Chapter XII: Appendix (2)

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

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

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

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

[351] John xi. 49-52.

[352] Chron.; Asser, sub anno.

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

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

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

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

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

[358] Chronicle, ii. 82.

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

[360] 470 C [8].

[361] W. M. II. xliii.

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

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

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

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

[366] u. s. iii. 110.

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

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

[369] Gregorovius, iii. 112.

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

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

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

Roma caput mundi, mundi decus, aurea Roma,
Nunc remanet tantum saeua ruina tibi,

De Clade Lindisfarnensis Monasterii, vv. 37, 38.

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

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

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

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

[377] See above, § 34.

[378] Ranke, u. s.

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

[380] Chron. 855 and notes.

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

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

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

[384] Chron. 860 A.

[385] ibid.

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

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

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

[389] 472 D [13].

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

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

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

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

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

[395] H. E. ii. 5.

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

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

[398] Rolls Ed. i. 393.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[406] W. M. II. xlii.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[414] See above, § 30.

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

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

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

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

[419] 472 B [12].

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

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

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

[423] 472 D [13].

[424] See p. 152.

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

[426] See above, § 57.

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

[428] Vikinger, p. 55.

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

[430] Liber de Hyda, p. 27.

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

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

[433] See above, p. 40.

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

[435] 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.

[443] Not March 31, as Mr. Simcox says.

[444] Chronicle, II. cxxxix. ff.

[445] Asser, 476 A [21]. This is one of Asser’s good additions to the Chronicle.

[446] Chronicle, ii. 87.

[447] 476 C [22].

[448] ‘Aprino more,’ 476 D [23].

[449] See above, p. 16.

[450] Domesday, ff. 57 b, 60 a.

[451] See a letter to the Times of August 30, 1864, by Mr. Henry Moody of Winchester. I was wrong in identifying (Chron. ii. 87) the Compton near which Ashdown is to be sought with the Compton near East Ilsley; it is Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. This correction I also owe to Mr. Taylor.

[452] I cannot find Roughthorn Farm either on the six-inch or twenty-five-inch Ordnance map. There is a spot called Thickthorn about a mile east of Ashdown Park; a hill called Alfred’s Castle just west of the Park, an Alfred’s Hill between Longcot and Uffington; Danesfield Copse south of Lambourne.

[453] Simcox, u. s.

[454] ‘Folc-gefeoht.’

[455] Florence gives the date as April 23, i. 85.

[456] Langtoft makes him killed in battle: ‘fu navrez par un coup d’espeye’; this is certainly wrong. For Langtoft’s confusions on the subject of Æthelred, see above, p. 65.

[457] The Ring and the Book, Pompilia, ad finem.

[458] This title is not older than the sixteenth century, Pauli, u. s. p. 2. In the Hyde Register, p. 13, Edward, Alfred’s son, is called ‘Eadweardus Magnus.’

[459] Weltgeschichte, VI. ii. 46.

[460] ‘quasi inuitus’ 477 C [24]; cf. Boethius, c. 17: ‘þu watst ꝥ me næfre seo gitsung ⁊ seo gemægð þisses eorðlican anwealdes forwel ne licode, ne ic ealles forswiðe ne girnde þisses eorðlican rices,’ ed. Sedgefield, p. 40.

[461] ‘mox Elfredus a ducibus et a praesulibus totius gentis eligitur,’ S. D. ii. 81.

[462] Asser’s statement, u. s., that Alfred succeeded ‘cum summa omnium … regni accolarum uoluntate,’ probably does not refer to formal election.

[463] Cf. Chronicle, ii. 145, 146.

[464] ‘sumor-lida.’

[465] 477 C [24]. The same phrase is used of Burgred of Mercia, who died at Rome, 478 B [26]. Mr. Simcox sees in the phrase (based on Rev. xx. 6) a possible trace of British Pelagianism. Anyhow the special use of the phrase in these two cases is no doubt due to the fact that Asser regarded Æthelred as a martyr, and Burgred as a pilgrim.

