[Sidenote: Character of the present lectures.]
§ 5. When the electors to the Ford Lectureship did me the great honour
of offering me the lectureship, coupled with the informal suggestion
that the present set of lectures might appropriately be devoted to some
subject connected with King Alfred, I warned them, in the letter in which
I accepted both the offer and the suggestion, that it was unlikely that
on such a well-worked period of English history I should be able to offer
anything very new or original. That warning I must now repeat to you. If
in the course of our labours I can remove some of the difficulties and
confusions which have gathered round the subject, and put in a clearer
light some points which have been imperfectly apprehended, that will be
all that I can aspire to. For the rest I must be content to put in my own
words, and arrange in my own way, what has been previously written by
others or by myself; and these lectures may rank as Prolegomena, in the
sense in which the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, remarked
that Dean Alford seemed to have used that word in his edition of the
Greek Testament, viz. ‘things that have been said before.’
[Sidenote: Prevalence of uncritical statements about Alfred.]
§ 6. But if I cannot tell you much that is very new, I hope that what
I shall tell you may be approximately true. I shall not tell you, as a
recent writer has done, that ‘by his invention of the shires [Alfred]
anticipated the principles of the County Council legislation of ten
centuries later[5].’ For, in the first place, Alfred did not ‘invent the
shires’; and secondly, if I may quote a letter of my friend the Rev. C.
S. Taylor, whose papers on Anglo-Saxon topography and archaeology[6] are
well known to and appreciated by historical students, it ‘is surely a
mistake to make Alfred, as some folks seem to do, into a kind of ninth
century incarnation of a combined School Board and County Council.’
Yes, it is surely a mistake; and no less surely is it a mistake to make
him into a nineteenth century radical with a touch of the nonconformist
conscience[7]; or a Broad-Churchman with agnostic proclivities[8].
Nor shall I, with another recent writer, revive old Dr. Whitaker’s
theory that St. Neot was an elder brother of Alfred, identical with the
somewhat shadowy Athelstan who was under-king of Kent at any rate from
841 to 851[9]. For, firstly, it is very doubtful whether Athelstan was
really Alfred’s brother, and not rather his uncle[10]; and secondly,
as we shall see later on, St. Neot is an even more shadowy person than
the under-king with whom Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Edward Conybeare would
identify him; so shadowy indeed, as almost to justify an attitude of
scepticism towards him as complete as that which Betsy Prig ultimately
came to adopt towards the oft-quoted Mrs. Harris:—‘I don’t believe there
never was no such person.’ I shall not repeat William of Malmesbury’s
confusion of John the Old Saxon with John Scotus Erigena[11], and of
Sighelm, Alfred’s messenger, with Sighelm, bishop of Sherborne in the
following century[12]; or Henry of Huntingdon’s assertion[13] that
Æthelwulf before his accession was bishop of Winchester. I shall not
speak of an ‘_Earl_ of Berkshire’ in the ninth century, nor tell you that
Alfred’s Jewel is in the Bodleian[14], or that ‘the Danes made their
first appearance on these shores in 832[15].’ Nor shall I tell you that
‘Alfred supplied chapter-headings and prefixed tables of contents to each
of his authors, an improvement hitherto unheard of in literary work,
which, simple as it seems now to us, betokened in its first conception no
small literary genius[16]’; for I happen to have had better opportunities
than most people of knowing that, in the case of Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History, the chapter-headings were there long before Alfred undertook
the work of translation. The same is true of Pope Gregory’s Dialogues,
and of his Pastoral Care. The only works to which the above remarks
could apply would be the Boethius and the Orosius translations; and
even there we cannot be sure that the Latin MSS. used by Alfred had
no chapter-headings; certainly the St. Gallen and Donaueschingen MSS.
of Orosius have capitula[17], though, owing to the free way in which
Alfred dealt with the Orosius, the Latin and Anglo-Saxon capitula do not
correspond very closely. And the same is true of some Boethius MSS.[18]
It is in truth a little disheartening to have all these old confusions
and myths trotted out once more at this time of day as if they were
genuine history. The fact is that there has been, if I may borrow a
phrase from the Stock Exchange, a ‘boom’ in things Alfredian lately; and
the literary speculator has rushed in to make his profit. Along with a
few persons who are real authorities on the subjects with which they
deal, eminent men in other departments of literature and life are engaged
to play the parts which the ducal chairman and the aristocratic director
play in the floatation of a company. They may not know very much about
the business in hand, but their names look well on a prospectus. The
result is not very creditable to English scholarship.
