Further
evidence
for the
text of
Asser in
the tenth
century.
§ 25. We saw in the last lecture that there was good
evidence for the existence of our text of Asser, apart from
the interpolations made by sixteenth and seventeenth
century editors, about the year 975. Another argument
pointing the same way is derived from the text of Simeon
of Durham.
Simeon of
Durham.
In that writer’s Historia Regum there exists a double
recension of the Annals 848-951, both of which are, for
the years 848-888, largely derived, mediately or immediately,
from Asser. The explanation of this curious fact
given by Mr. Thomas Arnold in his interesting and able
introduction to the edition of Simeon in the Rolls Series,
is as follows[107]. The earlier recension is the work of a Cuthbertine
monk, writing at Chester-le-Street in the second
half of the tenth century, who drew largely on Asser for
the reign of Alfred, farcing the text however (to use a
liturgical term) with many rhetorical flourishes of his own.
When Simeon, at the beginning of the twelfth century,
embodied the Cuthbertine’s work in his Historia Regum,
his better taste was revolted by these florid insertions, and
he rewrote these annals, not wholly discarding his predecessor’s
work, but using in addition both the original text
of Asser, and also the recent work of Florence of Worcester.
(The fact, which can be demonstrated, that Simeon used
(1) the original text of Asser; (2) Asser as farced by the
Cuthbertine; (3) Asser as revised by Florence, is one
which I commend to the notice of students of the synoptic
problem[108].) Had Simeon lived to give his work the final
revision, he would no doubt have cancelled the earlier
version of these annals. As it is, his literary executors
embodied both versions; and we may be thankful that
they did so, as they have thereby preserved some interesting
evidence both literary and historical.
If then Mr. Arnold’s theory is correct, as I believe it to
be, we have once more evidence of the existence of a text
of Asser before the end of the tenth century. This however,
though probable, is only a theory. But, even if it
be rejected, the argument of the preceding section remains
unaffected.
The
palaeographical
evidence
unimportant.
§ 26. Seeing then that we can trace our Asser text
back at least as far as the year 974, the palaeographical
question as to the date of Wise’s MS. becomes comparatively
unimportant. And it is well that it is so;
for the doctors differ to an extraordinary degree. One
morning in Bodley I submitted Wise’s facsimile of the
beginning of his MS. to three eminent palaeographers
of this University. The first was too wary to be caught
by my chaff, and refused to give a definite opinion; the
second said, ‘Not much later than 950’; the third said,
‘Well, it isn’t later than the twelfth century, but it isn’t
very much earlier.’ I believe the general opinion would
place it early in the eleventh century, and this fits in well
enough with what I have tried to prove above, that it is
copied, mediately or immediately, from a MS. which
cannot be later than 974.
Conjectural
emendation. Alfred’s
intercourse
with the
East.
§ 27. Something may be done for the text of Asser by
cautious conjectural emendation. There are a certain
number of obvious blunders in it due to the carelessness of
scribes, the ignorance of editors, possibly even to the
mistakes of compositors[109]. Most of these are concerned
with minor details. There is one correction however, with
which I will trouble you, as it relates to a point of some
historical interest; and, moreover, converts into a proof of
Asser’s accuracy, what might have been used as an argument
against him, though I am not aware that it has
actually been so used. In the somewhat magniloquent
passage in which are described the extensive relations
which Alfred cultivated with foreign parts, the following
sentence occurs[110]: ‘nam etiam de Hiersolyma Abel patriarcha
[v. l. patriarchae] epistolas … illi directas uidimus
et legimus.’ The passage as it stands is open to two
objections, one historical, the other grammatical. The
historical objection is that no one of the name of Abel
held the patriarchate of Jerusalem during Alfred’s reign;
though our historians go on copying and recopying the
name without ever dreaming of verifying the point. The
grammatical objection is that the passive participle ‘directas’
cries aloud for a preposition of agency. By the addition
of two vowels and the subtraction (if necessary) of another
the passage can be brought into harmony both with history
and grammar, thus: ‘ab Elia patriarcha.’ Elias III
was patriarch of Jerusalem from 879 to 907[111]. In the
earlier of the two versions which occur in Simeon of
Durham the word ‘Abel’ is printed ‘a Bel[112].’ This does
justice to the grammar, but not to the history. In the
later version, Simeon himself, following Florence, omits
the passage altogether. One would be glad to know
whether Florence omitted it because he saw the objections
to which it was open.
Evidence
of the
Leechbook, and of the
Anglo-Saxon
Martyrology.
I was first put on the track of this correction by the
curious passage of the Leechbook printed by Mr.
Cockayne in the second volume of his interesting Anglo-Saxon
Leechdoms, where the writer, after giving certain
medical recipes, says at the end: ‘all this my Lord Elias,
patriarch of Jerusalem, bade thus say to King Alfred[113].’
As the MS. from which this is taken is, according to
Mr. Cockayne, of the early part of the tenth century[114],
we are brought very near indeed to Alfred’s time. Moreover
in the Anglo-Saxon Martyrology printed by the same
editor in his work called ‘The Shrine; a collection of
occasional papers on dry subjects,’ two Eastern saints,
martyred in Persia in 341, SS. Milus and Senneus, are
commemorated at November 15[115]. These are found in no
Western Calendar, and Mr. Cockayne thinks that the
knowledge of them must have come to England through
Alfred’s intercourse with Elias of Jerusalem. The martyrology,
which is unfortunately incomplete, was not improbably
drawn up by Alfred’s directions, and cannot be
later than his reign, as it mentions St. Oswald’s body as
resting at Bardney[116], whence it was translated to Gloucester
by Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians, and her husband
Æthelred, not long after Alfred’s death[117].
In one instance, I may remark in passing, the editors
have altered Asser’s text for the worse, what the Germans
call ‘Verschlimmbesserung.’ It is the passage where
Athelney monastery is said to be unapproachable ‘nisi
cauticis, aut etiam per unum pontem[118].’ Here ‘cauticis’
has been altered to ‘nauticis.’ But ‘cautica’ is a perfectly
good word, and means causeway, chaussée[119], a much better
sense than any that can be got out of ‘nauticis[120].’
Evidence
of the
work as
to the
author. He was
a native
of South
Wales.
