Question of Judith’s marriage with Æthelbald.
§58. If Judith’s marriage to her step-son Æthelbald rested only on the authority of this early part of Asser[389], I should reject it with equal decision; and with the same sort of inclination to regard it as a fabricated pendant to the second marriage of Louis the Pious to her grandmother, the elder Judith, which caused so much dissension in the Carolingian empire[390], and was freely labelled by its opponents as ‘incestuous,’ because the parties to it were said to be within the prohibited degrees[391]. But the marriage of Judith to Æthelbald is vouched for by strictly contemporary continental authorities[392], one of them being Hincmar, the prelate who blessed the ceremony of her coronation[393], so that it is hard to set it aside. And yet it is hard to accept it. One of the few charters of Æthelbald’s reign[394] bears as its first three signatures, ‘Eðebald rex, Iudith regina, Swithun episcopus.’ Did Swithun condone a flagrant case of incest, or does ‘regina’ only mean queen-dowager? Once more: is it not just possible that the whole story may have grown out of a confusion of Æthelbald with Eadbald, the son of Æthelberht of Kent, whose incestuous marriage with his step-mother is mentioned by Bede[395]? The difference between Eadbald and Æthelbald would not be very serious, especially to continental ears and pens. Anyhow, we shall hardly acquiesce in the verdict of a later continental chronicler: ‘nor did the king’s crime seem grievous to the English, to whom the worship of God was much unknown[396].’
Story of Alfred learning to read.
§ 59. Apart from his signatures to charters[397], there is no mention of Alfred in our authorities after his second return from Rome till he takes his place upon the stage of history by the side of his brother Æthelred. But no account of Alfred’s early years could be regarded as complete which did not include a discussion of the famous story about his learning to read. I venture to think that a good many unnecessary difficulties have been made about the matter.
The common view may be expressed in the quaint words of Robert of Gloucester’s rhyming Chronicle[398]:—
‘Clerc he was god ynow, and yut, as me telþ me,
He was more þan ten yer old, ar he couþe is a be ce.’
Illiteratus = ignorant of Latin.
The original source of all this is of course the well-known passage of Asser[399], where it is said that Alfred ‘remained illiterate’ up to his twelfth year or more, though he learned many Saxon poems by heart. Then, after an intervening sentence on his skill as a hunter, comes the pretty story of the book of Saxon poems which he won by learning to read it to his mother. Here there are several points to be noticed. In the first place I believe that ‘illiteratus permansit’ means nothing more than that he was ignorant of Latin. If we consider that Latin was at this time the universal vehicle of culture in Western Europe, that ‘legere’ is constantly used, and notably in Asser[400], of reading Latin; that all through the Middle Ages the decision ‘legit ut clericus,’ which entitled an accused person to benefit of clergy, meant that he could read Latin, this interpretation will seem quite natural. Nor does the contrasted statement that Alfred had picked up many Saxon poems by heart oblige us to believe that he could not read his own language in his thirteenth year. Asser is not so logical in his use of conjunctions; and besides this, many, perhaps most, Saxon poems could be acquired in no other way; since they only existed in oral tradition. Alfred’s thirteenth year, according to Asser’s date for his birth, would point to 861. If we remember that we have Alfred’s own statement that only ten years later, at his accession in 871, there was scarcely a priest south of the Humber who knew any Latin[401], we shall easily see that Alfred would have little opportunity of making good the defects of his early education on this side before he came to the throne; and the complaints which Asser puts in his mouth, that when he had leisure to learn, he could find no one to teach him, though rhetorical in form, are true enough in fact[402].
Chronology of the incident of the poetry book.