[Sidenote: English learning non-professional.]
§ 7. I would not be understood as wishing to confine the writing of
English history to a small body of experts. It is one of the great
characteristics of English learning that it has never been the monopoly
of a professional or professorial caste, as in Germany, but has been
contributed to by men of every, and of no profession. To this fact
it owes many of its best qualities—its sanity and common sense, its
freedom from fads and far-fetched fancies, its freshness and contact with
reality—qualities in which German learning, in spite of its extraordinary
depth and solidity, is sometimes conspicuously wanting.
[Sidenote: Qualities required for writing English history.]
Still the fact remains, that to write on any period of early English
history requires something more than the power of construing the Latin
Chroniclers in the light of classical Latin, and of spelling out the
Saxon Chronicle with the aid of a translation[19]. It needs some
knowledge of the general lie of English history, and of the main line of
development of English institutions; it needs some grasp of the relations
of England to the Continent during the period in question, some power
of weighing and comparing different kinds of historical evidence, some
acquaintance with the existing literature on the subject[20]. It must be
confessed that in many of the recent writings on King Alfred we look for
these requirements in vain.
[Sidenote: Need for a critical survey of the sources.]
§ 8. But, seeing that so many uncritical statements on the subject
of King Alfred are abroad, it is all the more imperative that we
should begin our work with a critical survey of the materials at our
disposal. We shall find them in many respects disappointingly scanty and
incomplete. But we must look that fact full in the face, and must not
allow ourselves to supply the defects of the evidence by the luxuriance
of a riotous imagination. The growth of legend is largely due to the
unwillingness of men to acquiesce in inevitable ignorance, especially in
the case of historical characters like Alfred, whom we rightly desire to
honour and to love.
[Sidenote: Alfred’s own works.]
§ 9. The first place in our list of authorities for the life of Alfred
must be given to his own literary works. It is true that the evidence
which they furnish is mostly indirect, but it is, for that very reason,
all the more secure. It might be thought that the fact that these works
consist almost entirely of translations would prevent them from throwing
much light on the life and character of their author. In reality the
contrary is the truth.
[Sidenote: Their evidence largely indirect; but also direct.]
It was very acutely remarked by Jaffé[21] that if, as Ranke alleged,
the fact that Einhard’s Life of Charles the Great is obviously modelled
on Suetonius’ Life of Augustus detracts somewhat from its value as an
original portrait, on the other hand the careful way in which Einhard
alters those phrases of his model which were not strictly applicable to
his own hero, brings out many a fine shade in Charles’ character of which
we should otherwise have been ignorant. In the same way, the manner in
which Alfred deals with the works which he translated reveals as much of
his mind as an original work could do. And this is not merely the case
with works like the Orosius, the Boethius, and the Soliloquies of St.
Augustine, in which he allowed himself a large freedom in the way of
adaptation and addition. Even in the Cura Pastoralis, in which he keeps
extremely close to his original, there are little touches which seem to
give us glimpses into the king’s inmost soul[22].
And sometimes the evidence is not indirect but direct. The well-known
and oft-quoted Preface to the Cura Pastoralis is an historical document
of the first importance; and, as a revelation of the author’s mind, it
holds, as Professor Earle has said[23], the first place. Next to this
would come the Preface to his Laws, which, for the purposes of this
section, may be included among his literary works, and the mutilated
preface to the translation of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine. On all
these literary works I shall have much to say later on[24]; I only
mention them here in their character of historical authorities.
[Sidenote: The Saxon Chronicle.]
§ 10. The next place in our list of authorities belongs on every ground
to the Saxon Chronicle. Of the relation of Alfred to the Chronicle I may
also have something to say subsequently[25]. But I have elsewhere[26]
given my reasons for believing that the idea of a national chronicle, as
opposed to local annals, was due to the inspiration of Alfred, and was
carried out under his supervision; and I have said that ‘I can well fancy
that he may have dictated some of the later annals which describe his
own wars.’ For the former view the high authority of the late bishop of
Oxford[27] may be quoted, while as to the second point Professor Earle
writes[28]: ‘I never can read the annals of 893-897 without seeming to
hear the voice of King Alfred.’ My friend Sir Henry Howorth indeed has a
very low opinion of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; and as regards the early
part of the Chronicle I am entirely at one with Sir Henry Howorth. I
have more than once[29] recorded my conviction of the futility of the
attempts of Dr. Guest, Mr. Freeman, and Mr. Green, to base an historical
account of the Saxon Conquest of Britain on the unsubstantial dreamwork
of traditions embodied in the earlier entries of the Chronicle. But Sir
Henry Howorth seems to me to carry his scepticism down to an unduly late
period. Anyhow, for the period covered by the public activity of Alfred,
868-901, the Chronicle is as nearly contemporary with the events which it
records as any written history is likely to be.