§ 28. But even when all has been done that criticism
can do for the restoration and purification of the text,
the work still remains a puzzle almost insoluble. What
can we make out as to the author? It is clear that he
was a Celt from South Wales. This is proved partly by
his language and terminology, partly by his knowledge
of South Welsh affairs. As to the former point, he has
the special Celtic use of the terms ‘right-hand’ and ‘left-hand,’
to express the ideas of south and north. The Celt
always faced the east, and named the quarters of the
heaven from that point of view. Thus Chippenham is in
the left-hand part of Wiltshire[121]. The author’s own home
was to the left and west of Severn[122]. The Danes throw
up earthworks on the right-hand side of Reading[123]; Sussex
is the region of the right-hand Saxons[124]; and, lastly, all
the regions of the right-hand part of Britannia belonged
to Alfred[125]. This does not, however, exclude the use of the
more ordinary words ‘meridianus’ and ‘aquilonaris’ for
south and north[126].
Ambiguous
use of
the term
Britannia.
§ 29. The example last cited brings me to another characteristic
of the author’s terminology; viz. his ambiguous
use of the word Britannia, which sometimes means Britain
in the ordinary sense[127], but more often means Wales.
Historians have gone wrong through ignoring this distinction.
Thus Dr. Pauli[128], in the passage just quoted,
takes Britannia in what is to us the ordinary sense. But
that all the southern parts of Britain belonged to Alfred
is so obvious as not to be worth saying. That all the
southern districts of Wales had submitted to Alfred is
a new and most interesting fact. And this clearly is the
meaning; for the statement is introductory to that sketch
of the troubles in South Wales which explains both why
the South Welsh princes commended themselves to Alfred,
and why the author consented to enter his service. Moreover
this use is paralleled again and again in the Book
of Llandaff, a primary South Welsh authority. We find
there Asser’s very phrase ‘dextralis pars Britanniae’ several
times repeated[129]. We have the clergy and people, the
inhabitants, the churches, the archbishop, the kings and
princes, the kingdom, the islands, ‘Dextralis Britanniae[130].’
To return to Asser:—Æthelwulf reduces ‘Britannia’ under
Burgred of Mercia[131]; Offa’s dyke divides Mercia from ‘Britannia[132],’
and finally Asser himself agrees to spend half his
time ‘in Britannia’ and half with Alfred ‘in Saxonia[133].’
Use of the
terms
Saxones
and
Saxonia. Limitation
of
the term
Saxonia.
§ 30. This brings me to my next point. For our author,
as for all branches of the Celtic race, the Germanic tribes
settled in Britain bear the common name of Saxons[134]. So
much is this the case that he once writes ‘regnum Orientalium
Saxonum, quod Saxonice Eastengle dicitur[135].’ This
is a mere slip, for in other cases he has ‘Orientales Angli’
quite correctly[136]. But it shows how much more natural
the word ‘Saxones’ was to him than the other. So too
their language is ‘Saxonica lingua[137],’ as opposed to Welsh,
which is ‘Britannicus sermo[138]’; a place bears one name,
‘Saxonice,’ ‘in English[139],’ and another, ‘Britannice,’ ‘in
Welsh[140]’; and we hear of the ‘Saxon’ poems which Alfred
loved from his boyhood[141], and of the ‘Saxon’ books[142], in
which they and other English writings were contained.
So too the country of these tribes is ‘Saxonia[143].’ But
here it is important to notice the precise limitations under
which Asser uses this last term. It is not coextensive
with the whole of Germanic Britain. It includes Wessex,
Sussex, Kent, Surrey, and Essex. Cornwall is excluded as
being Celtic[144]; but Mercia is also excluded[145], and a fortiori,
though this is not expressly mentioned, East Anglia and
Northumbria[146]. In other words it includes that part of
the island which, at the death of Egbert, was under the
direct rule of Wessex; or, to borrow Bede’s useful distinction,
it connotes the ‘regnum’ as opposed to the ‘imperium[147]’
of the West Saxon house. It is possible that in
many cases the term ‘Saxones’ should be understood with
a like limitation, for the Mercii, Northanhymbri, and
Orientales Angli are generally mentioned separately. But
I do not think that this limitation can be carried out
quite so rigorously, for instance where Asser speaks of
the ‘Schola Saxonum’ at Rome[148], answering to the
‘Angelcynnes scolu’ of the Chronicle. In one case he
does expressly distinguish ‘Angli et Saxones[149].’
Alfred
‘king
of the
Anglo-Saxons.’
§ 31. And in this connexion it is deplorable to remark
that for Asser Alfred is always ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons[150]’;
but then we must remember that Asser never
had the advantage of reading Mr. Freeman’s history of
the Norman Conquest, or of attending the lectures of
Professor Napier. But, jesting apart, it is important to
note that by the use of this title our author intends to
mark a real advance in power and dignity on the part of
Alfred as compared with his predecessors, none of whom
bears any higher style than that of king of the West
Saxons[151], and the change of style is justified by the fact
that a large number of Mercian Angles became Alfred’s
immediate subjects in 878. On the other hand Asser
does not exaggerate Alfred’s position, as later Chroniclers
do, calling him ‘monarch of the whole of Britain’ and so
on[152]. If the heading of the work is genuine, as I am
inclined for this very reason to think it is, Alfred is
addressed as ‘ruler of all the Christians of the isle of
Britain[153].’ In other words the writer recognises exactly
the same limitations to Alfred’s power as does the Saxon
Chronicle, where it says that, after Alfred’s occupation of
London, all the English kin submitted to him, except
what was under the thraldom of the Danes[154].
Other
Celtic
terms.
Another term of Celtic origin is probably to be found in
the unique title of ‘secundarius’ given by Asser to Alfred
during the reign of Æthelred[155]; but of this I shall have
more to say in another lecture; while for ‘graphium’ in
the sense of ‘donation’ or ‘written grant,’ the only other
authority quoted is from the life of a Welsh saint[156].
Celtic use
of the
term
Germania.