[466] p. 514 C.

[467] Chronicle, ii. 88.

[468] Ethelwerd distinctly recognises that there were three engagements in addition to the six which he names: ‘tria certamina exceptis supra memoratis bellis’; only Ethelwerd’s list of six would differ from that in the Chronicle by the omission of Wilton and the substitution of the second battle of Reading. Mr. Simcox does not notice this passage of Ethelwerd; perhaps he too regarded it as a distorted version of the battle of Wilton.

[469] ‘sterilis uictoriae status.’

[470] ‘peraudacitatem persequentium decipientes,’ 477 D [25].

[471] ‘quot millia Paganae expeditionis … perierunt, nisi soli Deo, incognitum,’ 477 E [25]. The reflexion, if we allow for Asser’s usual rhetoric, is not unfounded.

[472] ‘Beorredus Rex Merciorum … cum Britonibus occupatus, qui crebris irruptionibus Occidentalem partem Regni sui Merciae inquietabant,’ p. 25.

[473] This notice is in all MSS. of the Chronicle except A. See notes ad loc.

[474] Birch, Nos. 533, 531; K. C. D. No. 303.

[475] ‘monasterium celeberrimum, omnium regum Merciorum sacratissimum Mausoleum funditus destruxerunt,’ Ingulf, p. 26 (cf. Fl. Wig. i. 72). On a point like this Ingulf may probably be trusted.

[476] ‘Anglicus genere, sed barbarus impietate,’ Ingulf, p. 27.

[477] ‘fór Ælfred cyning út on sǽ.’

[478] Cf. Murray’s Guide Book for Wilts., Dorset, and Somerset. Wareham is the only English place to which Asser gives the title of ‘castellum,’ 478 D [27]. He uses the term once of a Danish fort, 483 B [37].

[479] The evasion of the Danes from Wareham to Exeter is mentioned in the Chron. both under 876 and 877. The earlier mention is probably merely proleptic, giving by anticipation what was the issue of the affair.

[480] ‘þær him mon to ne meahte.’

[481] This is the interpolated passage in Asser, which cannot, as I have shown above (§ 20), be traced further back than Roger of Wendover. It sounds however perfectly genuine.

[482] v. 3105.

[483] I owe this suggestion to Professor Earle.

[484] Ranke, Engl. Gesch., B. III. c. 6.

[485] Exodus xv. 10.

[486] For the whole of this and the following sections I may refer to the Chronicle, with my notes.

[487] § 46, above.

[488] I give what seems to me the most probable line of march. But every one of these three places, (1) Ecgbryhtesstan, (2) Iglea, (3) Ethandun, has been variously identified. The following series have been proposed—A. (1) Brixton, (2) Clay Hill near Warminster, (3) Edington; B. (as in the text); C. (1) Bratton near Westbury, (2) Highley Common near Melksham, (3) Heddington on the Roman road from Bath to Marlborough. Bratton seems to me impossible on philological grounds. Yatton has also been proposed for Ethandun. Philologically it is possible; (cf. Yarnton near Oxford = Eardingtun) but its position north-west of Chippenham is against it.

[489] viz. that it is Bratton Camp, between Edington and Westbury.

[490] Essays, p. 138.

[491] Asser, 481 B [32], v. s. pp. 44, 51.

[492] ‘arcem imparatam atque immunitam, nisi quod moenia _nostro more erecta_ … haberet … locus tutissimus … sicut nos ipsi uidimus,’ ib. Is any type of earthworks known which is specifically Welsh? Asser’s episcopal charge of Exeter, if a fact, would account for his knowledge of the district. The name of Odda comes from Ethelwerd, p. 515 D.

[493] Mediaeval and modern writers, overlooking the word ‘brother,’ write as if it were Ingwar and Halfdene themselves who fell; so S. D. ii. 111, 114. Professor Oman writes Ingwar and Hubba, on I know not what authority, Essays, p. 137. The name Ubba comes only from Gaimar.