[Sidenote: Meagreness of the Chronicle.]
But granting that the Chronicle is, for this period, trustworthy as far
as it goes; it must be confessed that it is often disappointingly meagre.
Of the thirty-four years 868-901, three are entirely vacant[30]. Eight
have merely brief entries of a line or two recording the movements of
the Danish army or _here_; and of these eight entries the last three
have nothing to do with England, being concerned with the doings of the
_here_ on the Continent[31]. Two other very brief entries deal with the
sending of couriers to Rome, and with certain obits[32]. The date of
Alfred’s death is barely (and probably wrongly) recorded[33]; not a word
as to its place or circumstances. And there is a singular dearth of any
note of panegyric like that which meets us in the records, meagre as they
are, of the reigns of Athelstan, Edmund, and Edgar[34]. In regard to the
doings of Alfred this may be due to the influence of Alfred himself; but
on the occasion of his death one might have expected, if not the worthy
tributes which Ethelwerd and Florence insert at that point[35], at least
some recognition of the work which he did. But there is nothing beyond
the rather cold statement that ‘he was king over the whole Anglekin,
except that part which was under the power of the Danes.’ One would
fain hope that this reticence was due to the feeling so finely expressed
by Hallam where he speaks of Sir Thomas More as one ‘whose name can ask
no epithet[36].’ But I do not think it was; and I rather doubt whether
Alfred’s greatness was fully appreciated in his own day, except by one or
two of those in his immediate neighbourhood.
[Sidenote: Charters not numerous.]
§ 11. In charters, which often supplement so usefully the deficiencies of
formal histories, the reign of Alfred is far from rich. The time, indeed,
was not favourable to the preservation of documents. Of the destruction
of title deeds owing to the troubles of the time we have a striking and
pathetic instance[37]:—Burgred, king of Mercia, had, for a consideration,
granted land to a man named Cered, with remainder to his wife after his
death. In course of time Cered died, and his widow Werthryth desired
to go to Rome, and to dispose of the land to her husband’s kinsman,
Cuthwulf. The charter of the original grant to Cered had however been
carried off by the Danes; and Werthryth consequently could not prove her
title. She accordingly appeared before a Mercian Witenagemót held under
Æthelred, Alfred’s son-in-law, as ealdorman of Mercia, and made oath to
this effect. Whereupon Æthelred and the Witan allowed a new charter to be
made out securing the land to Cuthwulf.
And the strong-handed took advantage of this confusion to annex the
property of their neighbours. Thus in 896 Æthelred of Mercia, with
Alfred’s permission, held a Witenagemót at Gloucester, in order ‘to
right many men both clerical and lay in respect of lands and other
things [wrongfully] withheld from them’; a measure no doubt necessitated
by the great campaign of 892-895. Here Werferth, bishop of Worcester,
complained that he had been robbed of woods at Woodchester, which had
belonged to his see ever since the days of Æthelbald of Mercia[38].
If this was the experience of a powerful bishop, a special friend of
the king himself, we may imagine the dangers to which lesser men were
exposed. Fortunately among the documents which have been preserved is
Alfred’s own will, a most interesting relic, on which something will be
said later[39].
[Sidenote: Asser’s work. Suspicious points. The work consists of two
parts, (_a_) annalistic, (_b_) biographical. Crude arrangement.]