§ 32. Another trace of Celtic influence is to be found,
I believe, in the innocent-looking passage where it is said
that in 884 an army of pagans from Germany, ‘de
Germania,’ invaded the Old or Continental Saxons[157]. It
might be thought that this merely refers to the fact that
part, at any rate, of the invading army had wintered at
Duisburg on the Rhine[158]. But could they be said to be
going from Germany when they invaded Saxony? I cannot
speak positively as to all the mediaeval uses of the
word ‘Germania,’ but one would think that it must include
Saxony[159]. But however this may be, the fact remains that
Asser nowhere applies the name ‘Germania’ to any part of
the Carolingian empire. The people of that empire are
Franks[160]. Charles the Great[161], Charles the Bald[162], Charles
the Fat[163], Louis the Stammerer[164], Louis, king of Northern
France[165], are all kings of the Franks. Carloman, king of
Aquitaine and Burgundy, is king of the Western Franks[166].
We hear also of the kingdom or region of the Western
Franks[167]. The territory included in the empire as a whole
is called Francia[168]. The eastern kingdom is Francia
Orientalis[169]. The western territory is sometimes called
Gallia[170], and its inhabitants are Gauls[171], or of Gallic race[172].
Charles the Fat, before he gained the western kingdom, is
king of the Alamanni[173]. I believe that Germania here
means Norway, a meaning which, strange as it may seem,
it unquestionably has in the Welsh Annals. Thus at 1036
the Brut y Tywysogion calls Canute king of England,
Denmark, and Germania, while at 1056 the title king of
Germania is given to Harold Hardrada. In other words,
the invaders of Saxony, according to Asser, came from
Norway, and not from Denmark, which he calls Danubium[174].
Other
Celtic
characteristics.
Another very obvious characteristic of the writer is his
fondness for giving Welsh equivalents for English names
of places[175].
May I add without offence that I think another Celtic
trait in our author is a certain largeness of statement?
Mons. Henri Martin, a great admirer of the Celts, notes
as characteristic of them a certain ‘rebellion against facts[176]’;
and there are many things in Asser which we can hardly
accept as literally true, though, as I have shown already,
and shall have to show again, some of the criticisms directed
against him rest on misunderstandings of his words.
Knowledge
of
South
Welsh
affairs.
§ 33. We have next to consider the author’s knowledge
of South Welsh affairs. The principal passage is the one
already alluded to where Asser describes his motives for
entering Alfred’s service[177]. He and his friends hoped
thereby to check the mischief inflicted on St. David’s by
Hemeid, king of Dyfed, who had on one occasion expelled
Archbishop Novis, Asser’s relative, and himself. Alfred
was in a position to help, for some time previously all the
princes of South Wales had commended themselves to
Alfred; Hemeid himself, and Helised ap Teudyr, king of
Brecheiniog, owing to the pressure of the sons of Rotri
Mawr, king of North Wales; while Howel ap Rhys, king
of Glewissig, Brochmail and Fernmail, sons of Mouric,
kings of Gwent, took the same step, owing to the pressure
of Æthelred of Mercia. Even Anaraut, son of Rotri himself,
with his brothers, leaving the friendship of the
Northumbrians (by which I take the Northumbrian Danes
to be meant) sought the king’s friendship; and after being
honourably received by him, and made his godson at confirmation,
agreed to stand to him in the same relation of
subordination as Æthelred did in Mercia, and was dismissed
with rich presents—a scene which almost repeats the submission
of Guthrum, and incidentally perhaps supports the
view that the defect of which Augustine complained in
Welsh baptismal practice, was the omission of the rite of
confirmation[178]; while the comparison with Æthelred of
Mercia illustrates the semi-royal position of Alfred’s son-in-law[179]
at least as forcibly as it illustrates Anaraut’s
dependence.
Relations
of Wales
to Wessex.
§ 34. Many years ago the late Mr. Bradshaw laid stress
on the forms of these Welsh names as showing that Asser
could not be a late forgery[180]. This argument becomes of
less importance in view of the results we have already
arrived at as to the date, and of the fact that names of the
same type occur in documents later than the latest date
which any reasonable critic could propose for Asser[181]. But
the whole passage throws a flood of light on the state of
Wales, and its relations to the house of Wessex. We see
South Wales forced to submit to Wessex by the joint
pressure of North Wales and Mercia; while North Wales,
which had remained hostile at any rate up to 880, when
a battle was fought which was regarded as avenging the
slaughter of Rotri Mawr by the Saxons in 877[182], ultimately
found it to its interest to seek the shelter of the West
Saxon overlord. Thus we see actually going on before
our eyes the transition from the state of things under
Egbert, when the Celtic population joined eagerly with the
Scandinavian invaders in the hope of undoing the work of
the Saxon Conquest[183], to a state of things in which they
combine with their Saxon rivals against the common foe.
It seems to me that such a passage, introduced so incidentally
and naturally, could only have been written by a
contemporary writer. Moreover all the South Welsh
princes, with two exceptions, are mentioned in the Book of
Llandaff, several of them occur in the Annals. Hemeid of
Dyfed, Asser’s enemy, died in 892 or 891[184]. Howel ap
Rhys is probably the Howel who died at Rome in 885[185]
whither he had gone, it is not unlikely, in expiation of the
crime—a peculiarly foul case of treachery—recited in the
Book of Llandaff[186]. His district, Glewissig, is often mentioned
in the same authority; it is ‘roughly the district
between the lower courses of the Usk and Towy[187].’ Mouric
of Gwent and his sons Brochmail and Fernmail also occur
frequently[188]. Mouric is probably the one whose death is
recorded in 873[189]. The only prince as to whom I can find
nothing is Helised ap Teudyr of Brecheiniog. But there
is a Teudyr ab Elised, king of Brecheiniog[190], contemporary
with Llunwerth or Llwmbert, the successor of Novis in the
see of St. David’s, who is not impossibly his father. Of
Novis himself I have said enough above (p. 20).
Events of
878.
Another place where the author shows his knowledge of
South Welsh affairs is in the interesting addition which he
makes to the Chronicle under 878, to the effect that the
heathen force which besieged Cynwit on the north coast
of Devon, had wintered in Dyfed, and massacred many
Christians there[191]. Facts like this explain the change of
attitude on the part of the Welsh. South Wales also
suffered severely in 895[192].
Question
as to
unity of
authorship. Peculiar
sense of
the word
aedificia.
