[580] ‘the veil of ninth-century darkness,’ Stubbs, u. s. i. 236.

[581] Ed. Migne, col. 719.

[582] Cf. Pauli, p. 153.

[583] Mansi, Concilia, xvii. 54; Jaffé, Reg. Pont. p. 270; Chron. ii. 87.

[584] Spelman’s Life of Alfred, ed. Hearne, pp. 219 ff. I owe the reference to Mr. Macfadyen.

[585] Pertz, xiii. 566-8; W. M. II. xlvii.

[586] Birch, No. 582; K. C. D. No. 327.

[587] First printed by Cockayne in The Shrine; reprinted in Englische Studien, xviii, where the pagination of Cockayne’s edition is retained. I cite the pages of Cockayne’s edition.

[588] See below, § 115.

[589] ‘ic cwæðe þeah þæt hyt si preostum betere, næbbe ðonne hæbbe,’ [sc. wif], p. 183; so in the Orosius, 290, 1. 2, Alfred strongly condemns the compelling of monks to military service.

[590] Asser, 493 C [60].

[591] Ibid. 495 A [64]. W. M. says that in the Nuns’ Chapterhouse at Shaftesbury was a stone, transferred thither from the walls of the town, with this inscription: ‘Anno Dom. Inc. Elfredus rex fecit hanc urbem DCCCLXXXᵒ. regni suo VIIIᵒ,’ G. P. p. 187 (cf. Lib. de Hyda, p. 49, which reads reparauit’ for ‘fecit’). This shows that Shaftesbury was one of Alfred’s ‘burgs,’ and it occurs in the Burghal Hidage with a territory of 700 hides, Maitland, Domesday, p. 503. It certainly has a most commanding position.

[592] See the document by which Edward acquires land for carrying out his father’s intentions, Birch, No. 605; K. C. D. No. 1087. The so-called ‘golden charter’ of foundation ‘pro anima patris mei Alfredi regis totius Anglie [!] primi coronati,’ is a flagrant forgery, Birch, No. 602, K. C. D. No. 336; cf. Liber de Hyda, pp. xxiii ff.

[593] 493 D [61].

[594] 494 [62-64].

[595] Asser, 496 A, B [67]; cf. Einhard, c. 27, for similar liberality on the part of Charles the Great towards foreign Christians.

[596] 495 C-496 B [65-67].

[597] The ‘Modus tenendi Parliamenti’ (Stubbs’ Charters, pp. 502 ff.) is a curious instance of a purely imaginary constitution giving itself out as historical. It may be as old as Edward I’s reign; if so, as Gneist says, ‘es würde nur dann beweisen dass es schon damals Ideologen des Feudalismus gab,’ Verwaltungsrecht, p. 393.

[598] Const. Hist. i. 105, 143.

[599] Above, §§ 35, 78.

[600] Asser, 496 C-E [68, 69].

[601] ‘tentoriorum tenuitates.’

[602] Weber, Weltgesch., v. 298; Oelsner, Jahrbücher des fränkischen Reiches unter K. Pippin, p. 347: ‘direximus [uobis] … libros … insimul artem gramaticam … geometricam … omnes Greco eloquio scriptas, necnon et horologium nocturnum.’ Cf. also the very curious account given by Einhard, Annals, ad ann. 807, of a striking clock given to Charles by the king of Persia, cited in Hazlitt’s edition of Warton’s History of English Poetry, i. 197.

[603] 492 C [58]; cf. Einhard, Vita Car., c. 16.

[604] Of Charles it is said: ‘Scotorum reges habuit ad suam uoluntatem,’ ibid.

[605] The Life of St. Gall, written in this very century, says: ‘nationi Scotorum consuetudo peregrinandi iam paene in naturam conuersa est,’ Pertz, ii. 30; cf. Bede, ii. 170.

[606] See Chron. ii. 103-105, where these and other instances are collected.

[607] 517 E.

[608] Above, § 27.

[609] Printed in Tobler, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae, and elsewhere.

[610] The nominal amount was however really doubled, because the Saracens insisted on the money being paid by weight, and not by tale.

[611] At the mouth of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which is now silted up, St. Martin, Dict. Géogr.

[612] St. Willibald in the preceding century (circa 720), took a very different route. I give the principal stages only: The Seine, Rouen, Gorthonicum(?), Lucca, Rome, Naples, Syracuse, Monemvasia, Cos, Samos, Ephesus, Miletus, Cape Chelidonium, Cyprus, Emesa, Damascus, Jerusalem. This also is printed in Tobler, u. s.

[613] 883, 887, 888, 889, 890.

[614] 889.

[615] Lib. ii. Prosa vii.

[616] Anglo-Saxon Version, ch. xvii; ed. Sedgefield, p. 40; the translation which follows is taken mainly from Mr. Sedgefield’s handy rendering of Alfred’s version into modern English, in which the passages added by Alfred to his original are very conveniently indicated by italics, p. 41.

[617] For Charles’ Court school cf. Weber, v. 392 ff.

[618] 485 D-486 C [42-44], 496 A [67].