§ 12. We come now to what is the greatest _crux_ in our whole subject,
viz. the so-called life of Alfred which bears the name of Asser. It is
obvious that if this work is genuine, it is an historical authority
of the highest interest and importance. On the other hand, it must be
confessed that there are features in it which do excite suspicion. Apart
from difficulties of detail, some of which will come up for subsequent
consideration, the general form of the work is most extraordinary, and
high authorities have pronounced that, in its present shape, it cannot
possibly be original[40]. The work is made up, as most students know, of
at least two distinct elements. There is a series of annals extending
from 851 to 887 inclusive, which are for the most part parallel to the
corresponding annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I deliberately choose
a neutral phrase ‘parallel to,’ as I do not wish, at this stage, to
prejudge the question whether the Latin or the Saxon annals are the more
original. Into this series of annals are inserted, at various points,
sections of biographical matter, of which the earliest refer to Æthelwulf
and Æthelbald, one refers to Æthelred, and the remainder to Alfred. In
some cases these biographical sections are introduced by editorial
head-links (if I may borrow a word from the Chaucerian specialists),
consisting as a rule of very florid and elaborate metaphors[41]. But the
way in which these biographical sections are inserted is so inconsequent
and inartistic, that one is sometimes almost inclined to think that the
compiler, while keeping his annals (as he could hardly help doing) in
chronological order, cut up his biographical matter into strips, put the
strips into a hat, and then took them out in any order which chance might
dictate; much as a famous Oxford parody supposed the names of successful
candidates in certain pass examinations to be determined[42]. It is true
that in Florence of Worcester the biographical matter identical with that
in Asser is woven much more skilfully into the chronological framework
of the story; but, after careful consideration, I do not think that this
implies that Florence’s Asser was any better arranged than our own. I
attribute the changes to Florence’s own skill and judgement; and Florence
had more of both than some of his modern critics are willing to allow.
[Sidenote: Excessive self-assertion of the author.]
§ 13. Another general ground of suspicion is, if I may so say,
psychological; and I may illustrate what I mean by a little personal
reminiscence. Some few years ago I was dining in a college not my own,
where one of the junior fellows told us a somewhat startling tale,
prefacing it with the remark that the incident was unquestionably true,
as it had happened to himself. ‘Ah,’ said the senior fellow, with the
frankness which is one of the privileges of seniority, ‘whenever a man
begins a story in that way, I always know that some bigger lie than
usual is going to follow.’ Now it is at least curious that our author
so constantly lays stress on the fact that he had himself witnessed
some of the most striking of the things which he relates, or at least
had heard them from those who had seen them. Thus he had frequently
(‘saepissime’) witnessed Alfred’s skill in hunting[43]; he had himself
seen the little book containing the daily offices and Psalms and prayers
which Alfred always carried about with him[44]; he had with ‘his very
own eyes’ often seen Alfred’s maternal grandmother, Eadburh[45]; ‘with
his very own eyes’ again he had seen the solitary thorn which marked the
site of the battle of Ashdown[46]; he had himself surveyed the site of
the fort of Cynwit, and verified its capacities for defence[47]. He gives
us to understand that he, with others, had witnessed Alfred’s mysterious
attacks of illness[48]; that he had not only seen, but read the letters
which Alfred received from the patriarch of Jerusalem[49]; that he had
seen in Athelney Monastery the young Dane whom Alfred was educating there
in the monastic life[50]. So he had heard from various persons different
opinions as to the relative guilt of the parties in the alleged rebellion
of Æthelbald[51]; he had conversed with many who had seen Offa’s daughter
Eadburh, the Jezebel of Wessex history, in her dishonoured and mendicant
old age at Pavia[52]; while the story of her crimes in Wessex, which
deprived all her successors of the title of queen, he had heard from
Alfred himself[53]. He had heard from eye-witnesses how Æthelred at
Ashdown refused to engage till mass was finished[54], and of the military
skill of Abbot John the Old Saxon from those who knew him[55]. Now in all
these things there is nothing impossible, or even improbable. It is only
the constant asseveration which excites suspicion.
[Sidenote: Frankish element in Asser; no ground for suspicion.]
