, ii. 99, 334 ff., iii. 208 ff.

[342] On sponsors at confirmation see Bede, ii. 383.

[343] Ed. Hearne, pp. 19 ff.

[344] In a review of vol. ii of my Saxon Chron., in Brandl und Tobler, Archiv für ’s Studium der neueren Sprachen, civ. pp. 188 ff.

[345] ‘Cingulo, honore, uestimentisque.’ Cingulum sometimes means ‘dignity,’ ‘office,’ v. Ducange, s. v.; and that may be the meaning here.

[346] Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgesch. ii. 133, cited by Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 145; the authority is Gregory of Tours: ‘in Basilica beati Martini tunica blatea indutus est, et chlamyde, imponens uertici diadema,’ ii. 38.

[347] Ed. Migne, col. 718: ‘Leo tempus et aetatem regnandi regiae unctionis sacramento praeueniens, sicut quondam Samuel puerum Dauid, ita eum in regem … consecrauit.’ Later writers made much of this papal unction, saying not merely that Alfred was the first English king anointed by the pope, which is true, but that he was the first English king who was ever anointed and crowned, e.g. Thorn, in Twysden, col. 1777; Rudborne, Ang. Sac. i. 201, 207: ‘ab ipso descendit inunctio regum Angliae’; Chron. Robert of Gloucester, p. 388: ‘so þat, biuore him, pur king nas þer non’; John de Oxenedes (who puts the papal coronation after Alfred’s accession to the throne!), p. 3; Birch, ii. 256: ‘Alfredus rex totius Anglie, primus coronatus’; see the figure of Alfred in MS. Cott. Claud. D. vi, given in Draper, p. 130, where the crown and ampulla evidently allude to the Roman unction and coronation. Nicolas Smith, titular bishop of Chalcedon († 1655), says: ‘hic solus ex omnibus Angliae regibus Diadema et inaugurationem sumpsit a Romano Pontifice, ut agnoscunt Protestantes,’ in Wise’s Asser, p. 109. I do not know whether modern Roman controversialists derive any satisfaction from the same reflexion. If so, it would be a pity to deprive them of it.

[348] Birch, No. 493; K. C. D. No. 1057.

[349] Chron. ii. 82. So the Charter, Birch, No. 467; K. C. D. No. 269; though the Indiction is wrong, and Stubbs gives the date as 853, Const. Hist. i. 142.

[350] Ebert, ii. 111; Weber, Weltgesch. v. 331, 432.

[351] John xi. 49-52.

[352] Chron.; Asser, sub anno.

[353] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 433.

[354] Birch, No. 486; K. C. D. No. 276.

[355] ‘Romam, composito regno, abiit,’ i. 109.

[356] The Chron. says, ‘ærest,’ ‘for the first time,’ but an earlier wintering has been mentioned in 851.

[357] Birch, No. 487; K. C. D. No. 277.

[358] Chronicle, ii. 82.

[359] See below, pp. 86, 89.

[360] 470 C [8].

[361] W. M. II. xliii.

[362] See above, p. 74; the other charters cited by Stubbs, loc. cit. are all spurious.

[363] ‘Ad patriam atque ad patrem … direxit,’ S. D.¹ ii. 71; ‘ad patrem … remisit,’ S. D.² ii. 101 (of the pope). Both these versions also, especially the second, clearly distinguish this journey of Alfred’s from the one in 853, ii. 103.

[364] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 449.

[365] Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, ii. 148; Anastasius in Muratori, SS. III. i. 251; on which see Gregorovius, iii. 149 ff.

[366] u. s. iii. 110.

[367] So Wendover, i. 290, 291 (who makes this unction of Alfred as king at his father’s request, to the exclusion of his elder brothers, one of the main causes of Æthelbald’s revolt); so too a spurious charter, Birch, No. 493; K. C. D. No. 1057.

[368] The eleventh or twelfth cent. Epitome of the Chron. known as MS. F. I may once more protest against the habit of citing this late authority as ‘the Saxon Chronicle,’ without qualification. Mr. Conybeare (u. s. p. 16) goes further, and misrepresents even this poor authority: ‘according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it was on the news of [Æthelbald’s] incestuous union reaching Rome that Leo “hallowed Alfred to king.”’ Æthelbald’s marriage is not mentioned in any MS. of the Chronicle, not even in F.

[369] Gregorovius, iii. 112.

[370] Gesta Regum, i. 109, ii. xxxix.

[371] Lib. Pontif. ii. 111; or Muratori, SS. III. i. 233. For an earlier fire in the same quarter see Chron. 816 and notes. On these foreign ‘schools’ or hostelries at Rome cf. Chron. ii. 69; De’ Rossi, Un Tesoro di monete Anglo Sassoni (1884), pp. 6, 7.