§ 35. I have so far spoken of ‘our author’ in the
singular. But the question must now be faced: is the
work (apart from actual and possible interpolations) the
composition of a single hand? When I first took up this
question I rather hoped that the result to be arrived at
would be, that the annals were the work of one author,
the biographical notes of another, while the florid head-links,
of which I spoke before[193], would be the work of the later
editor who combined the two documents. This would have
been a result dear to the heart of the higher critic. But
any such theory, however pretty, will not stand a moment’s
examination. Allowing for the difference of subject-matter,
the same characteristics appear both in the annalistic and
biographical sections. Thus of five instances of the Celtic
use of left and right instead of north and south, two occur
in the annals and three in the biography; ‘Britannia,’ in
the sense of ‘Wales,’ occurs six times in the biography and
once in the annals[194]. So there are some not quite common
words and expressions, for which the writer has an evident
predilection, which are sprinkled about both parts of the
work. The details are too dry for reproduction here, and
may be safely relegated to the obscurity of a footnote[195].
But one instance is of sufficient general interest to merit
discussion. This is the use of the word ‘aedificia’ in the
sense of articles of goldsmiths’ work. To this I can produce
no parallel from any other writer; but the meaning
seems to me practically certain in three instances, and
probable in the fourth; and of these four cases one occurs
in the annals, and the rest in the biography. The first
instance is where Alfred, after Guthrum’s baptism, gives
him ‘multa et optima aedificia[196].’ It is clear that Guthrum
did not carry away with him edifices, in the ordinary sense
of the word. Lappenberg would alter ‘aedificia’ into
‘beneficia[197]’; ‘mit vollem Rechte,’ says Pauli[198]; but this
will hardly do in other cases, as we shall see.
The next instance is where Asser says that Alfred ‘by
his novel contrivance made “aedificia” more venerable and
precious than any of his predecessors[199].’ Here the ordinary
meaning is just possible, though the epithet ‘pretiosiora’
and the fact that ‘aurifices et artifices’ are mentioned just
before, point decidedly the other way. The third passage
speaks of ‘aedificia of gold and silver incomparably wrought
under his instructions[200].’ Even the most Celtic imagination
cannot suppose that Alfred built edifices, in the ordinary
sense, of the precious metals, especially as his own royal
halls and chambers are expressly stated to have been of
stone and wood[201]. The fourth passage tells how Alfred
had workmen who were skilled ‘in omni terreno aedificio[202],’
where the meaning is probably the same. The use of the
word in so strange a sense in both parts of the work seems
to me a strong proof of unity of authorship. The usage,
however, becomes a little less strange if we remember how
much of the goldsmith’s art at that time would go to the
making of shrines and reliquaries, which really were
‘edifices’ in miniature. The two middle passages which
speak of Alfred’s ‘novel contrivance,’ and of his personal
instructions to his workmen, are of singular interest in
connexion with the Alfred Jewel; and the fact that my
friend Professor Earle, who has made a special study of
that jewel, agrees with my interpretation of these passages,
adds greatly to my confidence in advancing it. Alfred’s
love for this kind of art seems to have been hereditary.
William of Malmesbury gives an account of a shrine which
Æthelwulf had made to contain the bones of St. Aldhelm.
‘The covering is of crystal, whereon the king’s name may
be read in letters of gold[203].’ This exactly answers to the
character of the Alfred Jewel.
Asser’s
style.
§ 36. Of Asser’s style two prominent characteristics are
a fondness for long parentheses[204], and a tiresome trick of
repeating a word or phrase, sometimes with a slight variation,
at intervals, in some cases longer, in others very
short[205]. He certainly would have had no chance with the
editor who objected to the quotation ‘to the pure all things
are pure,’ on the ground that it sinned against the rule of
the office that the same word must not be repeated within
six lines. Occasionally he seems as if he could not get
away from a phrase, but clings to it, as a drowning man
clings to a plank; and I think that this feature is due, not
to any love for these particular words and phrases, but to
a poverty of expression like that which causes the repetitions
of an unpractised speaker. These characteristics
come out most strongly no doubt in the biographical
sections, but they are not wholly absent from the others[206].
Relation of Asser
to the
Saxon
Chronicle. Mistranslation, or misunderstanding.
§ 37. The next question which must be considered is
the relation of the Latin Annals of Asser to the corresponding
passages of the Saxon Chronicle. Sir Henry Howorth
indeed expresses roundly his conviction that Asser wrote (if
indeed he would not rather say forged) the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle[207]. This I regard as quite inconceivable. Sir
James Ramsay, without going so far as this, records that
‘several’ passages have convinced him that the Latin of
Asser is more original than the Saxon of the Chronicle[208].
Unfortunately he does not indicate these passages. My
own conviction is unfalteringly the other way. In the first
place there is at least one passage in Asser which can only
be explained as a mistranslation of the Chronicle. It
occurs under 876. Here the Chronicle has a phrase which
puzzled all translators of the Chronicle, mediaeval and
modern, till it was cleared up by Professor Earle. It runs
thus: ‘The mounted force (i.e. of the Danes) stole away
from the fyrd and got into Exeter.’ Asser misunderstands
this, making it a defeat of a native body of cavalry by the
Danes[209]. At 886[210] there seems also to be a mistranslation
or misunderstanding, but the text is possibly corrupt, and
Florence has not improved it.
‘East-Seaxum.’
Again, such forms as ‘Middel-Seaxum[211],’ ‘East-Seaxum[212],’
‘Suð-Seaxum[213],’ ‘Eald-Seaxum[214],’ which contain the Saxon
dative plural surely imply a Saxon original. It may be
noted too that Asser retains the Saxon name of the river
Seine, Signe[215], whereas the more classical Florence translates
it into the Latin form, Sequana. Phrases again like
‘ipso eodem anno[216]’ for ‘þy ilcan geare,’ and the constantly
recurring ‘loco funeris dominati sunt[217]’ for ‘ahton wælstowe
geweald,’ ‘superius’ for ‘ufor[218]’ point the same
way.
Omission.
Again, Asser accidentally omits the annal 884, which is
a very brief one in the Chronicle. Consequently, he
mechanically puts the events of 885 under 884.
Chronology.
