of the Chronicle, in which the West Saxon genealogy is carried down to the accession of Alfred and no further, showing clearly that it was drawn up for a chronicle compiled in his reign.
Another fact which points the same way is the strong resemblance between the phraseology of the Chronicle and that of Alfred’s translation of Orosius, of which I shall have more to say when I come to speak of that translation[662]. Gaimar also, as is well known, has a most interesting passage in which he connects the composition of the Chronicle both with Alfred and with Winchester. Of course Gaimar is a very late authority. But his statement harmonises so well with the indications furnished by the Chronicle itself, and with the inherent probabilities of the case, that I am inclined to attach much weight to it. Moreover the moderation of Gaimar’s statement is distinctly in its favour. He does not say that Alfred wrote the Chronicle, but merely that he caused it to be written.
Of the materials available for carrying out Alfred’s design for a national Chronicle I have said enough elsewhere.
Works attributed to Alfred.
§ 94. It may be convenient to mention here one or two works which have been attributed to Alfred more or less doubtfully, in order to clear the way for the consideration of those works as to the authenticity of which there is practically no doubt.
Translation of the Psalter. The Paris MS. Partly in prose, and partly in verse. Arguments for and against Alfred’s authorship of the prose portion.
In William of Malmesbury’s account of Alfred’s literary works there occurs this very interesting statement: ‘He began to translate the Psalter, but died when he had barely finished the first part of it[663].’ By the first part is probably meant the first fifty psalms. The Psalter was frequently regarded in the Middle Ages as consisting of three divisions of fifty psalms each; so much so, that one of the regular names for the Psalter in Irish is ‘the three fifties[664].’ Now it is an interesting fact that in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, there is an eleventh century MS. containing a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon version of the psalms in parallel columns[665]; each psalm, with one or two exceptions, being headed by a Latin rubric, and, in the case of the first fifty psalms, also by an explanation in Saxon of the circumstances which gave rise to the psalm, and of the applications of which it is susceptible. The MS. formerly belonged to Jehan, Duc de Berry (1340-1416), the brother of Charles V of France, who possibly acquired it during his nine years’ sojourn as a hostage in England after the peace of Brétigny, 1360. Now it is a striking fact that in this Psalter the first fifty psalms are translated into prose, while the remainder are in alliterative verse. The question therefore arises, did the scribe of the MS. (or of its archetype) take the latter part of an existing alliterative version, in order to complete a fragmentary prose translation? or did he, on the other hand, take part of an existing prose translation to make good a copy of the poetical version which had been accidentally mutilated at the beginning? The former is, on every ground, more probable; especially as we have evidence of the existence of a complete alliterative version of the Psalter identical with that in the Paris MS.[666], whereas there is no such evidence available in the case of the fragmentary prose version. It was therefore an attractive suggestion of Professor Wülker’s[667] that in this fragment we have the incomplete Alfredian version mentioned by William of Malmesbury. The question has been elaborately discussed on the affirmative side by Dr. Wichmann[668], on the negative side by Dr. J. Douglas Bruce[669]. I cannot say that the arguments of either have carried any strong conviction to my mind. Dr. Bruce’s reasoning that the translation and headings imply a knowledge of ecclesiastical modes of interpretation impossible to a layman, overlooks the possibility that Alfred might derive that knowledge from his clerical assistants. On the other hand I cannot attach much weight to Dr. Wichmann’s arguments from coincidences with the Cura Pastoralis, or from the applicability of certain interpretations to the circumstances of Alfred’s life. When we consider that David and Alfred were both kings, that both had enemies from whom they were both very marvellously delivered, we shall readily see that an interpretation which would suit the one might very easily be applicable to the other. The most striking instance of this has not, as far as I remember, been cited. It is in the introduction to Ps. xxiii (xxiv), where it is said that in this psalm David was prophesying how his ealdormen (principes) would be fain of his return from exile[670], words which recall the expression of the Chronicler how Alfred’s people ‘were fain of him’ when he emerged from his retreat at Athelney.
On the whole then we must leave the question undecided, until further evidence or further argument is brought forward.
Even if not by Alfred, this may be the work alluded to by Malmesbury.