[372] Gregorovius, iii. 87 ff. (a fine description); Ranke, Weltgesch. VI. ii. 1. Compare Alcuin’s fine lines on the state of Rome at the end of the eighth century:

[373] Gregorovius, iii. 65, 66; Weber, Weltgesch. v. 186 f.

[374] Conybeare, u. s. p. 15.

[375] Weber, u. s. pp. 465 f., 505 ff. The Monk of St. Gallen actually identifies the Saracens and Northmen, see Ebert, u. s. iii. 220.

[376] Weber, u. s. pp. 192, 193.

[377] See above, § 34.

[378] Ranke, u. s.

[379] Gregorovius, u. s. pp. 97 ff.

[380] Chron. 855 and notes.

[381] cf. Ranke, u. s. VI. ii. 40 ff.

[382] ibid. VI. i. 207, 208; Weber, u. s. p. 553.

[383] 470 D-471 C [8-10].

[384] Chron. 860 A.

[385] ibid.

[386] e.g. Pauli, u. s. p. 51; S. C. H. i. 204.

[387] Ranke, u. s. VI. i. 57 ff.; Weber, u. s. pp. 460, 461.

[388] At the beginning of the story the conspirators plot ‘ne unquam Æthelwulf rex a Roma reuertens iterum in regnum reciperetur,’ i.e. the conspiracy is hatched while Æthelwulf is still at Rome; at the end the story of Eadburh seems to imply that it was the marriage with Judith which provoked the conspiracy.

[389] 472 D [13].

[390] Ranke, u. s. c. 2. Weber, u. s. pp. 450 ff.

[391] ‘renuntia … incesto … matrimonio; quia ista Iudith … proximo tibi affinis est sanguine,’ W. M. Gesta Pont. p. 13.

[392] See Chron. ii. 80, 81.

[393] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 450. If his words are to be taken strictly it would seem that Æthelwulf placed the crown on the head of his child bride. (The marriage benediction of Judith is in Bouquet, vii. 621, 622, and is rather a satire on her subsequent history.) So Charles the Great crowned Louis the Pious when he associated him with himself in the imperial power, Sept. 813. Had this precedent been followed, the relations of Papacy and Empire might have been very different, Gregorovius, u. s. pp. 18, 19; Weber, u. s. p. 424.

[394] Birch, No. 495; K. C. D. No. 1058.

[395] H. E. ii. 5.

[396] Iohannes Longus, Pertz, xxv. 768.

[397] The genuine charters signed by Alfred prior to his own accession are, Birch, Nos. 467, 486, 502, 506, 515, 520, 522; K. C. D. Nos. 269, 276, 285, 287, 293, 1061, 298.

[398] Rolls Ed. i. 393.

[399] 743 D-744 B [15, 16].

[400] e.g. 487 B [46], 491 B [55], 492 A [56]. In one place, 485 D [43], it is used of reading both Latin and Saxon; only in one passage is it used of Saxon alone, 474 B [16]. Green, C. E. p. 158, rightly understands it in this sense.

[401] Preface to Cura Pastoralis; cf. Asser: ‘illo tempore lectores boni in toto regno Occidentalium Saxonum non erant,’ 474 B [17]. Here ‘lectores’ means teachers of Latin. Florence substitutes ‘grammatici.’ Ælfric, writing towards the end of the next century of his own youth, says: ‘a mass-priest who was my master could to some extent (be dæle, partly) understand Latin,’ Pref. to Heptateuch; and speaking of his own day he adds: ‘unlearned priests, if they understand just a little of Latin books, forthwith think themselves splendid teachers,’ ibid. p. 2.

[402] 474 B, C [17], 486 C [45].

[403] Alfred’s love of hunting comes out in one or two passages in his writings, e.g. Bede, i. 1 ad fin., where Ireland is said to be ‘mære on huntunge heorta ⁊ rana,’ ed. Miller, p. 30; cf. Boethius, xxxii. § 3, ed. Sedgefield, p. 73.

[404] König Ælfred, p. 68; so Green, C. E. p. 100.

[405] 474 B [16], 486 A [43], 487 A [46], 488 D [50] ter, 491 C [55]. To learn by heart is ‘memoriter retinere,’ ‘memoriter discere,’ 473 E [16], 486 A [43]. But apart from any question of the meaning of ‘recitare,’ Asser says distinctly in this case: ‘magistrum adiit et legit, quo lecto matri retulit et recitauit.’

[406] W. M. II. xlii.

[407] Biographia Liter. Britan., i. 385.

[408] i. 296, 311; modified in Thorpe’s translation, ii. 44. Pauli rightly protests against the theory, p. 67.