Lastly, Steenstrup showed by a comparison of the continental
Chronicles that the movements of the Danes from
879 to 897 in the Saxon Chronicle (= 878-896) are
probably dated a year too late[219]. This is confirmed by the
mention of a solar eclipse under 879 at one o’clock of the
day. Now in 878 there was a solar eclipse on October 29,
at 1.30 p.m. There was a solar eclipse also in 879, on
March 26, but this was at 4 p.m. Asser gives the hour of
the eclipse as ‘between nones and vespers but nearer to
nones[220].’ In other words he has altered the hour of the
eclipse given by the Chronicle to suit the wrong numbering
of the Annal. The force of these arguments taken together
seems to me overwhelming.
Asser’s
additions
to the
Chronicle.
§ 38. But Asser is not content to be a mere translator.
He makes considerable additions to the Chronicle, which
vary very much in value. Some are pure rhetoric, others
are mere inferences from the words of the Chronicle,
legitimate enough it may be, but of no higher authority
than similar inferences deduced by ourselves. Many consist
of interpretations of Saxon names[221], or statements of
their Welsh equivalents[222]. A considerable number are
geographical glosses explaining the situation of the places
mentioned[223]. These three last classes of additions occur
only in the Annals, and all three seem to point to an interpreter
wishing to make his original clearer to his
readers, who are assumed to be unfamiliar with Saxon
names and places. Even the situation of London is carefully
explained. But other additions, like the one discussed
above about the wintering of the Danish fleet in Dyfed[224],
are of real value, and evidently rest on authentic
information.
Abrupt
termination.
§ 39. The abrupt termination of the work after the year
887 has always been a difficulty. If we could trust the
statement that the work was written in Alfred’s forty-fifth
year, i.e. about 894[225], we might account for this by
supposing that the Chronicle, from which the writer borrows
so much, had not at that time got much beyond 887.
And the work may have been laid aside and never taken up
again. Unfortunately this date occurs in one of those
suspicious passages about Alfred’s illness, though not in
the one most open to suspicion. Or, again, the work
may be mutilated.
Asser to
be used
with
caution; but there
is a
genuine
nucleus.
§ 40. On the whole, then, Asser is an authority to be
used with criticism and caution; partly because we have
always to be alive to the possibility of interpolation, partly
because the writer’s Celtic imagination is apt to run away
with him. But that there is a nucleus which is the genuine
work of a single writer, a South Walian contemporary of
Alfred, I feel tolerably sure, and I know no reason why
that South Walian contemporary should not be Asser of
Menevia. There is a slight confirmation of this view in
the quotation which the writer makes from Gregory’s
Cura Pastoralis[226], for we know from Alfred’s own mouth that
Asser was one of those who helped him in the translation
of that work. Another coincidence with Alfred’s preface to
the Cura Pastoralis is to be found in the phrase ‘aliquando
sensum ex sensu ponens,’ which Asser uses in reference to
the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues[227]. Anyhow, as
I have shown[228], the work which bears Asser’s name cannot
be later than 974, and the attempt to treat it as a forgery
of the eleventh or twelfth century must be regarded as
having broken down. I may add that I started with
a strong prejudice against the authenticity of Asser, so
that my conclusions have at any rate been impartially
arrived at.
A puzzling
work.
§ 41. Still the book remains a puzzle both in form and
substance. It was a curious work to offer to Alfred if it
contained the scandals about Æthelbald and Judith, and
what we must regard as the idealised description of Alfred’s
court and administration. I am conscious that I am very
far from having solved the problem. I shall be content if
I am thought to have contributed something towards a
solution, which will perhaps be given before long by
Mr. Stevenson. The suggestion of Mr. Macfadyen that
the work was drawn up with a view to Alfred’s canonisation[229]
may be dismissed at once. People are not canonised
in their lifetime.
Lives of
saints.
§ 42. In one class of historical literature, which often
very usefully supplements more formal histories, the reign
of Alfred is singularly barren, I mean the lives of saints.
We have nothing like the lives of Dunstan, Oswald, and
Æthelwold, which give us so much help towards the end
of the next century; or like the lives of Wilfrid and
Cuthbert at an earlier period. The times, indeed, were not
favourable to the development of saintship of the mediaeval
pattern. The monasteries, the chief schools of that type of
sanctity, suffered more than any other institutions at the
hands of the Danes; and the virtues which the age
required were of a more active kind than those which went
to make up the mediaeval ideal. The title of saint is
indeed given by one authority to Werferth, bishop of
Worcester; but this rests, as we shall see, on a misconception;
though in truth, as Mr. Taylor has remarked, the
conduct of Werferth in accepting the see of Worcester in
872, the very year preceding the expulsion of Burgred,
king of Mercia, Alfred’s brother-in-law, by the Danes,
was as heroic as that of any Christian missionary[230].
Lives of
St. Neot;
their
mythical
character.
§ 43. The only hagiological literature relating to Alfred’s
reign consists of the lives of St. Neot. And these are
late, and not merely unhistorical, but anti-historical. To
them are due some of the prevalent misconceptions as to
Alfred’s reign. For this very reason something must be
said about them.
Five
Lives. The
Bodleian
Life. The Bollandist
Life. The
Metrical
Life. The
Anglo-Saxon
Life.
The existing Lives of St. Neot are, as far as I know, five
in number, four in Latin, of which three are in prose and
one in verse, and one Anglo-Saxon Life. Besides these
there is, as we have seen, a fragment of another Latin Life,
embodied in the Annals of St. Neot, and thence transferred
by Archbishop Parker to the text of Asser[231]. Roger of
Wendover’s account of St. Neot[232] seems also to be based
on some Life different from any of those mentioned above.
Of the Latin Lives that have come down to us the earliest
is that contained in MS. Bodley 379, and printed at the
end of Whitaker’s Life of St. Neot[233]. It may sufficiently
characterise this writer’s style to say that he describes
Wessex as the country of ‘the Anglican Saxons who dwell
beneath the Zephyr wind[234].’ The next Latin Life is that
printed by the Bollandists[235] from a MS. formerly belonging
to Bec. It bears within itself clear evidence of being later
than the Norman Conquest[236]. This is a very pedantic
writer. He talks much of form and matter, genus and
species[237], ‘the dry notions of Logicians,’ as one translator
of Thomas à Kempis[238] depreciatingly calls them; and is
fond of using Greek words like ‘anatole,’ ‘mesembria,’
‘dysis[239].’ The Metrical Life, printed by Whitaker[240] from
a MS. belonging to Magdalen College, Oxford, is clearly
based on this, of which also John of Tynemouth’s Life[241]
is a mere abridgement. The Anglo-Saxon Life (or rather
Homily) is preserved in a Cottonian MS. (Vesp. D. xiv),
whence it was printed by the Rev. G. C. Gorham in his
History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St. Neot’s
(1824)[242], and more recently by Cockayne[243] and Wülker[244].