§ 14. One general objection which has sometimes been brought against
our author is, I am convinced, without foundation:—I mean the presence
in him of a certain Frankish element. He uses certain Frankish words,
_vassallus_, _indiculus_ (a letter; both these words puzzled the scribes
a good deal), _comes_ (in the sense of ealdorman), _senior_ (a lord,
seigneur), and possibly others[56]. So too the story how Eadburh ‘put her
foot in it,’ if I may use the phrase, with Charles the Great[57], and of
her subsequent fate, evidently reflects the gossip of the Carolingian
Courts. It is possible that the story of Æthelbald’s incestuous
marriage[58] comes from the same source; as, with the exception of
Asser, the only contemporary authorities in which it is found are
Frankish[59]; so too, perhaps, the judgement on Arnulf’s conduct in
deposing Charles the Fat[60], and the more correct form Carloman, as
against the Carl of the Chronicle[61]. But when we consider that two at
least of Alfred’s principal literary and educational coadjutors, Grimbald
and John the Old Saxon, came from different parts of the Carolingian
empire, that Æthelwulf married a Frankish wife, stayed some time at the
Frankish Court[62], and had, as the epistles of Lupus of Ferrières
show, a Frankish secretary[63], that some of these words occur in
English charters[64], where likewise they probably bear witness to the
influence of Frankish scribes, we shall see that there were plenty of
channels through which these Frankish elements might find their way into
the biography of an English king. Moreover, if we should come to the
conclusion that the book is mediately or immediately the work of Asser,
we may be inclined to connect this element in it with a statement quoted
by Leland from a lost life of Grimbald[65], that Asser was one of the
ambassadors deputed to bring Grimbald to England[66]. The description of
Paris also looks as if it might rest on personal knowledge[67].
[Sidenote: Detailed objections; the Diocese of Exeter.]
§ 15. Of the objections in detail which have been brought against our
author, the most important perhaps relates to his statement that Alfred
gave him ‘Exeter with the diocese belonging to it both in Cornwall and
Saxony,’ i.e. Wessex[68]. Mr. Wright[69] thought that this was conclusive
evidence that the work was later than the transference of the united see
of Cornwall and Devonshire to Exeter, under Edward the Confessor. I
shall show presently that there is evidence, both external and internal,
for the existence of our Asser about 975. Meanwhile, I would point out
that under the year 875 the Welsh Annals record the drowning of Dumgarth,
king of Cornwall[70], though it gives one a little start to realise that
there were kings in Cornwall as late as the last quarter of the ninth
century[71]; and we know from the Chronicle that in 877 Alfred recovered
Exeter from the Danes. Now the state of affairs in South Wales which
Asser represents[72] as determining him, at any rate in part, to accept
Alfred’s invitation, in the hope of securing his protection for St.
David’s, clearly refers to a period 877 × 885. Rotri Mawr is obviously
dead, as his sons only are spoken of, and Rotri Mawr was slain in 877;
while Howel, son of Rhys, king of Glewissig, is spoken of as alive; and
he is probably the Howel who died at Rome in 885[73], having gone there,
it is likely, in expiation of a crime, of which the record is preserved
in the Book of Llandaff[74]. It seems to me not unlikely that in view of
the events of 875 and 877, Alfred may have wished to place the districts
round Exeter under episcopal supervision, without necessarily intending
to create a definite diocese, and may have thought a Celtic-speaking
prelate likely to be more effective than an Englishman[75]; for at this
time the Bristol Channel was not either physically or linguistically a
serious barrier between the Celts on either side of it.
[Sidenote: When did Asser become a bishop?]
Whether Asser was already a bishop when he first came to Alfred is
difficult to determine. He is often spoken of as bishop of St. David’s.
Novis, or Nobis, bishop, or, as Asser in the passage referred to above
patriotically calls him, archbishop of St. David’s, died, according to
the Welsh Annals, in 873, after a rule of thirty-three years[76]. His
immediate successor was Llunwerth or Llwmbert[77]; but when the latter
died I have not succeeded in satisfying myself[78].
[Sidenote: Mention of Asser in the Cura Pastoralis.]
Confirmation of the grant of Exeter to Asser is sometimes sought in
the fact that Alfred, in the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis, speaks of
Asser as ‘_my_ bishop,’ at a time when Asser cannot have held his later
diocese of Sherborne, as one of the copies of Alfred’s Cura Pastoralis
was actually addressed to Wulfsige, Asser’s predecessor in that see. But
if Asser was bishop of St. David’s when he came to Alfred, I should feel
myself precluded from using this argument, for I could not regard it as
impossible that Alfred should speak of Asser as ‘my bishop’ in respect
of his Welsh bishopric, seeing that Asser expressly says that Hemeid,
king of Dyfed, had commended himself to Alfred; or he might be called ‘my
bishop’ in regard to the position which he held in Alfred’s service[79].
[Sidenote: Argument from the mention of Asser’s illness.]