[409] Dict. Nat. Biog., i. 154.

[410] ‘nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere,’ 469 A [4].

[411] cf. Pauli, u. s. p. 67.

[412] See Chron. ii. 81, where I have shown that the Chronicle’s (and Asser’s) two years is too long. The Roman historian on the other hand cuts him off too rapidly: ‘reuersus ad proprium regnum … post paucos dies uitam finiuit,’ Liber Pontificalis, ii. 148.

[413] Birch, No. 436; K. C. D. No. 254. In Sim. Dun. i. 204, ‘Australes Saxones’ has the same meaning.

[414] See above, § 30.

[415] Birch, No. 454; K. C. D. No. 261.

[416] Conquest of England, pp. 73, 74.

[417] Birch, No. 395; K. C. D. No. 223; Stubbs, C. H. i. 172.

[418] Malmesbury has an interesting passage on the effects of Egbert’s foreign sojourn, G. R. i. 105.

[419] 472 B [12].

[420] Pauli, u. s. p. 79; following Lappenberg, i. 296; E. T. ii. 27. I think they have been misled by the Latin version of Alfred’s will, which, as I shall show (§ 64), is of no authority.

[421] ‘Ut iustum erat,’ adds Asser, 473 A [14].

[422] 477 C [24]; cf. Lib. de Hyda, p. 27: ‘Ethelredus, quem princeps gloriosus Alfredus coegit ante se regnare.’

[423] 472 D [13].

[424] See p. 152.

[425] I use the words Danes and Danish, as the Chronicle does, for the Scandinavian invaders generally, without professing to distinguish the origin of each separate band. This is the general English use, on the Continent the generic name is Nortmanni, Northmen; Green, Conq. Eng. p. 68; cf. Einhard, Vita Car. c. 12: ‘Dani ac Sueones quos Nortmannos uocamus’; ibid. c. 14: ‘Nortmanni qui Dani uocantur.’ Ranke says: ‘it is impossible to distinguish Danes and Northmen,’ Weltgesch., VI. i. 42. For a vivid description of their ravages in France see Folcuini Gesta Abb. Lobiensium, cc. 16, 17, Pertz, iv. 61, 62; and the verses of Ermoldus Nigellus, Dümmler, Poetae aeui Carolini, ii. 59. Cf. also the well-known description of the earlier and very similar ravages of the Saxons, Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. viii. 6.

[426] See above, § 57.

[427] The Chronicle mentions this under 860, but only with the vague date ‘on his dæge,’ ‘in his [Æthelberht’s] time.’ This seems to show that this part of the Chronicle cannot have been written up till some little time after the event. It is a foreign Chronicler, Prudentius Trecensis, who enables us to fix it to the year of Æthelberht’s accession, 860, Pertz, i. 454. For what follows the Chronicle is the authority, except where otherwise stated.

[428] Vikinger, p. 55.

[429] Sim. Dun. i. 55 f., 225; ii. 106, 110, 377, 391.

[430] Liber de Hyda, p. 27.

[431] According to MS. F of the Chronicle, the appointment of Æthelred to the archbishopric of Canterbury was made by Æthelred and Alfred jointly, Chron. i. 283.

[432] 475 A [19]; it occurs again 476 D [22] (battle of Ashdown); 477 C [24], in relation to Alfred’s accession. In the last passage Alfred is said to have borne the title ‘uiuentibus fratribus.’ The plural is probably mere rhetoric; otherwise it might point to the arrangement as to the succession having been made under Æthelberht, which is not impossible; cf. Ailred of Rievaulx’ phrase: ‘cum fratribus aliquo tempore regnauit,’ ed. Migne, col. 719.

[433] See above, p. 40.

[434] cf. O’Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, I. cxxxii f.

[435] Rhŷs and Brynmor Jones, The Welsh People, p. 203.

[436] It is curious that though Alfred speaks of Æthelbald, Æthelred and himself as three brethren, he only calls Æthelberht ‘our kinsman,’ ‘uncer mæg.’ The same use occurs in Bede, p. 188, where Oswy is called Oswald’s ‘mæg.’

[437] Near the beginning Alfred speaks of ‘min yrfe þæt me God and mine yldran forgeafon,’ i.e. ‘the inheritance which God and my forefathers granted me.’ The Latin translator gives ‘principes’ for ‘yldran,’ a meaning which it can have. He therefore naturally took the sentence to refer to Alfred’s election as king by the Witan; and the rest may have followed from this.

[438] 472 B [12].

[439] Const. Hist. i. 142 note.

[440] April, 1886.

[441] Foundations of England, i. 244.

[442] ‘Martyrio coronatus est.’ R. W. i. 318.