As to its date widely different views have been held, based
on divergent interpretations of a passage near the end,
where the writer contrasts the evils of his own times with
the prosperity of Alfred’s later years. Sir T. Duffus Hardy
thought that this description pointed to the year 986 as the
date of composition[245], while Professor Earle would place it
in the eleventh or twelfth century[246]. But the mistake of
the writer in making Neot contemporary with Ælfheah of
Canterbury is absolutely conclusive against the earlier
date[247]. Wülker is inclined to attribute it to Ælfric[248];
but this also is unlikely. It is clearly based on earlier
Lives, for the expressions occur: ‘as books say,’ ‘it is
told in writings,’ &c.[249] But I do not think it is directly
derived from any of the preceding Lives, and, though not
ancient, it may be earlier than any of them. It certainly
contains one miracle which is not found in any of the
others, a very quaint story (probably a folk-tale) of a fox
which stole the Saint’s shoe while he was bathing[250].
Analysis
of the
Lives.
§ 44. These lives cover much the same ground. St. Neot
is made the son of Æthelwulf and his wife, granted to
their prayers as a reward for their piety[251]. Æthelwulf is
represented not incorrectly as king of one of the four
English kingdoms, viz. of Wessex with Kent[252], the other
three of course being Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria.
Of the relations of these kingdoms a very ideal sketch is
given. As the Metrical Life says, in verses which are as
open to criticism on prosodical as they are on historical
grounds:—
‘Suffecit cuique sua pars, nec plura petebat,
Alter in alterius nil sibi iure petit.
Pax stabilis, uita concors, discordia nulla;
Inter eos regnat gratia, liuor abest
[253].’
Neot becomes a monk at Glastonbury under Dunstan[254]
(who was made abbot of Glastonbury in 946!), and was
the special friend of Æthelwold[255] (bishop of Winchester
963!) or of his successor Ælfheah[256]! After this Neot
becomes an anchorite in Cornwall, whence he goes to Rome
to Pope Marinus[257]. On his return he founds a monastery
in Cornwall[258], and now it is that Alfred first hears of him
(though according to the pedigree he would be his own
brother). Alfred visits him, and Neot rebukes him for his
licentiousness and tyranny[259], compelling him, in the words
of the Bollandist Life, ‘to tremble at the sulphureous
flames of Gehenna’; he prophesies Alfred’s expulsion
from the throne, and his ultimate restoration, and then
dies[260]. Next comes the invasion of Guthrum. Alfred
gives up everything and flies to Athelney; the cakes are
duly burnt[261], and then St. Neot appears in a vision and
finally leads the English hosts to victory at Ethandun[262].
Absurdity
of the
story.
§ 45. It would not be necessary to quote this precious
stuff, even in outline, were it not that people still continue
to treat it as more or less historical. I have already adverted
to the strange inconsistency of making Alfred first hear
of Neot’s fame after the latter’s return from Rome, although
he was his own brother according to the pedigree. This
seems to show that the making Neot a son of Æthelwulf
was a later development, and not part of the original legend.
And, indeed, in the fragment of the Life interpolated in
Asser he is no more than Alfred’s ‘cognatus[263],’ which in
mediaeval Latin means cousin, or sometimes brother-in-law,
like ‘cognato’ in modern Italian[264]. But if St. Neot
ever existed, his connexion with the royal house of Wessex
has probably as little basis in fact, as the forged Carolingian
pedigree which the later Lives of St. Hubert give to that
Saint[265]. Another noteworthy point is that the only pope
contemporary with Alfred known to these Lives is Marinus[266],
though his obscure pontificate only lasted a little over
a year (December, 882, to the beginning of 884[267]), and was
some time posterior to the death of Neot, who is represented
as dying before the campaign of 878[268]. The reason for
this prominence is, of course, to be found in the privileges
which this pope was said to have granted, at Alfred’s
request, to the English School at Rome[269], and still more in
the story that he had sent a fragment of the true cross to
Alfred[270]. I need hardly say that the idea of Alfred’s early
licentiousness, or of his tyranny at the beginning of his
reign, is absolutely inconsistent with authentic history.
The year 871, when Wessex was at deathgrips with the
foe, was not the time, even if Alfred had been the man,
for establishing a tyranny. It is pitiable that modern
writers should lend even half an ear[271] to these wretched
tales, which besmirch the fair fame of our hero king, in
order to exalt a phantom saint.
Alfred’s
withdrawal
to
Athelney.
§ 46. But perhaps the worst misconception, and the one
which has most injuriously affected English history, is that
connected with the withdrawal to Athelney. The Lives
represent Alfred on the invasion of Guthrum as becoming
not merely a helpless, but a cowardly and criminal fugitive.
This view is put most strongly in the Saxon Life, which
runs as follows[272]: ‘Then came Guthrum the heathen king
with his cruel host first to the eastern part of Saxland
(Saxonia).… When King Alfred … learnt that the host …
was … so near England, he straightway for fear took to
flight, and forsook all his warriors and his captains and all
his people, … and crept by hedge and lane, through wood
and field, till he … came to Athelney,’ where the cakes
are burnt. Now there is no doubt that Wessex was
thoroughly surprised by the sudden attack of the Danes at
mid-winter, after twelfth-night, 878[273]. And it is possible
that in this the Danes were hardly ‘playing the game.’
Military operations were generally suspended in the winter.
Chippenham was a ‘villa regia’ as Asser notes; and it
looks as if the Danes, with Boer ‘slimness,’ had tried to
surprise Alfred in his winter home[274]. Happily they failed
in this, and, as Pauli has finely said[275], Alfred’s cause was
not hopeless as long as Alfred was alive. For the moment
the struggle was converted into a guerilla war. But this
is what authentic history has to say about it: ‘Here the
host … stole on Chippenham and surprised Wessex, …
and most of the people they reduced except the King
Alfred[276], and he with a little band made his way with
difficulty by wood and swamp; … and then after Easter
he with his little band made a fort at Athelney, and from
that fort kept fighting against the foe[277],’ until he in his turn
surprised the Danes, and forced them to submit. Athelney,
in fact, played no small part in the redemption of England.