[494] The details are mostly from Asser, u. s. He gives the number of slain as 1200; i.e. CↃCC for IↃCCC. Ethelwerd, p. 515 E, says that the Danes were finally victorious; but it is hard to reconcile this with the Chronicle, and still more with Asser.

[495] The Chronicle puts this under 879; but, seeing that the battle of Ethandun was fought in May, it almost certainly belongs to the same year 878. It is this mistake which throws the chronology of the Chronicle a year wrong from this point up to 897 (= 896).

[496] No document exists embodying the terms of the agreement of 878. ‘Alfred and Guthrum’s peace,’ often confused with the treaty of Wedmore, belongs to 886.

[497] Chron. ii. 114.

[498] Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur.

[499] Chron. u. s. chiefly from Green, Conq. Engl. pp. 111 ff.

[500] p. 515 D.

[501] Cf. what is said in the Soliloquies, p. 182: ‘gyf þonne æfre gebyreð þ þu … hæfst ealle þine freond myd þe … on þam ilcan weorce, ⁊ on þam ilcan willan ðe ðe best lyst don’; cf. Boeth. xxix. § 1 (p. 66): ‘cyningas ne magon nænne weorðscipe forðbrengan buton hiora þegna fultume.’

[502] ‘urne ealra freond,’ Birch, No. 582; K. C. D. No. 327. I do not mean to assert that Werferth was at Athelney or Edington, though he may have been. But he and Æthelnoth were working for a common end, and his district benefited largely by Alfred’s victory.

[503] ‘They were the first European warriors who realised the value of quick movement in war,’ Green, C. E. p. 89.

[504] ‘þæer gehorsude wurdon,’ 866; ‘se gehorsoda here,’ 876, 877; ‘þa wearþ se here gehorsod æfter þæm gefeohte,’ 881. Conversely after a defeat: ‘his wurdon þær behorsude,’ 885. Asser, describing this last incident, says: ‘equis, quos de Francia secum adduxerant, derelictis,’ 483 C [37]; ‘hie asettan him … ofer [sc. to England] mid horsum,’ 893; cf. Flor. Wig. i. 111.

[505] Note the use of ‘bestelan’ for the movements of the invaders, 865, 876 (_bis_), 878.

[506] Earlier in the annal Alfred ‘rides’ to Brixton.

[507] ‘Ælfred æfter þam gehorsudan here mid fierde rad.’

[508] Sir Walter Besant, Essays, p. 17.

[509] For purely English events we have not, as a rule, the help of the foreign Chronicles, and cannot therefore be sure whether they also are dated a year in advance; but probably in most cases they are.

[510] That this and not 885 is the true date is proved by the Annales Vedastini, and the Chronicon Reginonis, Pertz, i. 521, 594.

[511] Asser, 483 B, C [37].

[512] This comes at the end of the annal in the Chronicle, but almost certainly refers to an earlier period of the year.

[513] ‘de Cantio,’ Asser, u. s.

[514] See above, § 50.

[515] Chron. ii. 99 f.

[516] Whatever the date, the Chronicle places the occupation of London in close connexion with the breach of the peace by the Danes in the preceding year. It may even be that a desire to bring out that connexion has led to the mention of the breach being postponed to the end of the annal.

[517] Schmid, Gesetze, pp. 106 ff. Cf. ib. xxxviii f.; and see the very interesting remarks of Green, C. E. pp. 151-3.

[518] Certainly as early as 880; see the charter Birch, No. 547; K. C. D. No. 311.

[519] Essays, pp. 19, 57, 245 ff.; Ranke, u. s. VI. ii. 43: ‘Die merkantile Hauptstadt der Welt verdankt dem König Alfred gleichsam ihre zweite Gründung.’

[520] ‘Orco tradit spiramen,’ p. 517 C.

[521] Malmesbury has some interesting remarks on this, G. R. i. 128, 129; cf. S. C. H. i. 191.

[522] See above, § 10.

[523] Earle, Chronicles, p. xvi.

[524] Chron. II. cvii, 109.

