[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.