Again, Asser accidentally omits the annal 884, which is a very brief one in the Chronicle. Consequently, he mechanically puts the events of 885 under 884.
Chronology.
Lastly, Steenstrup showed by a comparison of the continental Chronicles that the movements of the Danes from 879 to 897 in the Saxon Chronicle (= 878-896) are probably dated a year too late[219]. This is confirmed by the mention of a solar eclipse under 879 at one o’clock of the day. Now in 878 there was a solar eclipse on October 29, at 1.30 p.m. There was a solar eclipse also in 879, on March 26, but this was at 4 p.m. Asser gives the hour of the eclipse as ‘between nones and vespers but nearer to nones[220].’ In other words he has altered the hour of the eclipse given by the Chronicle to suit the wrong numbering of the Annal. The force of these arguments taken together seems to me overwhelming.
Asser’s additions to the Chronicle.
§ 38. But Asser is not content to be a mere translator. He makes considerable additions to the Chronicle, which vary very much in value. Some are pure rhetoric, others are mere inferences from the words of the Chronicle, legitimate enough it may be, but of no higher authority than similar inferences deduced by ourselves. Many consist of interpretations of Saxon names[221], or statements of their Welsh equivalents[222]. A considerable number are geographical glosses explaining the situation of the places mentioned[223]. These three last classes of additions occur only in the Annals, and all three seem to point to an interpreter wishing to make his original clearer to his readers, who are assumed to be unfamiliar with Saxon names and places. Even the situation of London is carefully explained. But other additions, like the one discussed above about the wintering of the Danish fleet in Dyfed[224], are of real value, and evidently rest on authentic information.
Abrupt termination.
§ 39. The abrupt termination of the work after the year 887 has always been a difficulty. If we could trust the statement that the work was written in Alfred’s forty-fifth year, i.e. about 894[225], we might account for this by supposing that the Chronicle, from which the writer borrows so much, had not at that time got much beyond 887. And the work may have been laid aside and never taken up again. Unfortunately this date occurs in one of those suspicious passages about Alfred’s illness, though not in the one most open to suspicion. Or, again, the work may be mutilated.
Asser to be used with caution; but there is a genuine nucleus.
§ 40. On the whole, then, Asser is an authority to be used with criticism and caution; partly because we have always to be alive to the possibility of interpolation, partly because the writer’s Celtic imagination is apt to run away with him. But that there is a nucleus which is the genuine work of a single writer, a South Walian contemporary of Alfred, I feel tolerably sure, and I know no reason why that South Walian contemporary should not be Asser of Menevia. There is a slight confirmation of this view in the quotation which the writer makes from Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis[226], for we know from Alfred’s own mouth that Asser was one of those who helped him in the translation of that work. Another coincidence with Alfred’s preface to the Cura Pastoralis is to be found in the phrase ‘aliquando sensum ex sensu ponens,’ which Asser uses in reference to the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues[227]. Anyhow, as I have shown[228], the work which bears Asser’s name cannot be later than 974, and the attempt to treat it as a forgery of the eleventh or twelfth century must be regarded as having broken down. I may add that I started with a strong prejudice against the authenticity of Asser, so that my conclusions have at any rate been impartially arrived at.
A puzzling work.