[525] Chron. 894 ad init.

[526] Birch, No. 579; K. C. D. No. 1075.

[527] ‘de instauratione urbis Londoniae,’ Birch, No. 577.

[528] Birch, No. 1335; see Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, pp. 187, 188, 502 ff.

[529] 493 A, B [59, 60].

[530] There is a good passage on this point in Ingulf, p. 27: ‘Alfredus … ciuitates suas et castella sua renouauit, turres et munitiones in locis magis necessariis construxit, ac totam terrae faciem in formam multo meliorem immutatam, per oppida murata, et alia loca munitissima contra barbaros insuperabilem fore fecit’; cf. Essays, pp. 141 ff.

[531] Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 191; Essays, pp. 143 ff.; Green, C. E. pp. 135 ff.

[532] Chron. 894, i. 86-7.

[533] For this event the date in the Chronicle is apparently correct.

[534] See Dümmler, u. s. ii. 349 ff. The foreign Chronicles show clearly that the date is 892, not 893 as in the Saxon Chron.

[535] ‘samworht,’ ‘half-wrought.’ Mr. Macfadyen ingeniously connects this with the passage cited above from Asser, as to the difficulty which Alfred had in getting the fortifications constructed which he had ordered. For the justification of the sketch which follows I must refer to my notes to the Chronicle. The only point on which I have modified my view, is as to the position of Buttington.

[536] It is only in Ethelwerd that Edward’s share in the campaign is mentioned. He would now be a little over twenty, if, as Asser says, Alfred was married in 868, and Edward was his second child, 475 A [19], 485 C [42].

[537] This name also comes from Ethelwerd. Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. 261, sees in this the ancient name of Westminster; and a writer in the Athenaeum for June 15, 1901, takes the same view still more positively, saying that we shall search the Colne in vain for an island called Thorney. I imagine we should search the neighbourhood of Westminster with equally little success; and if the name has become extinct in one locality, why not in the other? possibly because the thorns have become extinct which gave the name. Ethelwerd _may_ be mistaken as to the name, but it is absolutely certain that the island on which the Danes were blockaded was in the Colne: ‘hie flugon ofer Temese, … þa up be Colne on anne iggað. Þa besæt sio fierd hie.’

[538] To this year perhaps better than to any other would apply the very rhetorical description of Hen. Hunt., how messengers poured in upon the king, saying that the Danes were in this, that, and the other quarter, pp. 138, 139.

[539] The Chronicle seems to synchronise the relief of Exeter approximately with the capture of the fort at Benfleet; but Alfred was busied in the west some time longer, while the English forces were blockading Buttington, Chron. i. 87.

[540] The Alfred Jewel, p. 104.

[541] ‘ánstreces,’ literally ‘at a stretch.’

[542] Can it be that the fyrd after all did reach them? Ethelwerd seems to say that Æthelnoth attacked the Danes at York, p. 518 E. Or is this a punitive expedition against the Northumbrian Danes?

[543] Hen. Hunt. says ‘fecit aquam Luye findi in tria brachia,’ p. 150; i.e. he conceives the two obstacles as erected _in_ the river, so dividing it into three channels, which is perfectly possible. Perhaps the worthy archdeacon may even have seen the remains of Alfred’s works. But I cannot now take Steenstrup’s view that this device may have been suggested to Alfred by Orosius’ account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, Lib. ii. c. 6. That was effected by diverting the course of the river, which there is no reason to suppose that Alfred attempted.

[544] Bell. Gall. v. 1.

[545] The connexion of the Frisian language with that of the Angles and Saxons was very close, and they have certain marked characteristics in common, pointing to close neighbourhood of their original abodes. Of English dialects the Frisian is nearest to Kentish, except in the northern Frisian islands, where it seems more akin to West-Saxon. I take this from Siebs, Zur Gesch. der engl.-fries. Sprache, in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 2nd ed. i. 1153 ff., for a reference to which I am indebted to Professor Napier, who tells me that in his judgement Englishmen and Frisians would be quite intelligible to one another in the ninth century. There is a sentence of Frisian in Pertz, xxii. 576, which might just as well be Anglo-Saxon.

