[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.