§ 16. Another objection has been based on the passage in which Asser
relates how, at the close of his first visit to Alfred, he promised to
return in six months’ time, and give a definite answer to the king’s
proposals; but on his way home, he says, ‘I was seized in the city of
Winchester by a troublesome fever, in which I lay for a year and a week’;
until Alfred sent letters to inquire why he had not kept his promise[80].
Now it has been argued that it is quite impossible that Asser should
have been for over a year at Winchester without Alfred knowing about
it. On the other hand, my late friend, Mr. Park Harrison, who, in spite
of his advanced age, kept up his interest in these matters to the very
end, called on me only a few weeks before his death, and argued that
this same passage showed that Alfred could have had but little to do
with Winchester, and therefore it was an impertinence of Winchester to
attempt to monopolise the millenary celebration. As a matter of fact
both arguments are baseless, and rest on a mistranslation. For in the
passage cited, the words ‘in which’ (in qua), refer not to the city
of Winchester, but to the fever. It is quite evident, I think, from
the context that though it may have been at Winchester that Asser was
attacked by the fever, yet he managed somehow to reach St. David’s, and
that it was there that Alfred’s letters reached him.
[Sidenote: Corruption of the text of Asser, largely due to editors.]
§ 17. But before we can judge fairly of the work before us, we must try
to do something to rescue the text from the very parlous condition in
which it has come down to us. Indeed, with the exception of Ethelwerd’s
Chronicle, hardly any work connected with Early English history has
been textually so unfortunate as Asser. The only known manuscript of any
antiquity perished almost entirely in the great Cottonian fire of 1731;
the two existing manuscripts are paper copies of the sixteenth century.
For our knowledge of the ancient Cottonian MS. we are dependent mainly
on Wise’s edition of 1722; an excellent work for the time at which
it was produced, but that it is not scrupulously accurate, according
to modern notions, is proved by the fact that, whereas the facsimile
given by Wise himself of the beginning of the MS. writes the name of
Alfred’s birthplace, Uuanating, the text prints it Wanading. Moreover,
the work has been shamefully tampered with by editors. Apart from longer
interpolations, of which I shall speak presently, numberless smaller
additions have been introduced into the text from the so-called Annals
of Asser or of St. Neot[81], a compilation of the eleventh or twelfth
century[82], largely based it is true on Asser for the period 851-887,
and therefore available, within proper limits, like the works of other
authors who have made use of Asser, for purposes of textual criticism;
but not to be used, as has been done, for the wholesale depravation of
the text. Even the editors of the Monumenta Historica Britannica were
content to place these additions in brackets, instead of removing them
altogether. Consequently they are often quoted by modern writers as if
they were part of the original Asser.
[Sidenote: Florence of Worcester’s use of Asser.]
Of writers who have made use of Asser the most valuable, for our
purposes, is Florence of Worcester. Very often he furnishes us with what
is evidently the true reading[83], in one case at least a passage of some
length can be recovered from his pages, which has been dropped out of
our present text of Asser merely owing to homoioteleuton[84]. But even
Florence must be used with caution for textual purposes. For just as his
greater skill in composition led him (as we have seen[85]) to rearrange
the materials with which Asser furnished him, so his better taste and
greater command of Latin led him to revise and prune the language of
his author. Moreover, in certain cases, Florence has corrected and
supplemented Asser by the direct use of the Saxon Chronicle[86]. It must
not therefore always be assumed that because Florence’s reading is better
than Asser’s, it is therefore more original. Conversely, though rarely,
Asser enables us to correct the text of Florence[87].
It is very curious that though Florence shows, by substituting the name
Asser for the pronoun of the first person wherever it occurs, that he
accepted Asser’s authorship of the work, he should place Asser’s death in
883, while continuing to use his narrative for four years longer.
Of the use of Asser by Simeon of Durham I shall have something to say
presently[88].
[Sidenote: The Oxford interpolation.]
§ 18. Of the longer interpolations alluded to above, the first that must
go is, of course, the famous passage about the University of Oxford[89].
This passage is a fine illustration of the remark, made in this place by
my brilliant predecessor, Professor Maitland, that the earliest form of
inter-university sports seems to have been a competition in lying. The
different phases of that competition have been traced by Mr. James Parker
in the first two chapters of his Early History of Oxford[90], and need
not detain us here. This passage made its first appearance in the text of
Asser under Camden’s auspices in 1603. It is much to be regretted that so
worthy a name should be connected with so questionable a transaction[91].