[546] In 882 Charles the Fat had granted West Friesland to a wiking Chief Guðfrið, Dümmler, u. s. ii. 204, 205; cf. ibid. 224 ff., 241; Weber, u. s. v. 684, 685. For earlier ravages in Frisia, cf. ibid. 495; Pertz, i. 445.

[547] 486 B [44]. Charles the Great also employed Frisians in his fleet for his wars against the Danes, Weber, u. s. p. 421; cf. Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 17.

[548] Mr. Conybeare says: ‘one MS. of the A.-S. Chronicle makes St. Neot [!!] (Athelstan of Kent) fight “on shipboard” in 851, but the entry, if correct, stands absolutely alone.’ The fact is that the entry is found in five MSS. out of six. A is the only one which omits the words ‘on scipum.’

[549] See notes to Chron., ad loc. It has, however, been pointed out to me by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, that the phrase ‘ahton wælstowe gewald’ looks as if these battles were fought on land; and I admit that I cannot produce any certain instance of this phrase being applied to a naval victory. The provision that a merchant who fared thrice over sea on his own account should rank as a thane is unfortunately of uncertain date, Schmid, pp. lxiv, 390.

[550] Preface to Pastoral Care. Cf. the description of the Lombard ravages in the translation of the Dialogues, p. 258: ‘nu syndon þa burga forhergode … ⁊ þa ceastra toworpene, cyrcan forbærnde ⁊ mynstra toworpene, ⁊ eac gehwylce tunas ge wera ge wifa fram hæðenum mannum geweste, ⁊ eac fram ælce bigonge þis land ligeð tolysed ⁊ idlað in westenne. ne eardað nænig agend frea, ac wild-deor abysgiað þa stowe, þa ær hæfde ⁊ eardode manna mænigo.’

[551] So Freeman, in Dict. Nat. Biog. i. 156; cf. S. C. H. i. 99, 100; ‘occasione barbarorum etiam indigenae in rapinas anhelauerant,’ W. M. i. 129.

[552] Rev. C. S. Taylor, Origin of the Mercian Shires, p. 3.

[553] Below, § 90. Cf. M. H. Turk, The Legal Code of Alfred the Great, pp. 50, 51 (a very useful monograph); Schmid, Gesetze, pp. xxxvii ff.

[554] ‘licet enim, ut quidam ait, leges inter arma sileant, ille inter fremitus armorum leges tulit,’ Gesta Regum, i. 129; cf. Robert of Gloucester, i. 392: ‘Vor þey me segge þat lawes beþ in worre tyme uorlore, Nas it noȝt so bi is daye, vor þei he in worre were, Lawes he made riȝtuolore and strengore þen er were.’ Cf. Chron. Rames., p. 13: ‘Alfredus rex Anglicarum legum conditor.’

[555] Turk, u. s. p. 35.

[556] ‘þæt it here name,’ Turk, p. 74; Schmid, p. 62; ‘here’ is the regular name for the Danish, as ‘fyrd’ is for the native host.

[557] Turk, p. 100; Schmid, p. 94.

[558] Turk, p. 82; Schmid, p. 66; Alfred’s idea that it was Christianity which first allowed money-compensation for offences is interesting, though unhistorical. The same idea occurs Oros. 48, 32.

[559] Turk, p. 84; Schmid, p. 72.

[560] Turk, p. 96; Schmid, p. 88.

[561] Turk, p. 80; Schmid, p. 66.

[562] e.g. by Schmid, p. xxxix.

[563] Matt. vii. 12, which gives the rule in its positive, and not in its negative form.

[564] Turk, pp. 37, 38.

[565] 497 A-D [69-71].

[566] 497 A [69].

[567] Turk, p. 78; Schmid, p. 64.

