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.
[Sidenote: 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].’
[Sidenote: 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].’
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: ‘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].