Later
Chroniclers;
Ethelwerd.
§ 47. Of later Chroniclers, Ethelwerd, at the end of the
next century, bases his work mainly on the Chronicle.
But, like Asser, he has good additions here and there; and
as he was closely connected with the royal house of Wessex,
being descended from Æthelred, Alfred’s brother, and was
also highly placed as an ealdorman in Wessex, he may well
have had access to authentic sources of information. Unfortunately
there is no one who has worked at Ethelwerd,
who will not echo Ranke’s sigh: ‘wenn er nur verständlich
wäre[278]!’ ‘If only he were intelligible!’ The designation
which he gives to himself: ‘Patricius consul Fabius
Quaestor Ethelwerdus’ is but too true an index of the
puerile pomposity of his style. Something of this unintelligibility
is no doubt to be put down to the corruption
of the text[279], of which no MS. is known to exist. But if
he fails to make us understand his Latin, his blunders in
translating the Chronicle show that he had a very imperfect
acquaintance with the Saxon language[280]. It is possible
that this fact may be due, as Professor York Powell once
suggested to me, to his having been brought up on the
Continent.
Florence
of Worcester.
The careful Florence gives us less help than usual in
this reign, because, as we have seen, he borrows so much
from Asser. His splendid and inspiring panegyric on
Alfred[281] is almost his only serious addition, though a worthy
one, to what we learn from Asser and the Chronicle.
Henry of
Huntingdon.
Henry of Huntingdon makes no use of Asser, and does
little more than reproduce the Chronicle. There is no
trace of the use of ancient ballads[282], such as we find in
other parts of his history; no survival of personal traditions,
like the splendid anecdotes of old Siward a century
and a half later, one of which is the ultimate source of
Shakespeare’s glorious lines:—
‘Had he his hurts before?’
‘Ay, on the front.’
‘Why then, God’s soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death.’
One picturesque phrase Huntingdon has, where, describing
the sudden swoop of the Danes on Chippenham in January,
878, he says that ‘they covered the land like locusts[283].’
Simeon of
Durham. Legend
of St.
Cuthbert.
§ 48. Of the double recension of the annals of this reign
in Simeon of Durham I have spoken above. In the second
one, which is Simeon’s own, there is very little which is
not derived from Florence, Asser, and the Chronicle, except
a few notices of northern affairs, taken mainly from his
own history of the Church of Durham. The earlier recension
also adds little to our authorities, except the writer’s
own rhetoric, of which the following specimen from the
opening of the battle of Ethandun may suffice[284]:—‘When
the most limpid ray of the sun arose, the king and all the
glory of his people put on their warlike adornments, that is
to say, the threefold breastplate of faith, hope, and love of
God. They, rising from the ground, boldly challenged
the caitifs[285] to the fight, trusting in the clemency of the
Creator, secure and fortified as with a rampart by the
presence of their king, whose countenance shone like that
of a resplendent angel,’ with more to the same purpose—or
want of purpose. In these northern accounts St. Cuthbert
plays very much the part which St. Neot plays in
southern legend, appearing to Alfred in his distress, and
promising him victory[286], a trait adopted also by William of
Malmesbury[287]. And with this stream of legend Mr. Freeman[288]
ingeniously connects the dedication of the parish
church[289] of Wells to St. Cuthbert, a very unusual dedication
for a south-country church. Moreover, some of these
northern accounts prolong the retreat of Alfred in the
marshes of Somerset from three months to three years[290].
We are fast entering the world of legend.
William
of Malmesbury.
William of Malmesbury uses both Asser and the
Chronicle, though he declines ‘to unravel separately the
inextricable labyrinths of Alfred’s labours.’ He adds not
only the legend of St. Cuthbert, but also the stories of the
golden bracelets, and of Alfred visiting the Danish camp
disguised as a minstrel[291]; wandering folk-tales which get
attached to more than one historical character. There is
no reason to believe that Malmesbury had for Alfred’s
reign any historical authority not open to ourselves, as he
unquestionably had for that of Athelstan; unless, indeed,
he had seen Alfred’s Handbook, of which I shall have more
to say later on[292]. He has, however, some very interesting
remarks on Alfred’s literary works[293].
Knowledge
of
early
English
History
declines.
§ 49. After William of Malmesbury men ceased to consult,
indeed were unable to consult, the authentic sources
of English history[294], and there is nothing to check the
growth of legend. We get into a world where cakes are
freely burnt, where Alfred is sent to Ireland to be cured
(Irish fashion) of an incurable disease by St. Modwenna[295],
where he invents tithings, hundreds and shires[296], translates
into Saxon the Martian law, originally drawn up by
Martia, a wise British queen[297]. Here, too, Alfred rules
as monarch of all Britain[298], appoints ‘custodes regni[299],’ yet
is considerate enough to abstain from all interference with
the Church[300]. Here he founds[301], or better still, reforms,
the University of Oxford, to which he sends his son
Æthelweard[302], and to which, by an improvement on Asser’s
scheme, he devotes a fixed proportion of his revenues[303].
His supreme effort in his mythical realm is marked by the
invention of trial by jury[304], and the hanging of forty-four
judges in one year for unjust judgements[305]. I think it
must be admitted that these achievements were highly
creditable to one who, in the same mythical realm, had
shown in his early years such licentiousness and tyranny[306].
Origin of
some
of the
myths.
§ 50. In some cases we can trace how the later myth
arose; and this furnishes us with an instructive warning
as to the danger of listening to the unsupported statements
of later chroniclers, as many modern writers are half
inclined to do.
Simeon of
Durham.