[568] ‘omnia … iudicia, quae in sua absentia fiebant … inuestigabat; … iudices aut per se ipsum, aut per … suos fideles … interrogabat,’ 497 C [70]; cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 183, 205, 208, 391; Pauli, König Ælfred, p. 179.

[569] Birch, No. 591; K. C. D. No. 328.

[570] Josephus, Ant. xviii. 4, 6; cf. Schürer, Gesch. des jüdischen Volkes, i. 356.

[571] Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 24.

[572] Cf. the very striking parallel of Charles the Great: ‘cum aduerteret multa legibus populi sui deesse, nam Franci duas habent leges [i.e. the Salic and Ripuarian] in plurimis locis ualde diuersas, cogitauit quae deerant addere, et discrepantia unire, praua quoque … corrigere; sed de his nihil aliud ab eo factum est, nisi quod pauca capitula … legibus addidit,’ ibid. c. 29.

[573] Above, § 11.

[574] Probably Long Dean, three miles from Swanborough Tump, which is between Pewsey and Woodborough, Wilts. [I give this statement as I find it, but I have searched the six-inch Ordnance map in vain.]

[575] Birch, No. 553; K. C. D. No. 314; and elsewhere.

[576] This is specially noticeable in the matter of grants of land, Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 193.

[577] Stubbs, u. s. i. 129, 130, 240.

[578] Preface to Pastoral Care.

[579] Col. 1777.

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

[581] Ed. Migne, col. 719.

[582] Cf. Pauli, p. 153.

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

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

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

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

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

[588] See below, § 115.

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

[590] Asser, 493 C [60].

[591] Ibid. 495 A [64]. W. M. says that in the Nuns’ Chapterhouse at Shaftesbury was a stone, transferred thither from the walls of the town, with this inscription: ‘Anno Dom. Inc. Elfredus rex fecit hanc urbem 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:—

‘Nomine Pandecten proprio uocitare memento
Hoc corpus sacrum, Lector, in ore tuo;
Quod nunc a multis constat Bibliotheca dicta
Nomine non proprio, ut lingua Pelasga docet.’

Dümmler, Poetae Latini Aeui Carolini, i. 283.

[677] Fulman, Scriptores, i. 79, 80.

[678] So Schmid, Gesetze, p. xli.

[679] Ingulf, u. s.; Chron. Evesham, p. 97.

[680] See Pauli, König Ælfred, pp. 241 ff. The Saxon life of St. Neot speaks in very large terms of Alfred’s literary works, but gives no names of any of them; for the Proverbs, cf. Ailred of Rievaulx, u. s.; Ann. Winton. p. 10.

[681] See the references collected, Bede, ii. 70; Ebert, u. s. i. 551, 552. In Ælfric’s Canons it is mentioned among the books ‘which a mass-priest needs must have,’ Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 350.

[682] Cura Past. i. 1; ‘cræft eabra cræfta,’ p. 45; Alfred uses exactly the same expression, Solil. p. 180.

[683] Grundriss, pp. 394 ff.

[684] 133, 18 (ii. 7) an etymology of Gregory’s omitted; 135, 20 (ii. 7) an alternative interpretation omitted; 401, 28 (iii. 27) ‘masculorum concubitores’ omitted; 461, 13 (iii. 40). The references are to the pages and lines of Mr. Sweet’s edition; references to the books and chapters of the original are given in brackets.

[685] 243, 11. 13; 253, 11; 275, 15; 277, 19; 299, 15. 17. 19. 21. 23; 301, 1. 3; 311, 25; 315, 24; 323, 4. 11. 25; 325, 5; 327, 1; 329, 22; 331, 6. 13; 343, 1; 367, 2; 369, 5; 371, 14; 373, 23; 377, 7. 25; 379, 3; 381, 12; 387, 25; 389, 9. 23; 395, 12; 405, 10; 409, 32; 413, 17. 21; 421, 10; 425, 30; 427, 28. 32; 433, 8. 18; 435, 9; 437, 19; 445, 19. 31. 35; 463, 20. 23; in two cases the references are wrong; at 91, 16 Mal. ii. 7 is assigned to Zechariah, though Malachi is given in the original; at 117, 7 1 Cor. iv. 21 is assigned to Galatians.