[619] Writing to Offa Alcuin says: ‘ualde mihi placet quod tantam habetis intentionem lectionis, ut lumen sapientiae luceat in regno uestro, quod multis modo extinguitur in locis. Vos estis decus Britanniae, tuba praedicationis, gladius contra hostes, scutum contra inimicos,’ Monumenta Alcuiniana, p. 265.

[620] ‘Pleimundus … magister Elfredi regis,’ G. P. p. 20.

[621] Bede, ii. 55, 56. To avoid this ambiguity Lupus of Ferrières uses the expression ‘sacerdos secundi ordinis,’ Vita S. Wigberti, c. 5.

[622] R. W. i. 324; he alters Werwulf’s name into Werebert, probably because there was a bishop of Leicester of that name early in the ninth century. There was an Athelstan bishop of Hereford early in the eleventh century. This may give us an idea of Wendover’s critical skill.

[623] See Stubbs, W. M. II. xlviii.

[624] Above, p. 129.

[625] W. M. II. xliv ff.

[626] Johannes Longus, a later chronicler of St. Bertin’s, says that Grimbald came to England in consequence of the murder of Fulk, archbishop of Rheims, Pertz, xxv. 769; as the date of this was 900, the date of Grimbald’s arrival would be thrown to the very end of Alfred’s reign. The Liber de Hyda, p. 30, says that Grimbald was sent for by advice of Archbishop Æthelred. This would make the invitation at least as early as 889. And the same authority, p. 35, places his arrival in 885. But I do not attach much weight to any of these statements.

[627] Printed in Wise’s edition of Asser, pp. 123 ff., Birch, ii. 190 ff., and elsewhere.

[628] ‘nostrum est uobis illum canonice concedere,’ Wise, p. 128.

[629] e.g. by Pauli, u. s. p. 195; AA. SS. July, ii. 652.

[630] Wise, pp. 127, 128.

[631] Wise, p. 124.

[632] Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, i. 322.

[633] St. Grimbald’s mass day (July 8) is mentioned in the Chron. 1075 D ad init. See Chron. ii. 122, 123.

[634] Above, p. 18.

[635] ‘inde perplures instituere studuit,’ Asser, 592 A [56].

[636] South of the Thames Alfred did not know a single priest at the time of his accession, who knew Latin; south of the Humber there were very few; north of the Humber he does not think there were many. This confirms the view taken above, that Mercia was at this time intellectually the least backward part of England. The reference to Northumbria implies rather Alfred’s lack of accurate information, than any strong belief that things were very much better there.

[637] ‘forðy me ðyncð betre, gif iow swa ðyncð,’ p. 7; cf. Solil. p. 169: ‘gyf þe nu þincð swa swa me þincð.’

[638] It is the combination of reading with translation that is new. The passage must not be interpreted as if Alfred now for the first time began to read Latin.

[639] Asser, 491 C-492 B [55-57].

[640] ‘enchiridion … id est manualis liber,’ Asser; the equivalent Saxon ‘handbóc’ is found in some MSS. of W. M., i. 132 note.

[641] Gesta Pont., pp. 333, 336.

[642] i. 272.

[643] Article on the ‘Blostman’ in Paul and Braune’s Beiträge, iv. 119 ff. (1877). For Wülker’s later views, see Grundriss, pp. 390-392, 415-420. Later writers continue, however, to repeat Wülker’s earlier views, e.g. Macfadyen, p. 330. Wülker sets aside the Florence of Worcester reference, a little arbitrarily, as it seems to me, Beitr. u. s. p. 128.

[644] Now at length (1900), after many vicissitudes and delays, edited by Hans Hecht in vol. 5 of Grein-Wülker’s Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa.

[645] ‘Werfrithus … imperio regis libros dialogorum Gregorii papae … de Latinitate primus in Saxonicam linguam, aliquando sensum ex sensu ponens [hwilum andgit of andgite, Pref. Past. Care] elucubratim et elegantissime interpretatus est,’ 486 E-487 A [46]; cf. W. M. i. 131. When Professor Earle says (Essays, p. 197) that the authority for Werferth’s authorship of this translation ‘is late and of doubtful value,’ he goes much further in rejecting Asser than I can go.

[646] So in both MSS. according to Hecht, and it certainly is so in Hatton. But I suspect that in the original MS. there was simply a capital G., standing for ‘Gregories,’ which the scribes wrongly expanded. However highly Alfred might think of Gregory’s works, he would hardly speak of them as God’s books.

[647] Plegmund, Asser, Grimbald, and John.

[648] Bede, ii. 70; Ebert, u. s. i. 546 ff. The fourth book of the Dialogues had further a very great influence on the development of the mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory.

[649] e.g. i. 2, 3, 7, 9, &c.

[650] Bampton Lectures, p. 74.

[651] ‘reliquiis quibus ille rex maxime post Dominum confidebat,’ 478 D [28]; the candles which Alfred invented, ‘die noctuque … coram sanctis multorum electorum Dei reliquiis, quae semper eum ubique comitabantur, … lucescebant,’ 496 D [68]; cf. the (probably spurious) passage 485 B [41].