I will only add that the use of the one word ‘Diuus’ instead of ‘Sanctus’
stamps the passage as a post-renaissance forgery.
[Sidenote: The story of the cakes.]
§ 19. The next passage which must go is what I must be pardoned for once
more[92] calling the silly story about the cakes, and the yet more silly
story of the tyranny and callousness of Alfred in the early days of his
reign[93]. I hope to show later[94] how utterly inconsistent both these
stories are with the genuine history of the reign. Here I need only say
that the passage was introduced into our text by Archbishop Parker from
the so-called Annals of Asser. It comes ultimately, as stated in the
passage itself, from some life of St. Neot which I have not yet succeeded
in identifying.
[Sidenote: Interpolation at 877.]
§ 20. I have pointed out in another place[95] that the printed text of
Asser contains two accounts of the events of the year 877[96]. With the
exception of a few words relating to the division of Mercia by the Danes,
neither of these versions, according to Wise, existed in the oldest MS.
That they were not in Florence’s MS. of Asser seems indicated by the
fact, that this is one of the annals in which he resorts directly to the
Saxon Chronicle. They therefore must also be expunged. I still, however,
retain the conviction that the former of the two versions, though not
traceable higher than Roger of Wendover in the thirteenth century, is yet
perfectly genuine as history, and furnishes a valuable supplement to the
account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[Sidenote: Earlier interpolations. Story of Alfred’s illness.]
§ 21. So far our task has been comparatively simple. We have only had to
remove what are obviously later accretions. But the question must now be
faced whether the text, as we can prove it to have existed about the year
974, had not already suffered from the hand of the interpolator. From
this point of view the most suspicious passage is that which describes
the mysterious illness with which Alfred is said to have been attacked at
his wedding-feast[97]. This passage has already been severely criticised
by Pauli[98], though he has not exhausted all the arguments which can be
brought against it.
[Sidenote: Analysis.]
In the first place it is entirely out of position. Though it refers to
Alfred’s wedding, which has already been given, probably correctly, under
868, when Alfred was about twenty years old, it is inserted between
the events of the year 884[99] and those of 886. The substance of the
story is as follows:—During the marriage festivities Alfred was suddenly
attacked by an intolerable pain, from which he has suffered, as those
who daily see it know, without intermission, from his twentieth to his
fortieth year, or longer. No one could trace its origin. Some thought
it was ‘fascination,’ that is, the evil eye, due to the applause of
the multitude; others, that it was the envy of the devil; others, some
strange kind of fever; others, the disease called ‘ficus,’ from which he
had suffered from his infancy. Once, when he was hunting in Cornwall,
he turned aside to pray in a church, where St. Guerier reposes, and now
also St. Neot rests, and entreated that some lighter affliction might
be substituted for that from which he was suffering; such, however, as
would not be externally apparent, like blindness or leprosy, so as to
make him contemptible and incapable of discharging his functions. Shortly
afterwards he was divinely healed of the ‘ficus.’ Though, indeed, this
very ‘ficus’ had been given him in answer to prayer; for, in the first
flower of his youth, before his marriage, feeling the assaults of carnal
desire, he would often rise secretly and visit churches and relics of
the saints, praying that God would strengthen him by sending him some
infirmity, such, however, as would not make him unworthy or incapable in
worldly matters. In answer to this prayer he shortly after received the
‘ficus,’ from which he suffered for many years, until it was removed by
prayer. But alas, on its removal a worse affliction came upon him at his
marriage which lasted from his twentieth to his forty-fifth year without
intermission; and even if it leaves him for a single hour, the fear and
horror of it never quit him, but render him, as he deems, almost useless
in things divine and human.
[Sidenote: Inconsistencies in the story. Improbability of the story.]
