[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.