[652] ‘Die Verehrung der Reliquien und der Glaube an ihre Wunderkräfte war kaum zu irgend einer Zeit grösser,’ Ebert, u. s. ii. 99. 334 ff., iii. 208 ff.; Gregorovius, iii. 72 ff.; Bede, ii. 157 f.

[653] The MS. of the revised version, Hatton 76, is mutilated near the end of ii. 35, and has also several lacunae earlier in the work, Hecht, p. ix.

[654] See H. Johnson, Gab es zwei … altenglische Uebersetzungen der Dialoge Gregors? Berlin, 1884.

[655] e.g. 4, 14; 5, 1; 9, 19; 15, 9; 30, 21. Occasionally, though rarely, the later version is the longer, e.g. 36, 20; 37, 27; 42, 28. The references are to the pages and lines of Hecht’s edition, where the two texts are very conveniently printed in parallel columns.

[656] e.g. 17, 1 ff.; 31, 28 ff.; 41, 24 ff.; 43, 7 f.; 46, 14 ff.; 62, 9 ff.; 67, 1; 81, 30 ff.; 108, 2; 126, 19; 127, 20 ff.; 128, 2; 133, 12; 136, 7; 139, 16; 140, 3; 141, 21; 163, 10.

[657] 35, 17 æmtignesse C = otio, ingange H = ostio; 89, 30 mid oþrum C = cum aliis, mid fiðerum H = cum alis; at 145, 17 C is more correct than H, unless this too rests on a difference of reading, molesta for modesta; the latter is certainly right. (C = unrevised, H = revised text.)

[658] I give a few examples of changes frequently made, with the number of instances which I have noticed: ongitan altered to oncnawan (14 times; in three cases ongitan is retained); gangan to stæppan (7); tid to tima (8; in four cases tid is retained); cniht to cnapa (19; in three cases cniht is retained); wise to þing (17); semninga to færinga (8); hwæt, as exclamation, inserted (9). There are probably other instances of these changes which I have overlooked. But these are sufficient to show that they were systematically made. And the list could be easily enlarged.

[659] See above, pp. 34, 35.

[660] For this account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle I may refer generally to the Introduction to vol. ii of my edition, especially §§ 62, 68, 83, 89, 93, 100-8.

[661] For the body of scribes maintained by Alfred see the little verse Proem to the Pastoral Care; (the book itself is represented as speaking) ‘Ælfred kyning … me his writerum sende suð ⁊ norð; heht him swelcra ma brengan bi ðære bisene,’ pp. 8-9.

[662] Below, § 99.

[663] ‘Psalterium transferre aggressus, uix prima parte explicata, uiuendi finem fecit,’ G. R. i. 132. On Alfred’s fondness for the psalms see above, pp. 16, 140; below, p. 153. It is worth notice that in Boeth. xxxix. § 10 (p. 133), Alfred substitutes a quotation from the psalms, for the Greek quotation of the original.

[664] See Bede, ii. 137; so in Anglo-Saxon we have ‘let him sing one fifty,’ ‘two fifties,’ &c., ibid. 138; and add to the references there given, Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 286.

[665] The MS. was edited by Mr. Thorpe for the Clarendon Press in 1835.

[666] See Wichmann in Anglia, xi. 41.

[667] Grundriss, p. 436.

[668] Anglia, xi. 39 ff.

[669] Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, ix. 43 ff.; also printed separately. To these two essays and Mr. Thorpe’s Preface I owe several of the facts made use of in this section.

[670] ‘he witgode be him sylfum, hu his ealdormen sceoldon fægnian his cymes of his wræcsiðe,’ Thorpe, p. 50; cf. Solil. p. 204, where it is said how a man returned from exile remembers his past troubles, in pleasurable contrast with his present good fortune.

[671] These colophons were sometimes mechanically copied by scribes, and Thorpe suggested that such might be the case in the present instance. If this were so, then it would not be necessary to prove identity of handwriting in order to prove that the person referred to was the same.

[672] Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, I. xvi.

[673] It is not impossible that the whole tradition of Alfred having translated the Psalter may have arisen out of the passage in Asser where it is said that Alfred’s Encheiridion or Commonplace Book grew, ‘quousque propemodum ad magnitudinem unius psalterii peruenerit,’ 492 B [57]. We seem to have a trace of this confusion in the Eulogium Historiarum, iii. 9: ‘semper habebat librum in sinu quod ipse uocabat manuale, … quidam dicunt hoc fuisse Psalterium.’

[674] ‘totum Nouum et Vetus Testamentum in eulogiam Anglicae gentis transmutauit,’ p. 81 (Anglia Christiana Society edition). Ailred of Rievaulx (also twelfth century) says ‘sacros apices in linguam Anglicam uertere laborabat,’ col. 722.

[675] ‘plurimam partem Romanae bibliothecae Anglorum auribus dedit,’ G. R. i. 132.

[676] Cf. the lines of Alcuin:—

[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.