§ 22. It would be difficult to cram more inconsistencies into so short
a space. First of all, though the whole point of the story is to show
that the wedding-feast disease was different from, and in substitution
for, the ‘ficus,’ the writer ineptly says, that some people thought it
was the ‘ficus.’ This is inserted in order to introduce the statement
that Alfred had suffered from the latter disease ‘from infancy.’ Then,
after telling how it was removed by prayer at the Cornish shrine, he adds
that this same disease was sent in answer to prayer, when Alfred was ‘in
the flower of his youth.’ We can hardly place this period earlier than
(say) the seventeenth year (a very different thing from infancy); yet
he suffered from it ‘for many years,’ though it had certainly ceased
before his marriage in his twentieth year. Again, the condition that the
visitation sent should not be disfiguring or incapacitating, is in one
place attached to the substituted disease, lower down it is attached to
the original trouble. It may be noted that the original disease does
fulfil this condition, the substituted one certainly did not, seeing that
it rendered Alfred ‘almost useless in things divine and human.’ And yet
a main point of the passage is to illustrate the efficacy of Alfred’s
prayers. Once more, at the beginning of the passage the substituted
disease lasts from Alfred’s twentieth year to rather over his fortieth;
towards the close it extends from the same date to his forty-fifth year—a
very rapid growth. After all this it seems somewhat tame to remark
that leprosy and blindness hardly come under one’s idea of ‘lighter
infirmities.’
[Sidenote: Possible conflation.]
§ 23. In this triumph of ineptitude we may, I think, detect a conflation
of two separate traditions; one of which represented Alfred as suffering
from infancy from a disease for which in answer to prayer another was
substituted; while, according to the other version, the original disease
was granted in answer to prayer, and though removed by the same means,
only departed to make way for a heavier visitation. But the whole passage
is a concoction in the worst hagiological manner, to the source of which
we are guided by the mention of St. Neot; for if the legendary Alfred
was reformed by the legendary St. Neot, there is no doubt that the
historical Alfred has been deformed in an extraordinary degree by the
same agency. And in the present instance we may be glad, I think, to free
the historical Alfred from the atmosphere of morbid religiosity which
taints this whole passage. It may be noted that Florence, with his usual
good sense, has entirely recast the incident, so as to remove most of the
absurdities above enumerated. Whether the other two passages, which refer
to Alfred’s illness[100], are also to be rejected is less easy to say.
In one of them the language is very nearly akin to that of the present
passage; but that might be due to the compiler having made use of it for
his own bad purposes. Personally, I should not be sorry to let all these
passages go; for it seems to me quite inconceivable that Alfred could
have accomplished what he did under the hourly pressure of incapacitating
disease[101]. Still we must distinguish between what is historically
doubtful and what is textually suspicious. There are several things in
Asser which, as we shall see, come under the former category, though I
could not bring them under the latter.
[Sidenote: Incorporation in the text of glosses and marginal notes.]
§ 24. One source of the corruption of the text of Asser is, I think,
to be found in the fact that words and phrases, which were originally
interlinear glosses, have become, as often happens, incorporated with
the text[102]. In one case the text of Florence seems to show that the
gloss has entirely expelled the original reading, at least in the printed
copies[103].
In another instance a marginal note by a later scribe has got into
the text. As this case is of some importance as bearing on the date of
the composition, I must ask your particular attention to it. In the
description of Alfred’s visit to the Cornish shrine, already alluded to,
the following sentence occurs:—‘Cum … ad quandam ecclesiam … diuertisset,
in qua S. Gueryr requiescit, et nunc etiam S. Neotus ibidem pausat,
subleuatus est (erat enim sedulus sanctorum locorum uisitator, …) diu
in oratione prostratus … Domini misericordiam deprecabatur[104],’ &c.
Here the words ‘subleuatus est’ can by no possibility be construed,
either with what goes before, or with what follows. Some time before
I saw the meaning of them, I had underlined these words in my copy of
the Monumenta, and noted on the margin ‘this seems to make nonsense.’
The explanation, I believe, is this:—The original scribe had stated the
repose of St. Neot’s remains in his Cornish home as a present fact,
‘ibidem pausat.’ A later scribe notes on the margin ‘subleuatus est,’ ‘he
has been taken up’; a word very fitly used of the taking up a saint’s
body from the grave in order to place it in some elevated shrine, or
translate it to some other abode. A subsequent copyist incorporated
the note with the text, which is again a frequent phenomenon[105].
Now the translation of St. Neot to the site which bears his name in
Huntingdonshire took place about the year 974[106]. The original text
of this passage must therefore be anterior to that date; the marginal
note, and _a fortiori_ the MS. on which our present text of Asser rests,
must be subsequent to it. If, as I think, the passage in which these
words occur is itself an interpolation, the evidence for the genuine
text of Asser is thrown yet further back. However, the argument for _a_
text of Asser earlier than 974, derived from the use of the present
tense ‘pausat,’ is quite independent both of my explanation of the words
‘subleuatus est,’ and of my views as to the spurious character of the
passage in which they occur.