[686] 413, 10; 415, 5; 419, 6; 425, 20. 25; 429, 23; 435, 18; 465, 4. 14. 23.

[687] 474 B [16], 485 E [43], 491 C [55].

[688] 31, 21; 103, 5; 145, 20; 181, 12; 189, 7; 222, 22; 253, 12; 293, 2. 4; 301, 7; 401, 28; 421, 19.

[689] Cf. the marvellous etymology of ‘sacerdos,’ 139, 15.

[690] 37, 5 ff.; 43, 20; 101, 16 ff.; 117, 18.

[691] 43, 15.

[692] 125, 19.

[693] 169, 23.

[694] 439, 29; for other doubtful interpretations cf. 391, 23; 411, 10. At 391, 23 is an insertion which is unintelligible to me. Possibly it rests on some difference of reading in the Latin.

[695] 167, 2.

[696] Turk, u. s. pp. 37, 70; Schmid, p. 60; cf. also Boeth. xxxiv. § 8 (p. 89); Pss. ix. 9; xvii. 1; xxx. 3.

[697] 385, 22.

[698] 35, 23; cf. 63, 3; 373, 18 (_king’s_ highways). For thane cf. Bede, pp. 122, 126, 134, 194.

[699] p. 197.

[700] So in the continental Heliand, cf. Ebert, u. s. iii. 102, 103; in Andreas, ibid. 64; in Cynewulf’s Christ, the Angels are the thanes, ibid. 51.

[701] Orosius, pp. 218, 296; Solil. p. 196.

[702] See above, p. 123.

[703] 109, 13; 143, 1 ff.; 197, 9.

[704] 251, 18; cf. a similar but less striking instance, 421, 35.

[705] 263, 21.

[706] 129, 14 ff.; 157, 15 ff.; 215, 21 ff.; 271, 4. 5; 279, 15. 16; 283, 13 ff.; 291, 14 ff.; 306, 5 ff.; 343, 8 ff.; 375, 14 ff.; 387, 2 ff. 25 ff.; 397, 22 ff.; 433, 1 ff.; 437, 12 ff.; 445, 10 ff. (this expansion of the metaphor of a boat making its way against the stream is of great interest); 449, 2 f.; 451, 28 ff.; 465, 16 ff.

[707] 145, 20 ff.; 149, 24 ff.; 165, 13 ff.; 179, 10 ff.; 185, 24 ff.; 207, 18 ff.; 313, 1 ff.; 325, 8 ff.; 449, 5 ff.; 457, 3 ff.

[708] 75, 14 f.; 103, 25; 149, 4 ff.; 365, 3 ff.; 407, 23 ff.; 427, 17; 443, 10. This last instance is of some little interest; Alfred translates ‘quem Deus suscitauit solutis _doloribus_ inferni’ by ‘whom God raised up to loose the _prisoners_ of hell.’

[709] Preface to Pastoral Care.

[710] 37, 11. 12; cf. 7, 17. 18; 103, 1.

[711] 59, 3 ff.

[712] 229, 3 ff. The very word ‘stælherigas’ occurs in the Chronicle, 897.

[713] 433, 27 ff.; cf. also Oros. 46, 34.

[714] Since writing the above account, I have read two careful German dissertations on the relation of Alfred’s translation of the Cura Pastoralis to the original, one by Gustav Wack, Greifswald, 1889; the other by Albert de Witz, Bunzlau, 1889. They go into greater detail than I have done, but come to much the same result.

[715] See the table in Wülker, Grundriss, p. 393. Wack, u. s. p. 58, would put the Orosius even before the Cura Pastoralis.

[716] Wülker, u. s. p. 396.

[717] In his useful dissertation: Untersuchungen über K. Ælfred’s Bedaübersetzung, 1889.

[718] Gegenwärtiger Stand der Forschung über K. Ælfred’s Bedaübersetzung, 1898 (Sitzungsber. of the Vienna Academy of Sciences).

