§ 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.
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.
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].
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.
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.