The following is a good instance:—
The Chronicle under 885 tells how Alfred sent a fleet to
East Anglia, which defeated a force of sixteen wiking
ships at the mouth of the Stour, but on their way home
fell in with a superior force of the enemy, and were totally
defeated. In the earlier text of Simeon of Durham an
elaborate explanation is given of the cause of this defeat[307];
how the English were surprised, an unarmed multitude,
when plunged in lazy sleep; so that to them, says the
moralising writer, would apply the proverb: ‘many shut
their eyes when they ought to see.’ Will it be believed
that this elaborate tale, with its attendant moral, has all
grown out of a false reading in the parallel account of
Asser? He says that the English were attacked ‘cum
inde uictrix classis dormiret,’ where ‘dormiret’ is a corruption
of ‘domum iret,’ the ‘hamweard wendon’ of the
Chronicle[308]. Florence has ‘rediret,’ whether that be his
substitution for ‘domum iret,’ or his own correction of the
obviously nonsensical ‘dormiret.’ This example is further
interesting as showing how early the text of Asser was
corrupted. Simeon in his turn is misunderstood by later
writers. The Chronicle of Melrose says[309] that in 883
Alfred ‘began to inhabit the devastated provinces of
Northumbria.’ This is a misreading of a passage in
Simeon[310], in which the nominative to ‘prepared to inhabit’
is ‘exercitus,’ i.e. the Danish army.
Langtoft.
Langtoft says that Æthelred died at Driffield, which
shows that he first of all confused him with Aldfrid of
Northumbria[311], who reigned just two hundred years
earlier; he next goes on to confuse him with his own
brother Alfred[312]. As he writes Æthelred’s name ‘Elfred’
the confusion of names is not surprising. We are reminded
of Fuller’s quaint protest against the similar confusion in
the case of Ceadda (Chad) and Cedd: ‘though it is pleasant
for brethren to live together in unity, yet it is not fit by
errour that they should be jumbled together in confusion[313].’
Roger of
Wendover.
Roger of Wendover says that Alfred sent alms to
Jerusalem[314]. The thing in itself is not impossible. But the
context in which the statement occurs shows that it rests
simply on a false reading in two MSS. of the Saxon
Chronicle ‘Iudea’ for ‘Indea[315].’
Liber de
Hyda.
Lastly the Liber de Hyda gives Alfred a pedigree which
seems to make him a descendant of Offa of Mercia[316]. If
this pedigree was the only one which we possessed, we
might rack our brains to discover what the connexion was.
But on reference to the authorised West-Saxon pedigree we
find that the compiler of the Liber de Hyda has simply
made a confusion between Offa of Mercia and Eafa, one of
the steps in the descent of the royal house of Wessex.
One wonders how many statements, usually accepted as
historical, would, if they could be traced to their origin,
prove to have no better foundation than these.
Ingulf.
§ 51. Curiously enough, among the statements of later
writers, some of those which sound most authentic occur in
Ingulf, one of the most notable forgeries of the Middle
Ages[317]. It seems to me that the accounts of the ravages
of the Danes[318] may rest, at least in their outlines, on
genuine local traditions. Other statements, though probably
false considered as descriptions of concrete facts, may
be true as types of things which must almost certainly
have occurred. For instance, when we are told[319] that
a monk of Croyland named Tolius, formerly a Mercian
soldier of repute, organised military resistance to the Danes,
I take the freedom very seriously to doubt the historical
existence of any person of that name. But that in the
time of their country’s need, more than one world-weary
warrior may have come forth from their monastic retreats,
to lead their countrymen against the foe, just as two
centuries earlier Sigbert, ex-king of the East Angles, had
been dragged from the cloister to lead his former subjects
against the heathen Penda[320], is more than likely. So when
we read how Beornred, king of Mercia, took advantage of
the confusion caused by the Danish raids to annex monastic
estates[321], how, owing to the ravages of the Danes, and the
exactions of their puppet king, Ceolwulf, Croyland became
so poor that no one could be found to take the monastic
vows there[322], we have every disposition to accept the
statements.
It is in Ingulf that Alfred is praised for his devotion to
St. Neot and St. Werferth[323]. It is curious to find the very
definite connexion of Alfred with the human friend who
helped him so much in his literary and other tasks, converted
into the shadowy relation of a votary to a saint.
‘A land
where all
things are
forgotten.’ Alfred
eclipsed
by Edgar. Decline of
Alfred’s
fame.
§ 52. Where, on the other hand, this growth of legend
does not appear in later chroniclers, we seem to come into
‘a land where all things are forgotten.’ And it is, I think,
unquestionably true, that Alfred’s fame was in after times
largely obscured by that of Edgar. The connexion of the
latter with the monastic revival secured him the homage of
monastic historians, and his imperial position appealed
more to the imagination of posterity than the weightier
achievements of Alfred. And then he was three-quarters
of a century nearer to their view. It is not unnatural
therefore that the laws and homilies of Æthelred’s reign
should look back to the reign of Edgar as a golden age[324];
that here in Oxford, in 1018, Canute and his conquered
subjects should be reconciled on the basis of Edgar’s law[325].
The one exception is the Anglo-Saxon homily on St. Neot,
in which the later years of Alfred are regarded as the
golden age[326]. The motive of this is too obvious to be
dwelt on. But to show how small a space Alfred occupies
in some of the later Chronicles, I may point out that in
the Annals of Waverley[327] the only thing mentioned about
him is his foundation of the three monasteries of Athelney,
Newminster, and Shaftesbury, that in the Annals of
Dunstaple[328] the only act recorded of him is the sending of
alms to St. Thomas in India; while this is what his reign
shrinks to in the pages of Capgrave, the first to apply the
English tongue once more to the original writing of history
in prose:—
‘In this tyme regned Alured in Ynglond, the fourt son
of Adelwold. He began to regn in the ȝere of our Lord
872. This man, be the councelle of St. Ned, mad an open
Scole of divers sciens at Oxenford. He had many batailes
with Danes; and aftir many conflictes in which he had the
wers, at the last he overcam hem; and be his trety Godrus
(a nominative inferred from Godrum = Guðrum) here king
was baptized, and went hom with his puple. XXVIII ȝere
he regned, and deied the servaunt of God[329].’
And so through these dim pages the greatest name in
English story moves like the shadow cast by some great
luminary in eclipse[330].
of the Chronicle. This is a strictly
contemporary document, being drawn up during Alfred’s
reign, as is proved by the fact that, though it gives
Alfred’s accession, it does not, as in the case of all preceding
kings, give the length of his reign. According to
this authority Alfred ‘took to the kingdom when there
were gone of his age three and twenty winters.’ In other
words, Alfred was ‘turned’ twenty-three, as we say, at his
accession in 871. This fixes his birth to 848