[719] Cf. Ælfric’s saying: ‘every one who translates from Latin into English should strive that the English may have its own idiom, otherwise it is very misleading to any one who does not know the Latin idiom,’ Preface to Heptateuch.

[720] See below, and cf. Schilling: ‘there are many mistakes in translation due to carelessness and want of grammatical knowledge,’ p. 9; ‘his knowledge of Latin was still small when he translated the Orosius,’ p. 61.

[721] pp. cvi-cviii.

[722] I did not then know that Mr. Sweet had already noticed this affinity, though he gave no examples, and drew no inference from it, Preface to Pastoral Care, p. xl.

[723] It is true that in the Orosius Alfred omits the conquest of Britain by Claudius (vii. 6), but this may be, as Schilling suggests (p. 21), from quasipatriotic motives, because of the ease with which the island was conquered. He does however give it in the Bede (H. E. i. 3), and this fact might be used as an argument in favour of the priority of the Bede translation.

[724] Ed. Schipper, p. 13; the corresponding capitulum is however translated in both recensions.

[725] Orosius, ed. Sweet, p. 238.

[726] ’mid dice ⁊ mid eorðwealle,’ ‘with ditch and earth-wall,’ ed. Miller, p. 32.

[727] ‘het dician ⁊ eorðwall gewyrcan’ = _uallum fecerat_, ibid. p. 46; cf. (of a different matter) ibid. p. 366: ’mid dice ⁊ mid eorðwealle utan ymbsealde’ = circumuallante aggere.

[728] p. 270.

[729] Below, § 109.

[730] pp. 60, 22 ff.; 62, 9 ff.; cf. also Oros. 42, 14 with Boet. 1, 9. 10; Or. 56, 32 with Bo. 9, 29; 21, 1 &c.; Or. 220, 16 with Bo. 34, 29; Or. 296, 8 with Bo. 7, 2. 3. In Oros. 72, 8 ff., Alfred seems to connect the word Fabianus with faber (craftsman), as in Boethius he seems to connect the name Fabricius with the same root, pp. 46, 165; one or two other points of connexion between the Orosius and the Boethius are given below (pp. 177 _n_, 184 _n_); cf. also B. xv, xvi § 1 (p. 34) with O. pp. 88, 220, 226 (Aetna); B. xvi § 1, 4, xxix § 2 (pp. 34, 39, 66) with O. pp. 260, 262 (Nero).

[731] K. Ælfred’s angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Weltgeschichte des Orosius (1886).

[732] Dr. Schilling gives the numbers rather differently, p. 6; I have taken for the original the capitula as given by Zangemeister from the St. Gallen MS.; for the translation, the capitula in Mr. Sweet’s edition.

[733] pp. 14 ff.

[734] pp. 17-19.

[735] pp. 19-21.

[736] 486 B [44].

[737] Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 21.

[738] 70, 22 ff.

[739] 106, 11 ff.

[740] 264, 2. 3.

[741] See Chron. II. cvi, 8. Joinville compares St. Louis to Titus, ‘dont les anciennes escriptures racontent, que trop se dolut, et fut desconforté d’un jour que il n’avoit donné nul benefice,’ c. 142.

[742] ‘Alfred … Englene darling,’ from the so-called Proverbs of Alfred printed in Kemble’s Salomon and Saturn, pp. 226 ff.; so Laȝamon, i. 269: ‘Alfred þe king, Englelondes deorling.’ It is noteworthy that W. M. applies the term ‘deliciae Anglorum’ to Edgar, G. R. i. 164.

[743] One of the most interesting of these is the explanation of the ‘indomitae gentes’ against whom Severus built his wall, as ‘Picts and Scots,’ 270, 12. For other interesting glosses, cf. 108, 16; 110, 34; 196, 24; 206, 35.

[744] I have counted thirty-six instances.

[745] 62, 9 ff.; cf. 92, 27 ff.

[746] 188, 3 ff.